The Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series: The Blue Star by Fletcher Pratt
The Blue Star
Fletcher Pratt
Ballantine Books (242 pages, May 1969, $0.95)
Cover art by Ron Walotsky
Lin Carter chose Fletcher Pratt’s novel The Blue Star to be the inaugural title in Ballantine’s Adult Fantasy series. I’ve found nothing that explicitly says why this novel rather than another, but a remark in his introduction provides a clue.
Prior to this publication, The Blue Star had only been published in an omnibus edition along with Fritz Leiber’s Conjure Wife and James Blish’s There Shall be no Darkness in 1952. This was 17 years prior to Ballantine reprinting it and two years before The Lord of the Rings was first published. Carter wrote, “I am pleased to have been instrumental in getting this remarkable novel back into print again.”
The novel tells the story of Rodvard Bergelin, who is a clerk in the genealogical offices of the Empire in the capital city of Netznegon. Not given an actual name, the Empire is in decay. Ruled by a Queen whose only heir has been exiled, political intrigue abounds. Rodvard is a member of a revolutionary group known as the Sons of the New Day. They have Bolshevik overtones, but when they eventually gain power, things resemble the French Revolution.
The other protagonist is a young woman who is a witch, Lalette Asterhax. In Pratt’s world, magic is real, but only witches can use it. The only exception is through a gem known as a Blue Star. Not all witches have one, but Lalette does. The power to be a witch is hereditary, passed from mother to daughter. A witch gains her powers when she loses her virginity.
The Sons of the New Day order Rodvard to seduce Lalette. Neither is really interested in the other. Rodvard is taken with a voluptuous young noblewoman who has started hanging around his office. Lalette, on the other hand, is being pursued by an old nobleman, Count Cleudi. In order to get away from him and out from under her mother’s thumb, Lalette reluctantly yields to Rodvard’s advances.
