Black Star Rising

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Black Star Rising, published in 1986, is a dystopian science fiction novel by Frederik Pohl. After a nuclear war, India and China conquer Earth, and China turns the ruined United States into a farming colony. The story follows Pettyman Castor, an educated American who works as a farm labourer and becomes involved in a criminal investigation. While investigating, he uses a computer and learns that a warlike alien race called the erks is rushing toward Earth.

To speak with the aliens, the Chinese rulers decide to use Castor as a stand-in President of the United States, since there is no real U.S. president left. Castor is taken aboard the alien ship and later travels to the erks’ home planet, where he meets other American castaways—descendants of astronauts who were stranded there—along with the erks. Together they plan to free the United States from Chinese occupation, though Castor discovers that the erks are aggressive conquerors who typically leave no survivors.

Dave Langford reviewed the novel for White Dwarf, calling it “good-natured stuff with a few sharp points.”