is there a clean way to catch the error and allow the program to continue? ... but it seems as if the parent throws a "thread failed to start" error and hangs

Cannot reproduce. I get the error message, but not the hang?

#! perl -slw
use strict;
use threads;

sub condemned {
    my $tid = threads->tid;
    my $deathtime = time() + shift;
    while( sleep 1 ) {
        printf "$tid : %s\n", scalar localtime;
        die "T'is a far, far better thing I do now...."
            if time() > $deathtime;
    }
}

sub survivor {
    my $tid = threads->tid;
    for ( 1.. 5 ){
        sleep 1;
        printf "$tid : %s\n", scalar localtime;
    }
}

my @threads = threads->create( \&condemned, 3 );
push @threads, map threads->create( \&survivor ), 1 .. 3;

$_->join for @threads;

__END__
c:\test>junk 10
1 : Fri Dec  5 02:04:19 2008
2 : Fri Dec  5 02:04:19 2008
3 : Fri Dec  5 02:04:19 2008
4 : Fri Dec  5 02:04:19 2008
1 : Fri Dec  5 02:04:20 2008
3 : Fri Dec  5 02:04:20 2008
2 : Fri Dec  5 02:04:20 2008
4 : Fri Dec  5 02:04:20 2008
1 : Fri Dec  5 02:04:21 2008
2 : Fri Dec  5 02:04:21 2008
3 : Fri Dec  5 02:04:21 2008
4 : Fri Dec  5 02:04:21 2008
1 : Fri Dec  5 02:04:22 2008
Thread 1 terminated abnormally: T'is a far, far better thing I do now.
+... at c:\test\junk.pl line 10.
4 : Fri Dec  5 02:04:22 2008
3 : Fri Dec  5 02:04:22 2008
2 : Fri Dec  5 02:04:22 2008
4 : Fri Dec  5 02:04:23 2008
2 : Fri Dec  5 02:04:23 2008
3 : Fri Dec  5 02:04:23 2008
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hangs in the while loop waiting for the "completed" counters to finish up.

If you posted the code, we might stand a chance of understanding what that means?