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 eager for Thunderlord!2009 Review of Stormqueen!: It takes place during the Age of Chaos, when the Seven Domains of Darkover are ruled as independent, warring fiefs engaged in a psychic arms race, developing deadly weapons through the use of their psionics and genetically engineering their children to produce ever-stronger mental powers. One of the casualties of this breeding program is Dorilys, the Stormqueen of the title. Sweet-natured, yet extremely willful and spoiled, she is denied nothing--not only because she is Heir to the Aldaran Domain, but because she is able to enforce her demands with psychically-generated lightning bolts. But as she grows older, she becomes less and less able to control her storm-causing abilities. Will Dorilys successfully master her body and mind...or will her mental strength ultimately consume her?https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/6242342-news-flash-more-darkover-novels?ref=ru_lihp_up_abp_1_mclk&uid=6242342
This is a omnibus edition and it has 2 book.I started by the second book and I really loved it. I was my first Darkover book, and it is still one of my favourites (I read more since then).The first book (StormQueen) has some details that may confuse someone that is not familiar with the Darkover world.Booth book are set in a feudal kind of society, where women are over protected (and considered inferior by some) there is war and some people has psychic abilities...Most of the Darkover book are about the psychic gifts and their use (specially in war)
What do You think about The Ages Of Chaos (2002)?
So, I checked this out from the library (having previously read both books in the omnibus) because Jo Walton's review of Hawkmistress made me want to re-read it.Unfortunately, I thought Hawkmistress was terrible. Romilly thinks she is/is portrayed as on a quest when the reality is that she's just kind of bouncing around. And her father and almost everyone else blaming her for his beating her? Just no.Stormqueen, on the other hand, was much more readable. Though there was an element here of "weirdly compulsive without actually [being] good," as Walton put it.It was weird, but as I was reading Stormqueen in particular I could see how Mercedes Lackey's Velgarth setting (or at least some elements like the makes-you-glow-blue truth spell) grew out of these books.
—Snail in Danger (Sid) Nicolaides
