Name that book series I barely remember

October 6, 2009 3:41 PM

Back in the 70's/80's, I remember seeing a series of scifi/fantasy books, where the cover art for all the books had a consistent theme of a red/orange sun that figured prominently. What was it?

I remember there seemed like a lot of books in the series.
As I recall, most of the covers were pictures of a character, with the omnipresent red dot in the background sky. At the time, I shied away from them because I was more into hard sci-fi, and it looked likely to be very fantasy-y.

posted by nomisxid to media & arts (19 comments total)

They might have been Michael Whelan's covers for Anne McCaffrey's Pern books. They're sort of fantasy/romance. I am vaguely embarrassed to know this.
posted by Marit at 3:49 PM on October 6

I am forced to concur with every word of Marit's statement, except for 'vaguely'.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 3:52 PM on October 6 [3 favorites]

Here's a gallery with the 4 main covers, which feature the red star.
posted by Marit at 3:54 PM on October 6

No, definetly not pern. I love pern, I own all the pern books, even the ones by todd. This struck me as more of a LOTR rip off/homage.
posted by nomisxid at 3:59 PM on October 6

The Darkover series by Marion Zimmer Bradley featured a planet with a large red sun. Lots of books lots of red covers.
posted by rw at 4:02 PM on October 6

Could it be C.J. Cherryh's Faded Sun trilogy? (Since released in an omnibus, sans red dot.)
posted by Zed at 4:16 PM on October 6

I was thinking Cherryh, too. Is that it?
posted by small_ruminant at 4:44 PM on October 6

I'll second the Darkover series. Here's an example of one of the covers. Even if they didn't show the sun itself, the sky often appears red or purple. If you liked Pern, I imagine you'd like this series : )
posted by Mouse Army at 4:46 PM on October 6

Could it be be the book of the new sun by Gene Wolfe?
posted by Artw at 4:52 PM on October 6

The Sunset Warrior series, by Eric van Lustbader?

The reprints have different covers, but the ones I owned in the 80's all had "the sunset warrior" standing in front of a setting sun.
posted by Max Power at 5:22 PM on October 6

Like this
posted by Max Power at 5:23 PM on October 6

nope, none of those. the one I remember best has some sort of hobgoblin/gremlin like guy, with a window behind him where the red dot is. I don't think the word sun appeared in the titles. The whole series might have been called something about a ring or cycle.
posted by nomisxid at 5:27 PM on October 6

It's not the David Edding's Belgariad, is it?
posted by witchstone at 5:32 PM on October 6

This is going to be an extraordinarily difficult thing to pin down with no hints as to what the books were about or who the author was. There are just too many options.

Could be Donaldson's Gap cycle. Could be some of Jack Chalker's Well World or Rings of the Master series. Could be Vance's Dying Earth stuff.

Vance would be my best guess.
posted by Justinian at 7:40 PM on October 6

How about C.S. Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy (early 90's).
posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 7:51 PM on October 6

I'm pretty sure it was of the Tolkien genre of story, so in retrospect, not even remotely sci-fi. Merely in the same general section of the book store.

I know all the books/series mentioned so far, definitely not one of them.
posted by nomisxid at 8:56 PM on October 6

Ahh! So it is fantasy? I dont know why I assumed it was science fiction.

Do you remember anything else except it was probably epic fantasy, had a lot of books in the series, and had a red sun in the sky on every cover? And how sure are you of those things?

Because I should be able to figure out what books they are given they had to have been written before the early 80s. But if you're unsure on any of those counts it means that I'd probably rule out the right answer.
posted by Justinian at 9:47 PM on October 6

Well, if it were more a planet, it could possibly be everyone's favorite bizarro fantasy lifestyle guidebooks.
posted by Methylviolet at 11:12 PM on October 6

nope, not Gor either.

Since I never read the books, I don't remember much more about them. I'm positive that the red dot was on every cover, but the more I think about it, the more I am thinking that it wasn't a literal sun on every cover, but rather was something different each time, like the ruby in the eye of a statue on one book, a sun in the sky on another book, and so on.

I've checked all the "top 10 tolkien rip off" lists I can find, and none of the series they list look likely.
posted by nomisxid at 7:37 AM on October 7