Saturday, May 05, 2007

Star Rogue -- Lin Carter

I read about this one on Ed Gorman's blog, so I figured I'd read it. If you're familiar with Carter, you know that a lot of what he wrote was a pastiche of something or other. In Star Rogue he seems to be channeling Doc Smith, or some other author of slam-bang space opera.

Saul Everest is humanity's only immortal. He doesn't know how he became immortal, but it doesn't really matter. He also has a Star class mind, and of course his telepathic powers are developed to their highest point. Mostly he lives an idle life in retirement from Citadel, a cabal of superminds and telepaths that manipulates the flow of history while remaining in the shadows.

Saul is jolted out of his retirement by the report of a mysterious object, perhaps a rogue star, that's appeared out on the Rim. This object is merely an excuse for Saul to leave his comfortable retreat and have all kinds of adventures, which, when you think about them, aren't really all that unusual or extraordinary, at least compared to other space opera that you may have read. There's plenty of action, though, and things zip right along.


As always with Carter, there were various sequels and prequels planned. He tells about them in an "Author's Note" at the end. I have no idea if any of them were published, and I doubt I'll be reading them if they were.
Star Rogue was fun and a nice little diversion, but it didn't make me want to seek out anything further in the series.

2 comments:

Ed Gorman said...

I can't remember now who recommended it. But I ordered a copy and read it--or tried. Carter wrote a few books I liked but this wasn't one of them. But he died a pretty hideous death (facially disfigured by cancer) and he did do a hell of a lot of good work as an editor so I don't want to knock him unduly. To that end I'll say that I really liked the novel that so many made fun of--his first (an Ace) The Wizard of Lemuria. It's a lot of fun. I still have my original copy, I liked it so much. I was hoping Star Rogue would be as good as his van Vogt homage, Time War. Sorry to say it wasn't. Ed Gorman

mybillcrider said...

I think it was Lawrence Watt-Evans who recommended it. The book of his I liked best was The Man Who Loved Mars.