Star Child

by Fred Mustard Stewart

Psycho-sexual thriller.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Horror

239 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

American popular novelist, several of whose books were filmed.

Stewart came to be best known for his intercontinental sagas. Year in, year out, the 600-page mark didn't daunt him, a far cry as this was from early hopes as life as a concert pianist, something which had inspired his 1st novel The Mephisto Waltz (1968) which also began his lucrative connection with the film industry. Born in Anderson, IN, he was the son of a banker &, after the Lawrenceville school, near Princeton, NJ, he studied history at Princeton University & later piano at the Juilliard School in Manhattan. By the 1960s, he realised he wasn't going to succeed as a pianist & with marriage to a literary agent, Joan Richardson, in 1967, he began to write, & found immediate success with The Mephisto Waltz.

With The Methuselah Enzyme, Stewart showed wit, but it was clear that it wasn't Henry James. There was, however, a certain charm to Six Weeks (1976), told by a married aspirant for a Democratic senatorial nomination who becomes infatuated with a cold-cream heiress, largely at the behest of her 11-year-old, would-be nymphet daughter who, beset by cancer, has less than two months to live. Nabokov it isn't, but certainly better than the 1982 film with Dudley Moore & Mary Tyler Moore.

Reviews

[Agustín · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't believe this book exists. One of the weirdest things I've read.

[Andy Raptis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book can really mess you up. The plot is hard to describe but it surely aint your conventional SciFi thriller. It's the kind of stuff that could only come out in the seventies. Bored housewife who has weird dreams about an alien kid is pissed off with her husband who has a gay affair with a weird fella who claims to be a preacher for an alien Messiah named Raymond who also demands human sacrifices. But there are even darker things lurking beneath the surface. What's going on? Is it an evil cult? Alien abduction? Time travel? Or just a MK Ultra type of experiment? You need to read to find out.
The book will certainly appeal to readers who are interested in bizzare conspiracy theories and occult. Kinda dated in certain aspects and hard to find nowadays. The plot can get quite confusing. If you want to truly understand this book you may need to read more than once.

[Elisabeth Ashley · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a deeply weird book. The plot was all over the place, the characters one dimensional undeveloped and universally loony, the deus ex machina plot devices slammed right through the suspension of disbelief all fiction and SF requires, and who can forget the gratuitously frequent but very unsexy “sex is death” that starts on page 2. I finished it because I am a sucker for pain, but this book is definitely not a keeper.

[Stuart Yellop · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tried to enjoy this novel, but the dialogue was stilted, the sex scenes were silly, and the plot was all over the place. (It's hard to take a Dark God seriously when it goes by the name of Raymond.) What starts as a story of daemonic interference turns into a time-travel eco-thriller. There's nothing wrong with gonzo, surreal storytelling ... but it needs to be well executed.

[Katey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fred Mustard Stewart never ceases to entertain me. In this sci fi meets psycho-sexual thriller, he grabs the audience immediately. He introduces you to this strange cult filled with sex and violence and we are astonished but can’t help to read on. The psychiatrist in the story brought up many good practices and beliefs still believed today regarding human behavior, emotions and why we have the types of dreams we have. I was very impressed with the research done to match not only the environment and science culture at that time but to also address how it may advance or disintegrate in the future. Many of the environmental factors discussed in this book are still debated today and behind the cult and sexual intrigue is a much bigger message. Perhaps Star Child and Raymond are metaphors of what we feel we are brainwashed into believing today about our future technology, our environment and how we as a people will evolve.
At times I found the book “weird” but no more odd than books I have read by other big authors with their weird sex scenes or violence scenes.
Highly recommend to a reader that is open minded, into social behavior, horror and can tolerate sci fi themes.
Great read, 5 Stars!! One of my favorite authors.

[Tristan Thompson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Frankly….bonkers! Erratic, albeit fun, new-age environmental horror that manages to haphazardly throw together time travel, climate change and suburban housewife anxieties into an increasingly bizarre WTF SF narrative that just gets stranger and stranger. Not quite the ‘psycho-sexual’ extremity the blurbs would scream at you but occasionally pretty nasty (without being too explicitly described) and the occasional sex is brief, boring and banal (I emphasis this because the marketing exploited sexual explicitness as a pivotal marketing hook). As a time wasting page turner with a bit of flawed shock…it’s great…but mustard it ain’t….✌️

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has so much going for it. First it has a cool cover with a die cut cover and illustration of a naked woman. Second the author's middle name is Mustard. Who ever heard of that? It's great.

So what is wrong with it? Characters are laughably shallow, with personalities changing to fit the plot. Explanation: mind control device. There is the over-use of the word "psychosexual". It flip-flops between sci-fi and actual horror with some graphic sex thrown in. Thankfully it's fairly short and moves at a brisk pace. Otherwise I wouldn't have stuck around until the conclusion.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me ha flipado, siempre debéis juzgar un libro por su portada. Lo elegí únicamente por el diseño de la cubierta y casi ni miré la sinopsis. Un libro rarísimo, turbio e intrigante que no te da ni un respiro.

[Xabi1990 · Rating 2 out of 5]

4/10.

[Bob Box · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read in 1975. I've read several of Stewart's books so I must have liked them.

[Cairo · Rating 3 out of 5]

the concept was very creative and the imagery was great but the actual writing wasn't very good and i don't think fredrick knows how to write a female protagonist. overall fun book though

[Bryan Henderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Gabriela Fernandez · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is really weird, I feel the characters needed to be more developed, there is a vague idea or everything, and the final totally unexpected, but I’m not sure about in a good way.

[Adem Zakeriya · Rating 5 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ FAVOURITE

Starchild absolutely blew my mind when I first read it at around fourteen, and that experience has never really left me. Encountering this book at that age felt forbidden, shocking, and strangely sophisticated all at once. It wasn’t just sci-fi, and it wasn’t just horror, it was sexual, unsettling, and emotionally intense in a way that felt wildly adult to my teenage brain. Because of that, it holds a very special place in my heart, regardless of its imperfections.

The novel blends science fiction and horror with an erotic charge that was, at the time, genuinely startling. Stewart isn’t afraid to go into dark psychological territory, and the story leans hard into ideas of transformation, desire, control, and identity. There’s a sense throughout that something is deeply wrong, and that slow creeping dread is one of the book’s greatest strengths. It’s the kind of story that makes you feel complicit just by reading it.

Looking back now, its limitations are easier to see. Some elements feel dated, certain character choices are more provocative than nuanced, and the science is very much in service of the shock rather than realism. But honestly, that almost adds to its charm. Starchild isn’t trying to be tidy or respectable, it’s trying to unsettle you, and it succeeds.

What makes this a five star book for me isn’t perfection, it’s impact. Few novels lodge themselves so firmly in your memory, especially when read at such a formative age. Starchild was one of those books that made me realise fiction could be dangerous, transgressive, and unforgettable. Even now, decades later, it still has that power.

[Antony Castellano]

The future of mankind is threatened when an evil god exerts his influence on the residents of a Connecticut town