In the third Green Star installment, Lin Carter seems to have hit his groove. He maintains two parallel plot lines, alternating between them with a series of cliffhangers. The pacing is fast, with short chapters like those of the previous volumes. The end was not quite as much a cliffhanger as the previous book, but it was a big downer, heavy on dramatic irony and inconclusive. I liked Roy Krenkel's illustrations better than the ones by Luis Dominguez in the prior book.

This leg of the story really showed its Barsoomian literary genealogy, introducing both chthonic and aerial sub-races of the Green Star world's humanoids. Reading the glossary appendix that recapped the heroes and monsters of the first three books, it occurred to me that the world of the Green Star would make an excellent milieu for a tabletop fantasy role-playing game: distinctive, varied, and easily appreciated as a setting for heroic adventure.

By the Light of the Green Star continues the adventures of the crippled man from Earth who has taught his spirit to travel to an unknown planet where he inhabits healthy bodies and has exciting adventures. The previous volume, When the Green Star Calls, ended on a cliffhanger. Our hero is still in the body of the savage youth and heƒ??s still trying to rescue the princess who he loves but who will not know him if he even manages to find her.

The story continues to be told in the first person, but our hero, who is now stranded with some unscrupulous companions on the dangerous forest floor, also narrates the events occurring simultaneously to the princess who is now a prisoner in a city in the air. Our narrator justifies his omniscience by saying he heard her side of the story later, but it doesnƒ??t really work ƒ?? itƒ??s rather ... Read More: http://www.fantasyliterature.com/reviews/by-the-light-of-the-green-star/ ( )

The 3rd part of the 5 part Green Star series. I liked these when I read them, but they are too much like the Burroughs Barsoom and Venus' series. ( )

Book 3 in the Green Star series. Follows When The Green Star Calls, followed by As The Green Star Rises.

"LIN CARTER'S FABULOUS SAGA

"Miscast in the role of assassin, inhabiting the stolen body of a stalwart savage, the star-wanderer from Earth found himself in dangers beyond even his wildest imaginings.

"His friends had fled, his princess with them, and awaiting him were the islands of the sky with their merciless masters, the prowlers of the dark tree bottoms with their horrible steeds,and the treachery of his comrades in captivity.

"But this was what he had left his safe home on Earth for - and his adventures BY THE LIGHT OF THE GREEN STAR, however knife-edge, were the very staff (sic) of life to him!

"Roy Krenkel illustrates this third marvelous adventure of Lin Carter's bestselling saga."

Book 3 of the 'Green Star' series and the episodic style of Book 2 continues as Carter's kitchen sink approach continues the tale. Cliffhanger ending leads into Book 4. ( )