Status
Available
Call number
Series
Collections
Publication
ACE Books (1965), Mass Market Paperback
Description
A novel from the Darkover series, about a man on his first mission to the planet. What he encounters when he leaves the space station is to determine the fate of every Terran stranded there.
Media reviews
Avec ses deux héros adolescents, L'étoile du danger aurait été mieux placé dans une collection de littérature jeunesse. Il y a là une évidente erreur de casting, et de ce fait ce roman se situe bien en dessous de ce que l'on est en droit d'attendre dans le cadre d'un projet aussi ambitieux.
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Ce caractère très inégal est du reste l'un des désagréments du cycle de Ténébreuse. Show Less
Ce roman, écrit plus spécifiquement pour les adolescents, est une bonne entrée en matière pour les nouveaux lecteurs de Ténébreuse. Rapide à lire, il a ce qu'il faut d'action et de magie pour captiver son lecteur...
Fiction
Ce roman fait partie d'un cycle d'histoires qui se passent sur la planète Ténébreuse. On a pu le comparer à des monuments littéraires comme Dune ou l'univers de Tolkien. Le livre est réussi, effectivement. Cependant, la comparaison me semble un peu trop flatteuse. Pour en prendre toute la
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mesure, il faudra se plonger dans le cycle en entier. Il n'y a plus qu'à espérer que Presses Pocket rééditera les autres maillons de cette chaîne prometteuse.
L'oeuvre de Marion Zimmer Bradley a également des affinités avec celle d'Ursula Le Guin et je songe en particulier à La Ligue de Tous Les Mondes, et surtout à La main gauche de la nuit. On y retrouve ce même dépaysement, cette même imagination s'appuyant sur le souci de décrire l'altérité avec une grande précision anthropologique.
Riche et passionnant.
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User reviews
LibraryThing member uvula_fr_b4
The 12th book, chronologically speaking, in Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover series, Star of Danger (1965) takes place a generation or two after the events of The Forbidden Tower. (Valdir Alton, roughly 11 years old in The Forbidden Tower, is a graying adult with a 16-year-old son here.) As it is
The story of a 16-year-old, red-headed Terran youth named Larry Montray who goes to Darkover (which the Terrans call Cottman IV) with his father, Wade Montray, Larry disobeys the Terran quarrantine (Darkovans have allowed the Terrans to build a spaceport and establish limited trade only on sufferance) to leave the confines of the Terran settlement to travel to Thendara for a look at what Darkovan society is really like, and earns the friendship of the young Comyn lord Kennard Alton, heir to the Domain of Alton. Larry's actions inadvertantly precipitate a diplomatic crisis that is resolved when his father is forced to let him accept the invitation of Lord Valdir Alton to spend six months at his house; the Terrans, in the person of Commander Reade, Legate to Cottman IV, and the Darkovans, in the person of Valdir, both have a not-so-hidden agenda for wanting Larry to accept Valdir's invitation. Less than a week in to his visit, Larry and Kennard are swept up in events out of their control, and both boys learn that, to survive, they must draw on both Terran and Darkovan knowledge.
There's a lot more action in Star of Danger than is found in many of the Darkover books; there are also a lot more appearances by the nonhuman aborigines of Darkover -- the kyrri (who function as servants in the Alton household, in contrast to the previous two books, The Spell Sword and The Forbidden Tower), the Fuzzy-esque trailmen (who call themselves "People of the Sky"), and the elfin chieri -- than is typical. There is a fair bit of laran, or psi, power on display here, without the constraints and drawbacks that Bradley introduced in her later books. Star of Danger is a fascinating look at what the Darkover series might've been had Bradley not steered it into a feminist-oriented direction; this book made me realize that, for all of MZB's uneven prose, indifferent editing and occasional out-and-out lousy books (City of Sorcery, I'm looking at you), I much prefer the later thoughtful, talk-heavy, feminist-skewed books to the early "boys own" adventure-type books.
There are tantalizing hints here of the direction in which MZB would lead the Darkover series; there are also statements of the major tensions between the Terrans and the Darkovans, as well as those between the Darkovans and the native sentients, that would be subsequently explored but never "solved." My favorite sentence in Star of Danger can also be easily applied to our current geo-political situation: "It was, [Larry] knew, a deeper conflict than they could ever resolve with words alone; a whole civilization based on expansion and growth, pitted against one based on tradition" (p. 170). Ooh, mais oui.
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one of the earlier-written books in the series, it naturally contains many "out of continuity" events and disclosures. The story of a 16-year-old, red-headed Terran youth named Larry Montray who goes to Darkover (which the Terrans call Cottman IV) with his father, Wade Montray, Larry disobeys the Terran quarrantine (Darkovans have allowed the Terrans to build a spaceport and establish limited trade only on sufferance) to leave the confines of the Terran settlement to travel to Thendara for a look at what Darkovan society is really like, and earns the friendship of the young Comyn lord Kennard Alton, heir to the Domain of Alton. Larry's actions inadvertantly precipitate a diplomatic crisis that is resolved when his father is forced to let him accept the invitation of Lord Valdir Alton to spend six months at his house; the Terrans, in the person of Commander Reade, Legate to Cottman IV, and the Darkovans, in the person of Valdir, both have a not-so-hidden agenda for wanting Larry to accept Valdir's invitation. Less than a week in to his visit, Larry and Kennard are swept up in events out of their control, and both boys learn that, to survive, they must draw on both Terran and Darkovan knowledge.
There's a lot more action in Star of Danger than is found in many of the Darkover books; there are also a lot more appearances by the nonhuman aborigines of Darkover -- the kyrri (who function as servants in the Alton household, in contrast to the previous two books, The Spell Sword and The Forbidden Tower), the Fuzzy-esque trailmen (who call themselves "People of the Sky"), and the elfin chieri -- than is typical. There is a fair bit of laran, or psi, power on display here, without the constraints and drawbacks that Bradley introduced in her later books. Star of Danger is a fascinating look at what the Darkover series might've been had Bradley not steered it into a feminist-oriented direction; this book made me realize that, for all of MZB's uneven prose, indifferent editing and occasional out-and-out lousy books (City of Sorcery, I'm looking at you), I much prefer the later thoughtful, talk-heavy, feminist-skewed books to the early "boys own" adventure-type books.
There are tantalizing hints here of the direction in which MZB would lead the Darkover series; there are also statements of the major tensions between the Terrans and the Darkovans, as well as those between the Darkovans and the native sentients, that would be subsequently explored but never "solved." My favorite sentence in Star of Danger can also be easily applied to our current geo-political situation: "It was, [Larry] knew, a deeper conflict than they could ever resolve with words alone; a whole civilization based on expansion and growth, pitted against one based on tradition" (p. 170). Ooh, mais oui.
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LibraryThing member rbtwinky
The book was pretty good. I was a little disappointed with it mainly because I am used to MZB’s feminist literature and was expecting something more along the lines of that. There was only one female in the whole book and she had a very minor role. The book gave a too much away. In the beginning
The world of Darkover is great though. The culture is new, exciting and different. There is magic to take place, mysterious powers to understand. There are non-humans to imagine. The other-worldly feeling is rich and very well constructed.
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they tell you that the Darkovan people are humans (non-humans live there too) and speak a variation of early earthly languages. Then at the end you find out in a big revelation that the Darkovan humans are really earthlings from back in the day. You do find out some other cool stuff at the end that does change your perspective a little though. Another thing that I didn’t like so much about this book was the way it got started. You weren’t into the main rising action of the book until it was half-over. It just wandered a little too much.The world of Darkover is great though. The culture is new, exciting and different. There is magic to take place, mysterious powers to understand. There are non-humans to imagine. The other-worldly feeling is rich and very well constructed.
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LibraryThing member barbgarcia1987
This was one of the first of the Darkover books that I read. It has always been my favorite of the early ones.
LibraryThing member LisaMaria_C
I'm a fan of Marion Zimmer Bradley, but my affection for her rests not on the Avalon books, which I didn't care for, but her Darkover series. Darkover is a "lost colony" of Earth that falls into a medieval society. Ruled by a psychic aristocracy after centuries it's rediscovered by a star-spanning
Although some books are loosely connected, having characters in common, they were written to be read independently and were written out of sequence. Part of the difficulty of knowing what to read, and in what order to read, comes from that. This is an early book in terms of Marion Zimmer Bradley's career, in my opinion before she had come into her own and honed her craft. It's one of the weaker books in the series, and because MZB decided not to let the hobgoblin of inconsistency trap her into ideas she outgrew, you'll find things that won't fit with books that were written later. This is definitely not the book where I'd start with the series (I'd recommend either The Shattered Chain or Heritage of Hastur.) However, it is an entertaining read and as a fan of the Darkover books, I'm happy having it among my books. But it doesn't represent the series at its best.
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high-tech human federation, giving the series a feel of both science fiction and fantasy. The series as a whole features strong female characters, (although not in this particular book) but it has enough swashbuckling adventure to draw the male of the species, and indeed this series was recommended to me by a guy (when we were in high school!)Although some books are loosely connected, having characters in common, they were written to be read independently and were written out of sequence. Part of the difficulty of knowing what to read, and in what order to read, comes from that. This is an early book in terms of Marion Zimmer Bradley's career, in my opinion before she had come into her own and honed her craft. It's one of the weaker books in the series, and because MZB decided not to let the hobgoblin of inconsistency trap her into ideas she outgrew, you'll find things that won't fit with books that were written later. This is definitely not the book where I'd start with the series (I'd recommend either The Shattered Chain or Heritage of Hastur.) However, it is an entertaining read and as a fan of the Darkover books, I'm happy having it among my books. But it doesn't represent the series at its best.
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LibraryThing member KarenIrelandPhillips
I remember the Darkover Series as edgy, fantastic, and pushing the envelope, with a heady mix of telepathy/technology, strict cultural codes, clear but not tacitly acknowledged gay relationships. An edifice of triggers for a budding lesbian/feminist. What I'd forgotten was that MZB was often
The plot is simple,with the requisite adventures, joys and resentments. This is the first meeting between Kennard Alton and Larry Montray, Much is revealed about the tangled history of Darkover and its denizens, and as is true of much sff, it's not the star that's the danger - it's the people.. (It's hard to describe more of the plot without spoilers.)
And yet, for all my nitpicking, MZB's Darkover remains one of my favorite series ever. Hence the 4 stars. It's worth reading.
(Plus, novels were MUCH shorter then!)
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repetitive, with a writing voice that strove for sonorous dignity but missed. And "show, don't tell" wasn't part of her writing philosophy.The plot is simple,with the requisite adventures, joys and resentments. This is the first meeting between Kennard Alton and Larry Montray, Much is revealed about the tangled history of Darkover and its denizens, and as is true of much sff, it's not the star that's the danger - it's the people.. (It's hard to describe more of the plot without spoilers.)
And yet, for all my nitpicking, MZB's Darkover remains one of my favorite series ever. Hence the 4 stars. It's worth reading.
(Plus, novels were MUCH shorter then!)
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Language
Original publication date
1965
Local notes
Darkover
DDC/MDS
| Fic SF Bradley |