1º - Livro escrito em 1979 - Ano em que nasci... só por isso vale as 5 estrelas.2º - História com fantasia, magia, romance, ódio... melhores combinações.3º - Obra emotiva e de grande valor, é uma leitura que merece ser repetida, pois o desenvolvimento da experiência pessoal do leitor levará a nov...
I loved MZB's books as a teenager and 30+ years later. And I was happy that Deborah J Ross was going to continue to write about Darkover. But this book felt more like she was fleshing out the characters than creating a story around the characters. She would no sooner introduce a conflict and w...
Good lord, I haven't ever hated a book as much as this one.I picked up The Mists of Avalon because I really love Nordic myths, and usually any stories about King Arthur. Everyone seems to adore this book; even my librarian told me that this was a really good Arthurian tale! Well, it's not. It's h...
Lady of Avalon is one of the books in the Mists of Avalon series. That being said, it doesn't seem to matter what order you read these books in. They jump around in time and were written in random order so they all can stand on their own. It does help to have read Mists of Avalon for some of t...
I really enjoyed this book. I was so glad to see that the book picked up where the book "Ravens of Avalon" left off.The Arch-Druid Ardanos, Lhiannon(High Priestess of Vernemeton - the Forest House), and Caillean (senior priestess assisting Lhiannon - also Lhiannon's adoptive daughter)are charact...
I was all set to give this five stars until the stupid ghost showed up.Traitor's Sun is the culmination of all the plots and schemes found in both Exile's Song and The Shadow Matrix, but is better than both of those put together. Maybe it's the fifteen-year timeskip that does it, since it allows ...
I'm not sure whether it's this edition or the other nearly identical edition which I own. I have the 1996 edition, which I believe is the 1st edition.I wanted to review this as part of a trilogy, because the comments I have for now refer to the whole trilogy (to varying degrees). The other titl...
La nascita del Patto che cambiò DarkoverGli Inferni di Zandru è un romanzo importantissimo per Darkover, perché fa luce finalmente su un personaggio storico di rilevanza fondamentale: Varzil (o Varzy) Ridenow.Varzil Ridenow viene nominato in quasi tutti i romanzi che si possono collocare cronolog...
Bradley rewrote several of her earlier books to bring them more in line with the main sequence. If she did so with this book, I haven't seen a copy.The Spell Sword isn't really enchanted, of course--there's just a matrix attached to enable the injured Dom Esteban to take over the reflexes of his...
This anthology has long been a treasured part of my fantasy fiction library. I can't recommend it highly enough. Seek it out from second-hand bookstore and prepare to be entertained by twist endings and resolutions that will challenge your notions of what makes a sword and sorcery hero. Lythande,...
Of all the worlds of the Galaxy, only the matriarchy of Isis Cinderella has returned to an ancient social order, it is on Isis that women rule, their control total and unbending, on Isis men are regarded as dangerous animals or, at best, as sexual playthings, and on Isis exists the great enigma o...
This was a great read, I loved how it picked up from where the first book "The Fall of Alantis" ends.In the first book "The Fall of Alantis" (Known as the Ancient Land - Alantis is of made up of many islands) it is foretold that the City of the Circling Snake (capital of the Ancient Land)will fal...
Omnibus of The Spell Sword and The Forbidden Tower. The story of Andrew Carr (Terran who went over-the-wall), Callista Lanart-Alton (disgraced keeper), Damon Ridenow (Darkovan noble, gifted with the laran to be a keeper, but not the gender) and Ellemir Lanart-Alton (Callista's twin) and how they...
What is the Truth? Truth Blackburn’s father thought he knew what it was. Thorne Blackburn and his followers settled at Shadow's Gate, a magnificent old house in upstate New York, and sought the Truth about life through ritual and magic. One night, something went badly wrong during Thorne’s most ...
This edition has the same cover picture as the copy I have: but I'm still not sure it's the edition I have. The copy I have may be a first edition.The dedication is important, as with many books written in collegial genres: "For DIANA PAXSON, who asked the question which directly touched off this...
Ah... Darkover. After having read eleven Darkover books, reading the next two (Stormqueen! and Hawkmistress! in the omnibus The Ages of Chaos) feels like returning home, albeit to a fantasy home. This was surprising since The Ages of Chaos takes place in early Darkovan chronology, before Darkovan...
Stormqueen! is my favorite Darkover book, despite the unfortunate punctuation in the title. It's mostly because it takes place back during the glory days of Darkover, when the Towers were all standing, when laran provided light and heat and transportation and wasn't feared or hated, and when the ...
Ah, a good Ages of Chaos tragedy.Though, it's not quite either of those. Unlike Stormqueen!, The Fall of Neskaya is sure that the Ages of Chaos were another time, back in the past when things were terrible and everyone fought each other all the time and used terrible laran weapons. Not like these...
A new Darkover omnibus Including the first Darkover novel ever written! An omnibus volume of two of Marion Zimmer Bradley's classic, long-unavailable Darkover novels.
The Heritage of Hastur (pub. 1975) and its immediate sequel, Sharra's Exile (pub. 1981) are in some ways the heart of the Darkovan cycle - they mark the end of the Comyn and the sociopolitical structure of Darkover as it was and, as Regis Hastur comes into his own, the beginnings of a new Darkove...
The alternating first-person and third-person chapters established in Heritage of Hastur is somewhat violated in this book, at least at first. It's not clear how Lew Alton is recording his story. There seems to be an immediacy to it that's probably illusory--perhaps Lew, a genuinely haunted man...
2015 Review: Where Stormqueen! was more about the breeding-program, Hawkmistress! was more about the Hundred Kingdoms. I loved them both in their own rights. Both Dorilys & Romilly are strong characters. Dorilys is frightening wonder, and Romilly is emotionally driven. Both are awesome & I'm eage...
This is the edition I have. I find, on checking the publication data, that this is actually the first edition.As is common with much-read books, this one is shopworn. The cover is taped on (I didn't get very far in conservation classes, so I can only use what I've got at hand). The edges of th...
First published in 1965, Star of Danger is a work that stands as a foundation for the bestselling Darkover series, introducing many loyal fans to this wonderful, mysterious world. Two natives of Darkover are forced to combine Darkover matrix magic with Terran technology to stand against a shared ...
4.5 stars. This is almost my perfect book. Almost.While I enjoyed Bradley's writing in Mists of Avalon, I like it even more here. There's beauty and a sense of ease to her words and she switches perspectives between characters easily. Her description of West Virginia is pretty spot on for the typ...
The long-awaited continuation to the popular science fiction saga is the story of Darkover's ruling class, the comyn, and their struggles to reclaim their realm from the devastating effects of the Terran Federation.
I wasn't sure about this book in the beginning but I am so glad I kept reading after I understood who all the tribes were and figured out how the time era was related to Avalon.Personally I thought the story wasn't focused around Avalon itself as in being in the location upon Tor. This story is ...
After the mess that was Ghostlight (book one in the Light series) I was relieved to find this one was written a little better. It isn't really necessary to read them in order, although you will miss out a little on the backstory of some characters. And there's been some uproar about the fact that...
Long out of print, these three novels that comprise The Saga of the Renunciates are now available in one volume. Bradley weaves the masterful tale of two valiant Amazon women who try to break the invisible chains of custom, convention, habit, and expectation with which society binds women, and wo...
This omnibus features two classic, long-unavailable Darkover novels-Darkover Landfall and Two to Conquer-in one volume for the first time.
The Shadow Matrix begins shortly after the conclusion of Exile's Song. Marguerida - as Margaret Alton is now called - is at Arilinn, but her training is not going well. Unable to tolerate the high-level matrices for long periods of time, she is living in a guest-house. An adult of a decidedly ind...
Sometime in the future, the human race realizes how much the population is outgrowing the planet and decides to train people to go explore the galaxy to look for other inhabitable planets. The trainees are chosen for their intelligence at a very young age, then spend their entire childhood learni...
An omnibus volume of three classic, long-unavailable Darkover novels--Star of Danger, The Bloody Sun, and Winds of Darkover--tell of two men of mixed Darkovan ancestry, who must choose where their true allegiances lie.
Careful reading of The Forbidden Tower places the start of this book right in the middle of the former. The end is well after the characters from The Forbidden Tower have returned home to Armida. Overlap doesn't really begin until toward the end.Jaelle has more excuse than Margali for being eth...
City of Sorcery (pub. 1984), takes place seven years after the events in Thendara House, and there have been changes. Peter Haldane is now Legate, and Renunciates and women of the Terran Service working together have created The Bridge Society, a means for Terran and Darkovan to share knowledge a...
The World Wreckers (pub. 1971) is, in terms of internal chronology, the last book set in post-Contact Darkover written by Bradley alone, without a collaborator. It is a story of catastrophic endings and unlooked-for new beginnings, and is the book that gives us the most information about the orig...
"A Flame in Hali" is the last book of the Clingfire Trilogy and, like the first two stories "The Fall of Neskaya" and "Zandru's Forge", is a story conceived by Marion Zimmer Bradley and written by Deborah J. Ross. All three books are set in the final generations prior to the signing of the Compac...
The Heritage of Hastur: Nominated for a Hugo Award, and described as “Bradley’s best [Darkover] novel” by Locus, The Heritage of Hastur is a brilliant epic of the pivotal events in the love-hate relationship between the Terran worlds and the semi-alien offspring of the forgotten colonists who peo...
I read the first book in this omnibus, Darkover Landfall in 2008. I'm now continuing with Two to Conquer. I am following my own reading order for the Darkover novels as described on my blog - http://www.brigidsflame.com/feymorgai... - except that I read Darkover Landfall earlier and am reading Tw...
Mike Kenscott is having a really bad vacation. One minute he's camping in the Sierra Mountains with his brother Andy, and the next minute he's on a different world - or in a different time - or both. He's also in a different body.Now he's Adric, Lord of the Crimson Tower, of the Rainbow City of N...
Sort of a 'Corsican Brothers meets fencing off the commons' piece. The Darkovan setting is frankly superfluous. This could easily be set in any European principality during the late Middle Ages. Oh, there are specifically Darkovan details (like raising buildings using laran). But mostly it's ...
The concept of a Cheryllis double is an interesting one, and would repay thoughtful examination. This ain't it. The assumption seems to be that identity in physical characteristics (down to birthmarks) would result in identity in character, no matter what the circumstances of rearing and adult li...
Originally published in Amazing Stories in December 1958, The Planet Savers was the very first Darkover novel to see print. It was here that readers first encountered the now legendary world of Cottman IV, at a time when the Terrans were desperately seeking a cure for a disease of epidemic propor...
Clouds filmed the sky, diffusing the early afternoon light. Stones, some of them the size of the wagon, dotted the slopes, but the flat ground was mostly fine gravel. Hardy grasses had taken root and then dried to ashen curls. Jorge asked if there were any danger from flash flooding, but Tia said...
"Look for someone on your crew with the technical know-how." He gave a dry, unamused laugh. "And someone who could keep their head long enough. Have the Medics figured out what hit us?" Leicester shrugged. "Me best guess I've heard so far is an airborne dust containing some violent halluci...
After a month of almost continuous snowstorms, the skies had finally cleared. How long the respite would last, no one knew. In the streets, people seized the opportunity to dig out passageways through snow piled higher than a man’s head. Regis, sitting beside the hearth, roused from his musings. ...
Kassandra was unable to imagine why Queen Imandra was so eager to have her daughter allied with Troy, and even less able to imagine why Andromache was willing—no, eager—to comply. But if she must return to Troy, she was glad to have with her something of the wide world she had discovered here. Al...
An even blue light spilled diffused radiance over the glass walls; green, scarlet, golden flashes struck through. At noon it was like dwelling in a rainbow’s heart; at night it seemed to hang high and alone, buffeted on the winds of space. Here I had first been presented to the Comyn, a boy of fi...
She still wasn’t sure how it had happened. Now that they had penetrated the upper atmosphere there was a heavy rime of frost on the windows, so there was nothing much to see. There was certainly more than enough to feel. Ysaye found herself wondering if there was supposed to be this much turbulen...