The Blue Star (novel)
Encyclopedia
The Blue Star is a fantasy
novel written by Fletcher Pratt
, the second of his two major fantasies. It was first published by Twayne Publishers in 1952 in the fantasy anthology Witches Three, a volume that also included Fritz Leiber
's Conjure Wife
and James Blish
's "There Shall Be No Darkness
." Its first publication as a stand-alone novel was in paperback by Ballantine Books
in May 1969, as the inaugural volume of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series
. The Ballantine edition included an introduction by Lin Carter
, and was reprinted twice, in 1975 and 1981. It has also been translated into French
, German
, Italian
and Spanish
.
The empire in which the action is set is comparable to the Austrian one in our own history. The government bans witchcraft, which merely serves to drive its practitioners underground, where they can fall prey to the use and abuse of unscrupulous powerful or ambitious individuals. The protagonists are Lalette Asterhax, a hereditary witch, and Rodvard Bergelin, an ordinary government clerk who has been recruited into the radical conspiracy of the Sons of the New Day. Rodvard, though attracted to the daughter of a baron, is commanded by his superiors to seduce Lalette instead to gain the use of her blue star in the furtherance of their revolutionary aims. The witch is no more truly enamored of him than he is of her, but both fall in with the scheme for their own reasons, unaware of how much they are simply pawns in the larger scheme of things.
Everything soon goes bad, and the couple is forced to flee the empire. Various adventures and complications ensue as they stray into one cause or acquaintance after another, gradually growing beyond their shallow, selfish roots into a greater understanding.
In the February 1953 Galaxy
, Groff Conklin
praised the novel as "an immensely effective piece of mannered pseudo-historical writing . . . full of color, sex, and wonderful robust characters." Boucher
and McComas
, however, dismissed it as "long and dreary."
On its first independent publication in 1969 The Blue Star was reviewed in If, November 1969, and Worlds of Fantasy, Winter 1970, by Lester del Rey
, who would be responsible for its later reprintings at Ballantine, and in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February, 1970, by James Blish, who had been one of Pratt's co-contributors to Witches Three.
Brian Stableford
, who assessed both of Pratt's major fantasies in his article on the author in The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
(1997), called The Blue Star "a more original and more impressive work" than his earlier The Well of the Unicorn
, and "one of the finest heroic fantasies of its period."
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
novel written by Fletcher Pratt
Fletcher Pratt
Murray Fletcher Pratt was an American writer of science fiction, fantasy and history, particularly noted for his works on naval history and on the American Civil War.- Life and work :...
, the second of his two major fantasies. It was first published by Twayne Publishers in 1952 in the fantasy anthology Witches Three, a volume that also included Fritz Leiber
Fritz Leiber
Fritz Reuter Leiber, Jr. was an American writer of fantasy, horror and science fiction. He was also a poet, actor in theatre and films, playwright, expert chess player and a champion fencer. Possibly his greatest chess accomplishment was winning clear first in the 1958 Santa Monica Open.. With...
's Conjure Wife
Conjure Wife
Conjure Wife is a supernatural horror novel by Fritz Leiber.Its premise is that witchcraft flourishes as an open secret among women. The story is told from the point of view of a small-town college professor who discovers that his wife is a witch....
and James Blish
James Blish
James Benjamin Blish was an American author of fantasy and science fiction. Blish also wrote literary criticism of science fiction using the pen-name William Atheling, Jr.-Biography:...
's "There Shall Be No Darkness
There Shall Be No Darkness
There Shall Be No Darkness is a horror story by James Blish that was published in 1950. It concerns a group of people on a remote country manor who discover that one of their numbers is a ravenous werewolf. The story was adapted for the screen in 1974 as The Beast Must Die...
." Its first publication as a stand-alone novel was in paperback by Ballantine Books
Ballantine Books
Ballantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann AG in 1998 and remains part of that company today. Ballantine's logo is a...
in May 1969, as the inaugural volume of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series
Ballantine Adult Fantasy series
The Ballantine Adult Fantasy series was an imprint of Ballantine Books. Launched in 1969 , the series reissued a number of works of fantasy literature, which were out of print or dispersed in back issues of pulp magazines , in cheap paperback form—including works...
. The Ballantine edition included an introduction by Lin Carter
Lin Carter
Linwood Vrooman Carter was an American author of science fiction and fantasy, as well as an editor and critic. He usually wrote as Lin Carter; known pseudonyms include H. P. Lowcraft and Grail Undwin.-Life:Carter was born in St. Petersburg, Florida...
, and was reprinted twice, in 1975 and 1981. It has also been translated into French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
and Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
.
Plot
The novel is set in a parallel world in which the existence of psychic powers has permitted the development of witchcraft into a science; in contrast, that of the physical sciences has languished, resulting in a modern culture reminiscent of our eighteenth century. Witchcraft is hereditary but the ability to use it can be held by only one member of a family line at a time, being passed from mother to daughter at the daughter's loss of virginity. The daughter's lover then gains possession of her magical talisman, a jewel known as the blue star, which enables him to read the mind of anyone he looks in the eye. The catch is that he retains access to this power only so long as he keeps faith with his witch lover.The empire in which the action is set is comparable to the Austrian one in our own history. The government bans witchcraft, which merely serves to drive its practitioners underground, where they can fall prey to the use and abuse of unscrupulous powerful or ambitious individuals. The protagonists are Lalette Asterhax, a hereditary witch, and Rodvard Bergelin, an ordinary government clerk who has been recruited into the radical conspiracy of the Sons of the New Day. Rodvard, though attracted to the daughter of a baron, is commanded by his superiors to seduce Lalette instead to gain the use of her blue star in the furtherance of their revolutionary aims. The witch is no more truly enamored of him than he is of her, but both fall in with the scheme for their own reasons, unaware of how much they are simply pawns in the larger scheme of things.
Everything soon goes bad, and the couple is forced to flee the empire. Various adventures and complications ensue as they stray into one cause or acquaintance after another, gradually growing beyond their shallow, selfish roots into a greater understanding.
Reception
Witches Three received favorable reviews in The New York Times, December 14, 1952, by Basil Davenport, and in The Washington Post, January 4, 1953, by an anonymous reviewer. Davenport singled out The Blue Star as "[t]he most ambitious and most stimulating of the stories" and called it "a romance with a scope far beyond that of the common science-fiction novel." The Post reviewer did not address the merits of the individual pieces, but noted that "[t]he authors are old hands at conjuring up suspense and fear" and that "[a]n idle hour or two in this company can be quite diverting."In the February 1953 Galaxy
Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by an Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break in to the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L...
, Groff Conklin
Groff Conklin
Edward Groff Conklin was a leading science fiction anthologist. He edited 40 anthologies of science fiction, one of mystery stories , wrote books on home improvement and was a freelance writer on scientific subjects as well as a published poet...
praised the novel as "an immensely effective piece of mannered pseudo-historical writing . . . full of color, sex, and wonderful robust characters." Boucher
Anthony Boucher
Anthony Boucher was an American science fiction editor and author of mystery novels and short stories. He was particularly influential as an editor. Between 1942 and 1947 he acted as reviewer of mostly mystery fiction for the San Francisco Chronicle...
and McComas
J. Francis McComas
Jesse Francis McComas was an American science fiction editor. McComas wrote several stories on his own in the 1950s using both his own name and the pseudonym Webb Marlowe....
, however, dismissed it as "long and dreary."
On its first independent publication in 1969 The Blue Star was reviewed in If, November 1969, and Worlds of Fantasy, Winter 1970, by Lester del Rey
Lester del Rey
Lester del Rey was an American science fiction author and editor. Del Rey was the author of many of the Winston Science Fiction juvenile SF series, and the editor at Del Rey Books, the fantasy and science fiction branch of Ballantine Books, along with his fourth wife Judy-Lynn del Rey.-Birth...
, who would be responsible for its later reprintings at Ballantine, and in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February, 1970, by James Blish, who had been one of Pratt's co-contributors to Witches Three.
Brian Stableford
Brian Stableford
Brian Michael Stableford is a British science fiction writer who has published more than 70 novels. His earlier books were published as by Brian M. Stableford, but more recent ones have dropped the middle initial and appeared under the name Brian Stableford...
, who assessed both of Pratt's major fantasies in his article on the author in The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
The Encyclopedia of Fantasy is a 1997 reference work on fantasy, edited by John Clute and John Grant. Other contributors include Mike Ashley, Neil Gaiman, Diana Wynne Jones, David Langford, Sam J. Lundwall, Michael Scott Rohan, Brian Stableford and Lisa Tuttle.The book was well-received upon...
(1997), called The Blue Star "a more original and more impressive work" than his earlier The Well of the Unicorn
The Well of the Unicorn
The Well of the Unicorn is a fantasy novel by Fletcher Pratt, the first of his two major fantasies. It was first published in hardcover by William Sloane Associates in 1948, under the pseudonym George U. Fletcher...
, and "one of the finest heroic fantasies of its period."