Language English Publication date 1969 Pages 141 pp Originally published 1969 Genre Fantasy literature Cover artist Jeffrey Catherine Jones | Series Gondwane Epic OCLC 03061443 Country United States of America | |
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Giant of World's End is a fantasy novel written by Lin Carter set on a decadent far-future Earth in which all the world's land masses have supposedly drifted back together to form a last supercontinent called Gondwane. The book is chronologically the last in Carter's Gondwane Epic (five prequel novels set earlier in time being issued later). It was first published in paperback by Belmont Books in February 1969. The first British edition was issued in paperback by Five Star in 1972. The book has been translated into Polish.
Contents
Plot summary
Gondwane is a crazy-quilt of human and non-human societies divided into myriads of states and tribes, all built atop the detritus of seven hundred million years of previous civilizations. Over this span the laws of physics have changed, and science been largely superseded by magic. The present era, "The Eon of the Falling Moon," looks to be this far-future world's last, as the Moon has long been in a slowly decaying orbit that now threatens the planet with imminent destruction.
The gigantic hero Ganelon Silvermane is a Construct made by long-extinct Time Gods, who had foreseen a succession of great world crises and created heroes to deal with them. Each is preserved in the Ardelix Time Vault until awakened by the onset of the crisis it is intended he resolve. Ganelon himself is the one designated to save the world from its own satellite, though how he is to do so is problematic; as he was awoken prematurely by an earthquake, before the crucial knowledge of his precise role could be instilled.
Aided by the magician Zolobion and a woman who yearns for him hopelessly (he was built for heroics, not romance) Ganelon sets out from the land of the great Stone Face to seek the means of mankind's salvation. Ultimately, they locate the necessary device, only to discover that it can only be operated at the cost of the user's life. This the hero is willing to do, as the his sole reason for his being is to save humanity. But the girl, unable to bear the thought of his death, takes his place in the device, dying in his stead.
The Moon is destroyed, leaving a silvery ring of debris around the Earth in its place and the world to survive into a new era, "The Eon of the Silver Phoenix." Ganelon, however, is left distraught and bereft of purpose. Mourning his lost companion and unable to understand the feelings that led to her self-sacrifice, he makes it his new goal to discover the nature of love.
Reception
Robert Price formed the opinion that the Gondwane novels were "no good." He writes "They suffer form the same malady that afflicted Amalric (and which ... blaze into fever in The Wizard of Zao and the 'Terra Magica' series); the lame and self-consciously cute attempts at humor ... only succeed in hampering and tripping up novels that are straining at their halters to become straight, robust Carter Sword & Sorcery yarns. Giant and Barbarian almost manage it, but not quite."
The book was also reviewed by Richard Brisson in Luna Monthly no. 1, June 1969, and by Brian Earl Brown and Wayne Warfield in Phantasy Digest no. 1, 1976.