Fletcher Pratt ~5 hr read

In a world where witchcraft is real but rare, passed only to a woman who yields her virginity and worked through the fateful Blue Star, a young couple is drawn into deadly high politics and intrigue.

Fletcher Pratt's 1952 novel is a rich, intelligent fantasy of a fully imagined alternate world. Sophisticated, absorbing, superbly built. Read it for a landmark adult fantasy, a rigorous, politically astute tale of magic, love, and revolution in an invented society, from a distinguished writer of the fantastic.

In its time

Published in 1952, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

~5 hr read (a novel-length work, settle in).