Thursday, April 8, 2021


In The Green Star's Glow is the final book in the Green Star saga and wraps the series up nicely- perhaps too nicely. As I've noted in previous installments the coincidences are strong here, and that's nowhere more the case than in this final chapter. We have several different POV's in this one- Karn the savage boy who is really an Earthman in a a strangers body, his love Niamh the Fair who is lost on the world of the giant trees, and various companions, notably a bowman named Zorak and various other allies. The action picks up right after the last one, with the allies victorious over the forces of Delgan and his Blue Barbarians, having freed the island kingdom of Komar from their depredations. 

Unfortunately Niamh was lost in the chaos and Zorak was the only one quick- witted enough to jump to her aid. Borne away by an errant skycraft, Niamh and Zorak are soon separated, and the rest of the book concerns their efforts to survive and escape various perils. Karn also gets in on the action, flying to Niamh's aid but finding himself captured by Amazons. Yes. 

The Amazon sequence is interesting, for sure. Keep in mind that Karn is a teen- a man in a teenagers body, more accurately- and the Amazons are young as well. I feel like Carter spends an inordinate amount of time here on the, shall we say, bodily characteristics of the young women. This is something I've noticed before and that others have remarked on- Niamh the Fair is quite young, as well- and to be fair, we have George RR Martin's depiction of young women as well that is often problematic, arguably, so maybe this isn't partial just to Carter? Nevertheless, I'll share some examples and one can draw their own conclusions. 

"Despite her warlike aspect and savage raiment, she was very beautiful in the way that young girls are beautiful; that is, in the burgeoning promise of the womanhood to come"

"Her lithe and supple body was slim as a young panther"

"She was intensely exciting"

You get the idea. Creepy? Maybe. They just wrote differently in the 70's, and Carter was vastly influenced by Robert E. Howard and pulp stories where every woman is a supple pantheress, so maybe he's just riffing on that. At any rate, the coincidences come fast and furious in this one- spoiler- I mean, towards the end the heroes come together in such a way that I couldn't help but roll my eyes. Our princess is trapped in an Opal Tower of a long dead race and the other principals of the story all just happen to arrive there at opportune times- it's just silly. 

5 comments:

  1. I actually discovered I have one of Lin Carter's books sitting on my shelf. I got it at a library sale years ago, and then forgot about it. Have you ever read The Valley Where Time Stood Still? That's the one I apparently own.

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  2. The cover is absolutely amazingly ridiculous.

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  3. Egad. If the cover didn't indicate the 70s' silliness enough, those quotes really did. And was there a storm in this one too? 😂

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  4. I am going to read the first one during SciFi month. 😃

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