Jan 14
Zanthar of the Many Worlds
Zanthar at Moon’s Madness
Zanthar at Trip’s End
Zanthar at the Edge of NeverGood Show Sir Comments: One of our good friends at Goodreads sums up Zanthar: “The bad news is that if you want to read an exciting mashup of Doc Savage / Buckaroo Banzai, John Carter of Barsoom, and the yellow peril tales of Fu Manchu, with just a soupçon of Lovecraftian horror, then this book isn’t it.”
1. Jeff Jones runs out of paint
2. Jeff Jones remembers he can’t paint feet
3. Jeff Jones eats the brown acid
4. Jeff Jones takes the day off
Thanks to Andre for sending these in!
Not to be confused with this or this or this.
Published 1967, 1968, 1969
(Average: 6.82 out of 10)
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January 14th, 2020 at 9:56 am
1: “What is this golf you speak of, Earthman?”
2: The mutant maidens have really let themselves go.
3: I could murder some croutons right now.
4: Obviously job interview day for Zanthar.
January 14th, 2020 at 10:42 am
Those blurbs are… hard to understand:
“An eerie wind blew men’s minds […]”
I don’t know what’s going on here, and perhaps I don’t want to know.
January 14th, 2020 at 10:45 am
1: ZANTHAR’s Bad Acid Trip
2: ZANTHAR’s Hernia
3: ZANTHAR Down and Out in a Sewer
4: ZANTHAR Quits and Becomes a Mail Order Catalogue Model
January 14th, 2020 at 1:42 pm
Zanthar….more clothing options than Dick Blade.
Zanthar….more correct muscle definition than Dick Blade.
Zanthar….more words in the cover blurbs than Dick Blade.
Zanthar….he’s got a cute curly cue attached to the last letter of his name, while Dick Blade just has a stabby letter or two.
Zanthar….cares for your eyes more than Dick Blade.
Zanthar….seems to have fewer issues with women than Dick Blade.
January 14th, 2020 at 3:37 pm
My god, the sci-fi universe is lousy with Faux-nans and Tar-shams.
January 14th, 2020 at 3:46 pm
1. Zanthar always wins the carnival Test-Your-Strength game
2. Original Title: Zanthar, the Lunatic
3. Pandering to the hippie sci-fi market
4. In the womb of time itself, men battle for the future, and time seeks an abortion
January 14th, 2020 at 4:57 pm
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And when you have a ray gun, everything looks like a wicket.
January 14th, 2020 at 6:19 pm
1. Zanthar cleans up at the Space Highland Games despite a malfunctioning holo-kilt.
2. He may be the unacknowledged son of Yoda and a wookie but Zanthar will make him a Space Highland Games champion yet.
3. Zanthar falls into a vat of space scotch.
4. Surprise twist. Zanthar isn’t actually a Space Scottish Barbarian but a Space Middle Manager with a Walter Mitty complex.
January 14th, 2020 at 7:40 pm
@JuanPaul: Leave the little Ewoks alone!
January 14th, 2020 at 8:10 pm
There is something to be said for getting the whole bloody series out of the way in one Megapost.
January 15th, 2020 at 12:20 am
If I had a hammer, I’d hammer all over these many worlds…
1. “super science has failed me. I guess I’ll have to just hit things with a hammer instead.”
I guess that’s when he was just starting out with hammering: I mean, that doesn’t look like an approved hammering grip to me. And as @Good Show Sir points out, those blotchy watercolors and sketched-in spaceship on a blank white background make it look like the artist threw in the towel while only partway through.
2. Or “Zanthar and the really heavy hammer.” Well, it’s a bit of a stretch to go from “mutant maidens kidnapping people” to “entire universe of 100 billion galaxies is in peril.” Or by “universe” do you mean the usual gratuitous SF exaggeration, Zanthar my boy?
“Moon’s Madness” seems an odd name for a bar.
These aliens with the multiple vertical mouth slits puzzle me. Surely the artists doesn’t think they live off Krill?
Is that a magic hammer? Like, Thor’s backup emergency hammer?
3. Guess not, he got a gun instead! I think: that is one murky looking cover. I can see boobs, but it’s hard to tell what the other bits of anatomy in the area are doing and how many people are involved.Why is our Hero crouching by a puddle? Is he just doing it to show off his muscular thighs? And is that a Moon with gears and a drive belt reflected in the puddle?
4. The publisher seemed to think the audience would be rather more interested in the fact that it’s an Easy Eye book than Zanthar being in it, and in this point in the series they may be right.
That certainly doesn’t look like the Zanthar we all have come to know and be largely indifferent too: it’s got Robert Moore Williams [1] name under it, perhaps that’s a picture of the author in his Future Man cosplay outfit?
“At the edge of time…” which edge? The front edge is now, and we’re always battling for the future, or at at least for a better cup of coffee.
[1] Don’t confuse with Ward Moore, a rather better writer.
January 15th, 2020 at 12:47 am
Real A-List fantasy heroes don’t change their hair styles the way Zanthar does.
January 15th, 2020 at 6:15 am
Plus, if he were really cool, he’d spell his name “Xanthar.”
January 15th, 2020 at 9:06 am
Zanthar has a musical theater font for his name. Or maybe one of those shows in Las Vegas/cruise ships. “Zanthar on the Main Stage, Twice Nightly!” Hammering to an audience of bored tourists.
Especial GSS to @fred, @Francis, and @Bruce.
I think @GSSAdmin’s list can be summed up as:
5. Jeff Jones went to UAI.
January 15th, 2020 at 2:19 pm
But then people would pronounce it X-anthar and nobody wants to be an ex anthar.
January 15th, 2020 at 9:15 pm
@Francis Boyle: but it made a cool theme-song for his saturday morning cartoon
‘He’s the one and only, truly original
Anthar-ex-anthar from head to toes’
January 15th, 2020 at 9:59 pm
@Tat W—Say, that is a snappy tune! 😉
December 15th, 2023 at 5:12 pm
Williams book reviews.
https://www.dondammassa.com/zwill.htm
First sentences of the Zanthar reviews.
Zanthar of the Many Worlds (1967) was the first in a series of four.
Zanthar at the Edge of Never (1968) continued Williams’ self destruction as a writer.
Zanthar at Moon’s Madness (1968) is rather chaotic.
Zanthar at Trip’s End (1969) was no improvement.
Random review.sentences.
The obvious parallel to Thor and his hammer is pretty obvious. Zanthar realizes then that his academic life was shallow and unfulfilled and that he only really lives when he is killing things.
The dialogue is filled with nonsensical phrases like “proof is nothing but silly words walking like a drunkard in the night.”
Zanthar is part of a group exploring the moon and he finds a city of mutant women who hate men.
The metaphysical wanderings are frequent and annoying.
December 15th, 2023 at 11:35 pm
@fred: I read the whole article. Williams certainly churned out tons of crappy books. Partway through, I was thinking “many of these covers could be on GSS” and indeed “The King of Mars” has been seen here.
@Bruce (11): Maybe it’s a bong? At *Trip’s End*, after all.
December 16th, 2023 at 3:34 am
If you line up those covers next to each other the set will start to resemble the famous “Ascent of Man” image (https://www.varsity.co.uk/science/26100)
Although Ascent of Faux-nan might be more accurate.
December 16th, 2023 at 5:17 am
@JJYoyo: or at least the ascent of Zanthar’s wardrobe.
December 17th, 2023 at 8:19 pm
Every time I see this, I always think of the old SNL sketch “Lothar of the Hill People”. Especially the first cover.
@Bruce: Agreed. The whole universe, or just a galaxy or star system? Maybe only the two moons, Zanthar, the fog, and the krill-eating bear?
At the other extreme, does that include the multiverse, and can we get rid of Zanthar and replace him with Loki, Mobius, and pals?
December 18th, 2023 at 2:16 am
Now humming the almost unhummable, “Lothar of the Hill People.”
SF dude names all seem to have a Z or X in there somewhere and end in “thar”. Yep, that will make it sound exotic to a bunch of nerds who haven’t left home yet…
December 18th, 2023 at 5:05 am
Looking at the large version of the first cover, I see a Swamp Thing, a Triceratops (or possibly a rhino with a big collar), a rocket, and something I really can’t identify. Is the rocket the “astounding science that transmits him to another planet?” Seems to be overselling it a bit, but I would agree that a rocketship isn’t that much use against a Swamp Thing once you get out of it.
December 19th, 2023 at 1:24 am
@Bruce: I also see a palm tree and the unidentifiable thing is… some sort of land yacht with a satellite dish? Or just the satellite dish he was transmitted with.
@Emster: I’m sorry for sharing my earworm. And good observation. SF has moved on so that sometimes the X stands for the (transliterated) Chinese version.
December 19th, 2023 at 2:21 am
“Zanthar” sounds like a food additive.
Oh, wait. That’s xanthan gum. Never mind….
December 19th, 2023 at 5:27 pm
So in which market is Manowar sold as Zanthar?
December 20th, 2023 at 1:18 am
@GSS Ex-noob; well, it does say it “Blew Men’s Minds”…perhaps it’s just an account of the time Zanthar got really, really high.
#4: so what’s it like in the Womb of Time? I’d imagine dark, moist and kinda crowded with all those fighting dudes.
(Hmm. Now I’m imagining the Womb of Time as a sort of poorly lit night club or art space. Welcome to the Edge of Never – ‘ware the $30 cover charge.)