The Star-crowned Kings [Mass Market Paperback]

Robert Chilson (Author)

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: DAW (March 3, 1981)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879976063
• ISBN-13: 978-0879976064
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,967,600 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Forgotten Story of Science Fiction, June 12, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Star-crowned Kings (Mass Market Paperback)

Hello

I've own this book for little while, i bought it used.

In a time far in the future, on a distance forgotten Colony World of Mavin. A young man by the name of Race Worden is human being trying to to live peacefully in his alloted nitch of his home world. Until the the day he discovered that he is something more than a labor on a plantation. Once thought of pawn of telepathic human who rule the normal humans, with their power of starflight and move objects with their minds. Race is suddenly no longer a pawn, he has risen up to become one of those special people who rules, a Starling.

Follow the adventures of a boy who would be master of his destiny. As he discovers who is he, and how to save his family from cruelity of spoiled people of power.

I highly recommend this book, its original, there is no book like it. I hope my poor introduction to this book will not keep you from seeking this rare jem of a book. Its worth it.

3.0 out of 5 stars readable, if not highly original, psi-power adventure, September 15, 2008

By 

J. Higgins (Jessup MD) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Star-crowned Kings (Mass Market Paperback)

Robert Chilson has written a number of SF short stories and novels, some of the latter seeing print in the early- to mid- 70s as DAW books. `The Star-Crossed Kings' appeared in 1975 as DAW book number 161.

`Kings' is set in the far future, when Man has succeeded in colonizing the stars, a process aided and abetted by the emergence of a lineage of mutants with superhuman powers. These so-called `Starlings' (the `Kings' of the title) have the telekinetic ability to not only levitate themselves, but other, heavier objects. Interstellar travel is entirely mediated by the telekinesis of the Starlings, who sit in the captain's seat and simply ` think' in order to move vessels through air and space. Starlings also communicate telepathically, and can use their heightened senses to discover buried deposits of ores and minerals. Cliques of Starlings have come to rule the galaxy as somewhat benevolent dictators; they compete and connive with one another to accrue colony worlds, which in turn supply them with foodstuffs, raw materials, and monetary rewards.

The vast majority of `normal' humans live on the colony planets and dutifully labor in support of these overlords, who dwell alongside them in spire-like buildings accessible only by air. While the two races work together on a regular basis, humans have learned that it is best to be subservient and docile; angering a Starling can result in a summary execution.

Race Worden is a teenaged farmer living in the village of Ravenham, on the bucolic colony planet of Mavia. When he begins to manifest psi powers, he and his family are shocked; it is unprecedented that a lowly human should display such abilities. His alarmed mother relocates the family to a remote mountain range, where Race is able to mature his powers in safety, free from prying eyes.

The action then moves to one of Mavia's spaceports, where Race finds work on a starship, covertly learning how to advance his powers by watching his Starling overseers perform their piloting duties. Circumstances soon conspire to force Race to reveal his abilities to the world, and he must deal with the fateful repercussions. Will the Starlings embrace a `wild card' in their comfortable Galactic Order ? As Race quickly discovers, the answer is `no', and the remainder of the novel deals with his struggle to survive in a galaxy where he is a hunted outcast.

`Kings' treads no new ground in the well-hoed SF row of stories about Just Plain Folks who abruptly discover they possess superhuman powers, which are to be employed in the overthrow of an oppressive hierarchy. However, Chilson is a competent writer and `Kings' is a reasonably entertaining read. Indeed, with some minor edits (there's a brief episode of peeping Tom-ism) the book could serve as a YA title. The character of Race Worden is presented with sufficient detail to engage the reader, without overloading the narrative with too much psychological `spam'. The story is well-paced, and shifts the action from local environs to galactic expanses concomitantly with the broadening of Race's psi powers. The one real weakness is the ending, which leaves dangling one of the major story lines driving the latter chapters.

SF fans who spy `Kings' on a used bookstore shelf might want to ignore the cheesy cover illustration (a frequent plague upon those first several hundred DAW titles), and add it to their collection.