The fourth Green Star book was much like the third, continuing the plots begun in the sky city and the forest floor in the new environment of an inland sea and its jungle islands. It was perhaps a tad "spicier" than earlier arcs of the series, although largely through threat and peril, leaving it relatively tame compared to the larger sword-and-planet field. There is also an unwitting and highly ironic non-consummation of the love-quest central to the series. (Other reviewers have called that part of the story "contrived," but in this sort of exoplanetary fantasy what isn't?)

The most notable feature of the story was its blind narrator. The boy Karn had been blinded at the end of the previous volume, and while parts of the book held out some hope for recovery of his sight, he spent this entire segment unable to see. But despite the fast pace and surfeit of action, the story isn't told as an immediate reportage. It instead recounts multiple threads of plot as companions and allies are separated and adventure in parallel. Karn is supposed to have learned later what had happened to his friends, but his telling interweaves the various developments along a synchronized timeline.

The illustrations in this book are collaborations between Roy Krenkel (whose pictures were in the previous one) and notable comics artist Michael Kaluta. None of them particularly thrilled me, though. Krenkel's cover art is an adequate representation of the moment on page 60, when the women escape an island by means of a great hawk-steed. The rider is thus Arjala, while Niamh the Fair is hanging from the stirrup.

2.5 Originally posted at FanLit.
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/reviews/as-the-green-star-rises/

I picked up As the Green Star Rises, fourth in the five-book GREEN STAR series by Lin Carter, only because it was cheap at Audible. The last book, By the Light of the Green Star, was mildly entertaining but I didn�??t feel compelled to go on. (At this point, probably nobody is reading further in this review, but for the sake of a sense of closure, Iƒ??ll go on just a bit. After all, it is possible that readers looking for a mindless audio adventure series might be enjoying GREEN STAR.)

In As the Green Star Rises, our hero (gosh, I forgot his name), who has been blinded and separated from his friends and the princess he loves, is pulled out of the sea by pirates and turned into a galley slave. He makes new friends and enemies and pines for his lost princess. A string of various adventures occurs: daring escapes, near drownings, unexpected rescues, encounters with frightening animal life and weird pseudo-human races, etc. Some of it weƒ??ve seen before.

This installment simply feels like a stepping stone from book three to book five. I feel like Lin Carter is dragging us around, making up little side-adventures, just to prolong the romantic tension: Will our hero ever find the princess, will she know him, and will she love him? Iƒ??m sure. Because nothing seriously bad ever happens to our hero. Every other page he is sure heƒ??s going to die, but then some amazing miraculous event occurs which saves him. I see how it is.

Some of Lin Carterƒ??s plot, when not repetitive, is actually creative and slightly exciting, though I never felt the urgency and danger of it. Some of it is just silly, such as the tiny knife called ƒ??The Avenger of Chastityƒ? which noblewomen have sewn into their intimate undergarments. If a woman is forced to suffer ƒ??the ultimate indignityƒ? she ƒ??unsheathes this hidden blade with a ritual gesture and sheaths it again in her own heart.ƒ? I snickered at this and wondered how long she practiced the ƒ??ritual gesture.ƒ?

Lin Carterƒ??s writing style is also a bit silly. This tale is so low-brow, yet if thereƒ??s a big word that can do half the job of a more perfect small word, Lin Carter will choose it. For me, this added to the entertainment, though Iƒ??m sure that wasnƒ??t Carterƒ??s intention.

Thereƒ??s another cliffhanger at the end of As the Green Star Rises. I actually have book five, the final GREEN STAR book, because it was also cheap when I bought book four. Itƒ??s been a month or two and I havenƒ??t started it, but I will eventually simply because I bought it, itƒ??s short, and itƒ??ll be nice to be able to review the entire series. I feel like I already know whatƒ??s going to happen, though.

Iƒ??m listening to GREEN STAR in audio format, narrated by Joel Richards. Heƒ??s doing a fine job with what he has to work with. ( )

The back of the book says it all, this is 'barbarian planet' scifi in the Burroughs and Kline tradition. Its similar to both of those in setting, plot and style, but I think Burrough's Barsoom series is better. ( )

Book 4 in the Green Star series. Follows By The Light Of The Green Star, followed by In The Green Star's Glow.

"DAYBREAK OF ADVENTURE

"In the marvel-adventure sagas of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Otis Adelbert Kline, and John Norman has there ever beena situation such as befell the Earthling who found his way to the world under the Green Star?

"For while his real body lay crippled under the sun of old Earth, his mind occupied the vigorous body of a young primitive on that alien planet of mighty trees, floating cities, and unmapped limits. And in that guise he had found incredible friends, a royal love, and inhumand and superhuman enemies.

"But no matter what predicament he was in - and as this book starts he is alone, abandoned on an uncharted sea - his courage never flagged though the greatest of risks would confront him AS THE GREEN STAR RISES."

Book 4 of the 'Green Star' series and Carter's imagination is starting to fail him. The dangers facing his heroes become more contrived as do the ways they get out of them. The ending leads into Book 5. ( )