Customer Reviews

Ghostlight

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

It's one thing to have a book co-written by two authors. It's one thing, perhaps, to have a book ghost written for some famous person who has never written a book and is telling their story to a ghost writer -- though even those people are often honest enough to indicate the book is 'told to' in the authorship.

But it is quite another to have an author who has written many books have someone else write a series authored under her name, copyrighted originally under her name and sold with the assumption that they are solely the author's work. I never could understand why I could never read anything but the first couple of pages of any of MZB's 'light' series before putting them down, convinced that age really had destroyed her writer's voice. Turns out I had a reason to think that as they were not written by her.

I remember purchasing the 'light' series in hardback because I had loved the authors other works and wanted to give them a chance. And being so puzzled not just at how bad they were, for I had read all her early pulp works and knew she could be clumsy at plotting and rushed and sloppy in finalizing manuscripts, but shocked at how they had nothing of her voice or intrinsic themes. After you have read dozens of an author's books, you know the authors voice, style and themes. They were missing here.

Now apparently, the truth is out that these books now have another person's name on the copyright, (though my original copies, bought when they were first published, have MZB) and this is the person who actually wrote them.

I look at the dust jackets, which proclaim "written by the author of the Mists of Avalon" and have MZB's name on them and nothing of this other person, who did more than "prepare the manuscripts for publication" as MZB writes in one forward, and I really think both TOR who published them and MZB are guilty of both fraud and deception. All it would have taken to be honest would have been to put the other author's -- call her co author if you like -- name on the books. I wouldn't have bought them -- I hate collaborative works, they usually are terrible -- but most people probably would have. I wonder at the sheer fraud involved in this practice and how what was done can be legal. I feel like I deserve my money back.


All I can say is if you are looking for books by MZB, don't buy this series. And you might not want to buy any of her books at all. By condoning this fraud, she certainly didn't show any respect or honesty toward her readers in her later years. And this is from a former fan of her work.

It's too late for me to read HEARTLIGHT first because I didn't find out that it existed until after I'd read GHOSTLIGHT, WITCHLIGHT, and GRAVELIGHT. I've never gotten around to reading my copy of MISTS OF AVALON, so I won't be making comparisons. My previous acquaintance with Ms. Bradley's writing was with her earlier Darkover novels. Yes, Truth is almost as annoying as The X-Files' Scully when it comes to denying the existence of magic. Yes, Truth often acts about as dim-witted as many gothic romance heroines were back when heroines were expected to be innocent and helpless. Yes, there were times when I wanted to reach into the book and shake her and scream out the obvious truths she was missing, but... This was still a gripping novel. I didn't suspect the whole truth about Thorne Blackburn's fate. I loved the house and its grounds. The occult trappings were very interesting. The characters came alive for me and I found myself impatiently waiting for each new twist to be revealed. One final note: My compliments to Carol Russo and Mark Hess. I LOVE a cover that accurately portrays the characters and surroundings in the book. Don't let its beautiful serenity fool you. This book is far from serene.

I read this years ago, and recently re-read it. It's always interesting to read a book you loved in the past to see if your perceptions or tastes have changed. In this case, I still enjoyed it immensely.

Truth Jourdemayne is the daughter of notorious psychic con-artist Thorne Blackburn, who started an occult movement in the 60s and who killed her mother during one of his rituals, then disappeared.

So she's dedicated her life to showing the truth about such things, scientifically, and put the past, and her father, behind her.

But now she's been asked to write her father's biography, and her aunt Caroline gives her Thorne's grimoire, and Truth decides it's time to go back to Shadow's Gate and write the true story.

When she gets there, she discovers a cult trying to recreate her father's work, and everything becomes much more confusing.

I think I liked this so much because I'm a huge sucker for gothics. The creepy old house, the intrepid heroine, the two men--one good, one evil, but you don't find out until the end which is which, and the whole air of mystery.

The twists and turns in this one were both surprising and logical, and I was sucked right in. I really enjoyed Truth--sure she knows what's real, desperate to distance herself from her father, but deep down even more desperate to know her father and for him to be someone she can love and admire.

Marion Zimmer Bradley's Ghostlight is an excellent book that looks at the world of the Occult through the eyes of a scientist plunged into Magick. Truth Jourdemayne is the daughter of the notorious "occult TV evangelist," Thorne Blackburn, who perforemd bizarre rituals on stage with traveling bands and started an Occult movement back in the 60s.

Growing up knowing her father was a lunatic and a scam artist, Truth modeled her life as a skeptic--knowing that the man who took her mother's life during one of his so-called rituals had to be out of his mind and demented. She became a parapsychologist--a scientist who investigates the evidence of paranormal psychological phenomena (ESP, telepathy, etc.).

Going back to the place of her childhood, she plans on writing a biography about the real Thorne Blackburn who used people to get money. But what will she believe when she find out that magick really is afoot?

The book centers about Truth Jourdemayne and her search for knowledge about her father and the truth behind her mother's death. Along the way, MZB has a cast of characters that she develops into very complicated individuals. The storyline is beautiful, and I love the names she gives her characters. (Like Fiona Cabot, Ellis Gardner, Caradoc Buckland, Hereward Farrar, etc.--all last names of famous witches and Wiccan writers.)

I hope the memory of MZB will be engraved into the minds of future generations of readers. Blessed be

This book, though an engaging and informed portrayal of life within the occult community, would have benefited from a solid story edit, followed by a thorough copy edit. The protagonist's actions are frequently illogical and convenient. Much of the plot hinges on a book Truth inherits from her father, which her half-brother Julian needs to complete a dark ritual. So where does she hide it? Under her mattress, even though her room has been tossed a couple of times. When she finds a "lost" item in her half-sister's room, she decides it's a dandy hiding place for something else. Or she locks something in her car for safe keeping. Safe deposit box, anyone?

Truth is presented as a powerful psychic, an intelligent and well educated woman. It is disappointing to see her so gullible in personal matters, so lacking in judgement, so devoid of simple logical reasoning powers, and so, well, flakey.

If you're an avid MBZ fan, you are likely to either love this book or be thoroughly exasperated by it. Prepare to suspend disbelief--but not in good way.

ghostlight was very intriguing and had me enthralled...i hardly could put it down as the author left me guessing and fearing nonstop as the blackburn legacy unfolded upon non-believing truth jourdemayne...a young parapsychologist visits her famous occultist father's mysterious estate to write a biography on his life only to find it inhabited by a frightening assortment of people and haunting happenings...i found it hard to decide if the humans or the happenings were the greater evil...and i decided it probably was the characters...the strange inhabitants had intents to open an ugly portal that they did not fully understand...you will come to fear "the smoothing of the path"...the last 50 pages are gut-wrenching and so beautiful one aches to see it on film...from a modern day witch's point of view,it is nice to read a novel that is so close to the "truth"

I really loved this book! The characters felt like real people to me that I wanted more, more, more of them after the last page. I admit, at first I didn't like lead character Truth Jourdemayne because of how coldly rational she seems at times, but the circumstances surrounding her were interesting from the start. Those same circumstances kept me reading until the revelations popped up one by one. And it was worth it to stick with the novel 'til the very end!

As for the 4 stars instead of five in my rating of this story, I only gave it that much because it's quite unlike THE MISTS OF AVALON (which I REALLY, REALLY loved!) by the same author. Now that book in its epic grandiosity is a five-star read. This is something like 4 and 3/4.

Marion Zimmer Bradley sure knew how to give readers their money's worth. Too bad she's no longer with us...

I'm a HUGE MZB fan, but this is definitely not one of Bradleys best. The characters were somewhat cheesy stereotypes of themselves, except for the main character, Truth Jourdemayne. She was just indecisive and annoying, even though she was built up to be this self-assured rationalist. Bad book. I'd have been mad if i'd spent money on it.

I have to agree with the previous reviewer. This book was quite boring and there was no real action until the end...and even that wasn't great.

If this is the first time you've read anything by Marion Zimmer Bradley, don't let it keep you from reading her other books--Mists of Avalon was one of the best books I ever read.

On Beltane Eve 1969, Truth Jourdemayne became an orphan when her mother died and her father disappeared while performing a magickal ritual. It is now 25 years later, and as Samhain Eve approaches, Truth finds herself in her father's Hudson Valley mansion, where a group of initiates are trying to re-create that same failed rite. Stranger and stranger things begin to happen around the house, is it haunted or is it caused by the macigkal dabbling of the inhabitants?

Black magic, haunted mansion, sounds interesting, right? Wrong.

I feel awful saying this because I love Bradley's Darkover novels, but I couldn't even finish this horrible book. It was BORING, ssllooooowwww, and the character development virtually nonexistent.