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Frederik Pohl

Black Star Rising Mass Market Paperback – February 1, 1990

by Frederik Pohl (Author)

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Language

English
Publisher

Del Rey Books
Publication date

February 1, 1990
ISBN-10

0345013948
ISBN-13

978-0345013941
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Del Rey Books (February 1, 1990)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0345013948
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0345013941
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8 ounces

Best Sellers Rank: #11,921,913 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #331,889 in Science Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
5 ratings

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4 star		17%
3 star		17%
2 star		48%
1 star		18%

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paul

Not his best

Reviewed in the United States on July 26, 2020

Verified Purchase

I loved "Gateway" by Mr. Pohl, but I didn't care for this novel . Ideas were promising but, in my humble opinion, it was poorly thought out. Perhaps I am just biased because of my love for his other work. High expectations can ruin your experience.

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2theD

A steed of a start... followed by horse apples

Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2010

Written between Pohl's Heechee Rendezvous (1984) and his widely known satirical Merchant's War (1986), one would expect Black Star Rising (1985) to retain some aspects of his former greatness, as in the popular Man Plus and Gateway. However, he seems to have led himself astray with this one-off novel like he did with another one-off novel in the 1980s- Syzygy. Both flopped.

Black Star Rising has a noble start: `It's the late twenty-first century. The USA and USSR have destroyed each other in a catastrophic nuclear exchange, and China now rules the Americans.' The reader is introduced to a Caucasian workforce in Alabama who are restricted to the farm in which they work. Castor has discovered a human head in the rice fields and is called to the city to deliver his testimony. He becomes embroiled with the Han-descended Police Inspector, the many-minded Professor and the affairs dealing with a mysterious object approaching Earth. The start is fairly good and lays a great foundation for a prospectively good novel...

... but inevitably the novel must continue. Behind this dignified steed of a novel's start there only follows a long trail of steaming horse apples. Once the `American Cabinet' arrives on alien soil (World), the plot quickly loses steam with many pages of doubletalk terminology and a bizarre, out-of-the-blue plot twist with its ridiculous self-contained history. What follows is a sexual romp for a small cast of characters parallel to the politicking of people from Earth and the people of World. There are no bombshells dropped in plot (steady as she goes), there is no character enrichment (like a placid lake of boredom) and even the ending receives a shrug of `whatever.' One more additional observance includes the annoying overuse of the word `fool' and the exclamation point in the internal bickering of the Professor.

This is the eleventh Pohl book I've read and it's the fifth book of his I've sold away (along with Man Plus, Years of the City, Beyond the Blue Horizon and Syzygy). Unless you really like Pohl's work, I'd suggest avoiding this one-off novel and sticking to his more serial works and, maybe, short stories.

3 people found this helpful

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frumiousb

The Erks are on our side.

Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2006

In the dystopia of Black Star Rising, China and India stepped in to save a world ravaged by the nuclear war began by the Soviet Union and the US. While the survivors in the US feel resentment that their saviours occupied the land, the Chinese feel that the "Yankees" can no longer be trusted to hold power in the world. It is against this backdrop that a mysterious spaceship appears in space, propelling a young ethnically American peasant into sudden prominence and a raft of difficult choices.

Pohl is one of the most prolific and long-producing authors in science fiction. Black Star Rising is not part of one of his larger series, but is an interesting digression which is informed by the favorite Pohl themes as well as by the concerns of 1985, in which it was written. It should satisfy his fans and appeal to readers new to his work.

2 people found this helpful

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Timothy Marvin Coplin

Damn the torpedoes

Reviewed in the United States on February 25, 2014

Often spoken of as a flop, it's still a decent story. However, if you're planning to scare someone away from the collective works of Pohl, this very well may be a decent jumping off point.

A book about war and peace, and more than that - it's a book about power. Power to conquer, and to survive; political power, medical power, cultural power, sexual power; real and imagined; effectual and important. In that same vain, the book makes points as to the absurdity of power and its pursuit: from the council of many to the solo conquests of the lone rebel. The book can best be summed up in one paragraph, nearl the end of the book:

'"But there's nothing to do now, Castor. We have tow hours of coasting before we make course corrections to rendezvous with the spaceway." But, of course, it was not the actual piloting that Castor wanted. What he wanted was the illusion of power. He wanted to form a picture of himself--captain of a great spacecraft on an urgent and perilous mission--that he could take out and look at, in his mind's eye, for the rest of his life.'

Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2016

Boring book. Not one of Pohl's good ones. Best to skip...

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