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 Bradley to drop all of Marguerida and Mikhail's angst and pass it on to their children, where angst is a bit more palatable. Much of the first two-thirds of the book deals with the Terran EmpireFederation's troubles as the new Expansionist Premier dissolves the Senate and rebellions are gestating, including on Darkover where the local Terran official is thinking of using the chaos to overthrow the Comyn. The Comyn have their own troubles, since there's a significant group who believe that Mikhail is unfit to rule--and honestly, his story about time traveling and meeting Varzil the Good does sound like a pack of lies--and their intrigues keep them from implementing a unified policy against the Terrans.The best parts are Katherine and Domenic. I have a lot more sympathy for Katherine's complaints than I do for Marguerida's in the previous books, since "woe is me, I have superpowers" is never going to make me very sympathetic. Katherine gets pulled out of her bed in the middle of the night by her husband, dragged to a frostball world in the middle of nowhere, and then learns that her husband is a telepath, her daughter might be a telepath, the people around her are all telepaths, and she's not a telepath. Now that's worth complaining about.Though Traitor's Sun does ruin it a bit later by implying that Katherine is an empath, because of course you can't have a Darkovan protagonist who doesn't have laran. Domenic was appealing mostly through his interactions with Illona. I liked watching him interacting with commoners (even if they are nedestro Comyn daughters) and learning that there are large parts of Darkovan society who don't think that the Comyn walk on water. I found it especially interesting that there's a fraternal organization on Darkover that wants a democracy, since the Darkover books tend to fall into pastoralist aristocracy-pushing with the idea that of course the Comyn are a better choice for ruling than the Terrans would be. I mean, they're born to it, right? It's nice to see that some Darkovans realize that red hair does not actually make you a better administrator. I know that the psychic powers are one of the draws of the books, but I'd like more Darkovan books with non-Comyn protagonists to explore that kind of viewpoint a bit more.Now, about the ghost. The question of Mikhail's legitimacy are finally put to rest not by debate, nor by force of arms. Nope, it's deus ex machina--in the middle of a council session, the ghost of Regis Hastur shows up claiming that Varzil the Good has sent him from the Overworld and yells at everyone for not accepting his choice of heir. This is an unsatisfying conclusion, to say the least. Might as well have Varzil himself show up, or maybe Aldones descend in glory and put a crown on Mikhail's head. When you have ghosts show up, and since Evanda already showed up last book, why not? I hope future books have Mikhail's adversaries assume he was using Varzil's matrix to trick them, because that's pretty obviously the most believable solution.What I really hope future books go into is the blatant violation of the Compact at the end, though. I know that the Terrans had blasters, but using laran to rip an army apart with telekinesis is straight up Ages of Chaos-level warfare. Probably worse, because I think even in the Ages of Chaos most direct laran use in warfare was in telepathic confusion and playing on enemies' fears, while direct weapons like clingfire were first made in the Towers and then deployed by hand. They didn't have Tower circles just psychically bomb people's castles, but it sounds like Mikhail and Marguerida could do it. Once the worry about the Terrans starts to fade after they leave Darkover, are the knives among the Comyn going to come out again? What kind of balance of power is there if the Hastur regent can probably kill anyone else he wants with laran? Without the spiritus ex machina this would be one of the best Darkover novels I've read, but with it isn't merely good and requires slogging through two other mediocre-to-bad books before it. I don't regret reading it, but I'm not sure it's worth the hassle. Previous review: The Shadow Matrix
The title is terrible, as I've already commented. So far, the book is not so bad. We'll see how it ends.Frankly, the descriptions of Federation worlds are not particularly convincing. It's not just that they portray people as helpless puppets, unable to think for themselves if they're exposed to even a little 'propaganda'. It is that, but it's not JUST that. There's also the notion that technology is monolithic and inevitably destructive, as if technology inevitably has to go in one direction, and is inertially trapped in that course, once it's started. Yet Darkovans use extensive technology, just to survive--and also to thrive. It's not electrical technology (anymore). It's not 'disposable' technology--and I suppose this is meant to be the difference.But the technology that the Terran Federation uses doesn't HAVE to be 'disposable'. It's always a choice. Mass production can be used to produce fewer, more durable things, as easily as it can be used to make cheap, obsolescent goods in vast numbers. Excellent, durable objects can be made by machines--and then hand-finished, by crafters who take pride (and time) in the process. Indeed, we're ALREADY making things that are too well-designed for what they're used for. If people less than 200 years from the beginning of industrialization are capable of recognizing this, and perhaps even doing something about it, why hasn't the Federation, with hundreds (even, it's sometimes argued, thousands) of years of experience, never recognized it?Anyway, this book takes place about twenty years after the previous one (The Shadow Matrix). Early in the book Regis Hastur suffers a fatal stroke. This moves up people's schedules quite a bit, but it's not as if they hadn't been planning for years. Also early in the book, the Federation begins to implode. The Chamber of Deputies and the Senate are dissolved, and the Darkovan Senator, Herm Aldaran (who has the Aldaran Gift in full), drags his family to Darkover, rather than to his wife's homeworld, partly because he fears that their daughter has laran, and wouldn't get proper training elsewhere. The Federation has been planning to shut down the spaceport on Darkover for some time, and they have about thirty days to prepare at the start of this book. This forces people who had been plotting for years to force Darkover into full membership to accelerate their schedules, as well. And then there's Domenic Lanart-Hastur, who can hear the forces inside the planet...I have to say I don't have much respect for the reasoning capacities of the characters. In one scene, the obvious thing to do is to use the command voice to command people to follow their own consciences. Most of the ambushers would have dropped their weapons and fled, since this was what they wanted to do anyway. The few who did not could have been handled on a one-on-one basis.One of the things I'd forgotten was that Regis Hastur KNEW he'd shortened his own life by handling the Sword of Aldones. He'd probably chosen to forget it himself...but it may help account for why he was so urgent toward the end, when most people thought he still had decades before him.One inconsistency: back in the days of Valdir Alton, the Darkovans imported one technology they shouldn't've had to import: the art of lens-grinding. In this book, they have to steal binoculars, camera lenses, etc. Why? Well, probably because most weren't literate at the time--and because they didn't train any women (particularly Free Amazons), as far as I can tell. The art of lens-grinding on Earth was pioneered and often sustained by women. Maybe if it had been taught to women on Darkover, it would have been passed down.
What do You think about Traitor's Sun (2000)?
You know, I think MZB and Stephanie Meyer would get on well together. Neither of them know how to write an action sequence worth a damn, and both of them have eye-widening views on the role of women in the world. Meyers wins on titles, though - I have no idea what the hell "Traitor's Sun" is supposed to mean. Nothing special happened to the sun.Hey, did you know that a woman named "Margaret" or sometimes "Marja" will randomly change her name to (and be addressed as) "Marguerida" in this late-series book? She totally will! Why, you ask? Dude. I have no idea. There is no internal logic in the Darkover canon, and it'll drive you crazy to try and chart a path.I can't say I liked this book, but it's probably better than any other Darkover I've read... oh wait, no, I've just remembered the idiotic sequence in the conference room (or whatever the hell that thing's called). Never mind. Stupid.
—Grace
I was very disappointed by this book.Latest episode of the Series by the time I read it, co-written with Adrienne Martine-Barnes as was The Shadow Matrix. A thick book of 550 pages with nothing really happening but a lot of thought-sharing, introspection and talking. There is a main plot - a Terran conspiracy against Hastur. No suspense at all though. The Terran characters stay in the background, except maybe in the first stages of the conspiracy. But then the author(s) seem(s) to loose totally interest in them. I would have switch points of view between Terrans and Tenebrans from one chapter to the next, before, during and after the events. This conspiracy is only a pretext for an outcome that is told in a few paragraph wrapping 500+ pages of a Santa Barbara-like script.There is only one interesting part worth reading. There the faithfull Darkover reader finds the passion and the drama of Marion Zimmer Bradley intact, and this is -of course- the Comyn council.In the Darkovan chronology, the last real episode with sound and fury noise and fury and fascinating read is Sharra's Exile. If you want to read about anti-Hastur conspiracy, please read The World Wreckers which is also a must-read if you want to know more about the Chieri.
—François
Me ha gustado, pero podría haber sido aún más malo todavía. Además, el hecho que se pasen media novela en plan "los terranos nos van a atacar y tenemos que estar alerta" molesta un poco. Y Alanna, donde en las novelas anteriores se presenta como una amenaza, aparece una sola vez. ¿No era tan peligrosa, Marja? ¿Meterla en medio quizás hubiera sido otra solución para liarla?En fin.Creo que la novela me ha gustado más por los personajes (sobre todo Illana, Nico, Marguerida, Kate...) que por la hist
—Claudia
