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 (there seems to have been some brain damage caused by his father's final telepathic command, for example) is reliving the experience as a form of therapeutic catharsis.Regis Hastur, though he has his psychological problems, seems to have always been a more stable person, less controlled by his passions (but see Heritage of Hastur to recognize that threshold sickness can shake the most tranquil character), and he handles the crisis of the book better--as he handles most things better.Several people point out in the book that the Comyn Council is an anachronism--but few seem to realize that there was very little basis for it in the FIRST place. A story of the establishment of the Council, and the reasons for same, would repay reading.This book continues the practice of denying history. Several characters speculate that there must be archives of some sort explaining what happened in history--but instead of going in search of them, they instead rely on shaky and dangerous expeditions to try to plumb the memory of living fossils like Mother Ashara--often with disastrous results. The censorship by the Comyn council of what people can learn is justified quite a few times in the books by arguing, essentially, that the people are not capable of deciding for themselves what they can or should learn. At least once, whole areas of study are declared off limits because they are described as 'idle' and the argument is that people don't need to know that stuff. The existence of (a) separate Darkovan culture(s) might or might not have been possible without the bookburning tendencies of the founding generation. But the damage inflicted by the perennial tendency to try to expunge any record of the past (besides vague traditions most people can't fathom the reason for) indubitably results in serious catastrophes for people who find themselves caught in serial and parallel tragedies, almost entirely unrelieved by humor, and mostly lacking even the ameliorating comforts of everyday life. At one point in the book, Lew Alton refers to 'games' played in the Towers that amount to psychic fencing matches. What about other games? In Heritage of Hastur, Lew uses forcing flowers to bloom prematurely as a training game--but as pointed out in Stormqueen!, there are other games (hide and seek comes at once to mind) that could be used as training tools. Part of the abusive nature of Darkovan society is that they recognize that things are dangerous, but they seem to argue that this means you shouldn't play with them, even in a dry run. If Terrans had run their technology that way--well, it looks like they WERE doing that when the original ship crashed. Perhaps that's WHY the ship crashed. If they'd done more virtual testing, they might not have been in a situation where the crashed ship had no contact with potential rescuers. The Darkovans abandoned a lot of their past--it might have helped if they abandoned that bit as well. For a comparison, it might be worthwhile to contrast the violent (and cooperatively warlike) Darkovans with the more individualistic (and more cooperative, except in warfare) Gethenians from LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness. One important point of contrast--the barely post-adolescent Marius Alton is ashamed of his tears for his distant (in all senses of the word) father. By the time of Sharra's Exile, Bradley has come to understand this as a sign of his youth, not of 'manliness'--Marius is afraid he will be considered childish, not that he'll be considered unmanly. Older people who have passed through this phase cry unashamedly. Well, it's a start. Another issue only glancingly discussed is the reaction of the Darkovans, accustomed to low light, to the bright lighting of Empire technology and the more brightly sunlit worlds. As a default expert on this subject, I would say that Bradley probably did NOT have trouble with bright lights. She shows no real appreciation for how hard it is to get around and do ordinary tasks in such painful and disabling lighting. A few vague references to 'headaches', it's true--but no stories of people planning excursions to allow for travel through shadows, no real discussion of how it's not possible to see where you're going, read road signs, etc. Andre Norton discusses the subject a little better in her Janus books--Bradley doesn't seem to have thought the matter through.The internal chronology of this book is such that other books would fit within the 'books' of this one. Thus, for example, Planet Savers would probably have been around the time that Lew Alton discovers that his genome has been irreparably damaged. This damage was NOT established in the earlier version (Sword of Aldones), which results in some discontinuities within fan fiction (one story supplies Marja with siblings, for example). The damage to Lew's somatic DNA need not, of course, have cause damage to the gametes, since the injury was to the hand. But apparently it did.It's never established, by the way, why Diotima Ridenow didn't choose to have children of her own. There's no reason to believe that Lew Alton would have protested--he might even have encouraged her to have children by other fathers...or to make use of modern reproductive technologies. Lew's great-uncle Damon (probably also Dio's great-uncle--Darkovan geneaeologies tend to be like that), after all, arranged matters so that not only he, but Ellemir, were able to have children, once they realized that they were too closely related to have children together. Perhaps Dio didn't want more children?Later parts of the book are several years later. Kennard Alton dies on the pleasure world of Vainwal, to which he had resorted when his rheumatism got bad enough that he needed regular access to hot springs, and a mild climate. It's not clear how old Kennard was when he married Yllana Aldaran. He had recognized that his first, dynastic marriage wasn't going to work out early on, but he seems to have stayed married to her until she died--so he may have been in his forties or older before he was freed to marry again. There's no doubt he was already prone to lameness and aching joints even before he left Arilinn, to which he seems have returned after Yllana's death, while his sons were still children.Kennard was probably over 70, therefore, when he died. He was preparing to return to Darkover when he died; to contest plans to declare the Lordship of Alton vacant because both he and Lew had been offplanet for too long. His last command to Lew precipitates most of the later action.Several things are established in this book which are belied in later books. One which had been established earlier as well is that Jeff Kerwin, Jr is the son of Cleindori and her foster-brother--Kennard's older brother (also named Lewis), and NOT of Arnad Ridenow. Whatever one's opinion of all these people having sexual relations with their foster-siblings (I hope I've made my own objections clear), this is apparently what happened yet again in this case. Arnad Ridenow would have been MUCH too close kin to Cleindori for it to be safe for her to have a child with him.It's also established in this book that Gabriel Lanart-Hastur is the descendant of Ann'dra Carr and Ellemir Lanart-Alton (I think he was a grandson, but if so, he was probably a lateborn child).One thing which IS carried on to later books is that wielding the Sword of Aldones is very hazardous to the health, even for a Hastur. This has aftereffects that bear watching.At the end of this book, Marguerida Alton is said to be between three and five years old. This means that it can't be more than six years since her conception--which places the ending of this book around the time that Regis Hastur was about 21. Prematurely white-haired, indeed!
There is a lot to like in this fast-moving sequel to _The Heritage of Hastur_; there's also a lot of problems, though. I have rather fond memories of this book from when I read it as a young teenager, but I was more into books for action and plot back then. If you read this one quickly it helps, partly because, as Bradley explains in the author's note, she wrote it quickly. Of course that hasty composition shows: there are many, many contradictions in detail, sometimes on a single page; there are tedious repetitions, again often immediately following the part they repeat; there are sections of plot that in which sequence and motivation are hazy (at best). _Heritage_ was such a groundbreaking (and overall pretty good) novel that this sequel is a serious letdown. Another part of the problem is that this is (despite Bradley's rationalizations in her author's note) a rewrite of the first Darkover novel, _The Sword of Aldones_. She keeps far too much of the characters and plot from that book to make this novel either coherent or true to its prequel (though she does try). But the more mature handling of Lew Alton's character, as well as the character of Dio Ridenow, is one of the positive features of the work, as is all the little shoutouts to her earlier oeuvre that she brings in (even noting that villain Kadarin came from a planet called Wolf, which links Darkover up with some of Bradley's other science fiction). Like the most immediate preceding Darkover novel, _Two to Conquer_, I think this novel suffers from tooo much writing Bradley found herself engaged in during the late 1970s, while she was working on the enormous (and much better) _Mists of Avalon_. It's too bad that some of her Darkover output was flawed because of her concentration on that novel; but that novel was so good that I also can't really feel too badly about this one.
What do You think about Sharra's Exile (1981)?
Meraviglioso completamento a L’EREDE DI HASTUR...… al punto che dovrebbero essere un libro solo, a mio parere, intitolato proprio L’EREDE DI HASTUR. Ammetto, tuttavia, che con ogni probabilità non sono obiettivo perché ho sempre avuto un debole per il personaggio di Regis mentre non mi è mai importato tanto di Lew (l’altro protagonista, checché non figuri nel titolo). Tutto il romanzo procede con un senso di immane tragedia, e non è che non ci siano i suoi momenti tragici (le numerose morti da sole bastano e avanzano per qualificarlo come tale), ma non termina in tragedia e – anzi – avrebbe dovuto essere lo spartiacque definitivo tra il ‘vecchio’ Darkover e quello ‘nuovo’ (inteso in termini della cronologia interna della serie, con la presenza dell’Impero Terrestre sempre più cospicua su Cottman IV). Per come è narrato e come termina, si può dire che sia il contrario di LA SIGNORA DELLE TEMPESTE, che ha una narrazione più lieta, nonostante gli intrighi, e ha invece un finale tragico. Sia come sia, e soprattutto se considerato un tutt’uno con L’EREDE DI HASTUR, è uno dei romanzi più belli di tutta la saga.
—Marcello Tarot
This was the first Darkover book I read, more than a quarter of a century ago. I didn't realize it until the end, when I came to a section that was very memorable. Again, this was quite a good novel, one that deals with the events that are 'legendary' in the Darkover canon, events that are referred to throughout the other novels--when Regis Hastur wields the Sword of Aldones to banish Sharra.Bradley apparently had the idea for this story when she was about fifteen, which would have been in the late 1940s, and she had written it once in a novel called 'The Sword of Aldones,' which, she admits in the introduction to this novel, she didn't do a very good job of, and she says that she wanted to rework the story and do it again rather than rewrite the novel. It's interesting to me that there were a couple of novels Bradley wrote when she was younger, realized as she matured and her artistic abilities grew, and she rewrote or reworked as a mature artist. I have written on one of htese already, Star of Danger, which is excellent--I commented at the time how much better it seemed that other of its comtnemporary books, then I realized that it was a good that had been rewritten fifteen years later and was good. Such is the case with Sharra's Exhile/Sowrd of Aldones. Picking up where Heritage of Hastur left off, this novel follows the narrative pattern of the previous book, alternating third person narration from Regis' point of view and first person narration from Lew Alton's. It follows the romance, falling out, and reunion of Lew with Diotima Ridenow; these are major characters in the Exhile's Return triology, Bradley's last and perhaps greatest triology. It also follow Regis' efforts to banish Sharra and the matrix that has the power to destroy both the Darkovans and the Terrna base. It traces the development of Regis from a reluctant young man to the man who will be crowned King on Darkover and, later, Regent (the real political power).Exciting, action packed, interesting exploraiton of gender and, in this case, male sexuality. The only flaw I find is one I alluded to in my critique of the previous novel, that some clumsy foreshadowing in the Lew sections spoils the plot and seems melodramatic ina Victorian manner. Overall, a really good, almost great, book.I do have to mention that the warm, likeable, loving father we see Lew Alton be is incconsistent with the distant, angry, poor father we see in Exhile's return. Although Lew returns to himself later in the final trilogy, Bradley commits a pretty serious character violation with him in the later book.Doesn't lessen my opinion of this novel, though. A definite read.
—Chuck
3.75I want half stars. I feel guilty giving this one three stars but at the same time I don't feel like giving it four stars. I enjoyed Stormqueen and The heritage of Hastur (I hope that's the English title, I can't remember right now) more. Sharra's Exile is still a good installment, and I love Dani and Regis like ther's no tomorrow, but Sharra's Exile lacked something, I think. The plot was quite good (though, again it can't compare to The heritage of Hastur in my opinion) and it was refined in its political aspects as well, but it wasn't as interesting as I expected it to be. I still liked the old characters, most of them anyway, but I didn't exactly warm up to some new ones. I'm talking about you, Dia. Dia aside I quite liked Lew's storyline.Anyway...Regis and Dani are still OTP. Too bad I wanted to see them more.
—Giovanna
