Customer Reviews

The Day Star (DAW #6)

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`The Day Star' is a slim (126 pp) novel released in 1972 by DAW Books; the cover art, and the fine interior black and white illustrations, were done by George Barr.

`Star' is set in the far future, in the aftermath of a calamity that has befallen the fabled city of Ferrin. Once the citizens of Ferrin kept aging and entropy at bay via the use of an artificial star, the Day Star of the book's title. However, over time complacency and carelessness allowed entropy to destroy the Day Star in a cataclysmic explosion, and as a result the fabric of the universe has been altered, not for the better.

Humanity is fragmented among a number of small cities and towns where the inhabitants live joyless lives marked by unreasoning fears and trepidations. In one such city, labeled `R', a boy named Thel wanders the streets and the seashore, knowing something in Life is amiss, but unsure how to rectify it. Thel is accompanied by a ghost named Pagent and a wizard named Marne.

When Thel and Pagent acquire a fragment of the Day Star, they resolve to journey to Ferrin, both to see the city of wonders and to learn if efforts are underway to resurrect the Day Star and drive entropy from the world.

`Day Star' is not SF, or even fantasy, but more the sort of fable-inspired fiction that Ray Bradbury regularly produced.

Author Geston adopts the same belabored, overly poetic prose style, and as a result, the book is a slow read. The focus is on atmosphere and setting, with the trek to Ferrin serving as a mild impetus to a narrative heavily encrusted with metaphysical musings.

I doubt that anyone other than Bradbury fans will have the patience to find `The Day Star' an engaging read. It stands as another example of the type of book that really only had an outlet in the publishing world during the height of the New Wave movement in SF.