Customer Reviews

Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover

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For those who have been reading the "Friends of Darkover" collections of fan fiction that MZB has edited, most of these stories will be familiar; only a couple of them are new. These are the stories, written by MZB herself, that have appeared in the various collections, collected here in one place for those purists who refuse to read the Darkover fan fiction but want to read everything that herself has had to say. They include "To Keep The Oath", the story of how Camilla came to be a renunciate; "The Keeper's Price", written in collaboration with Lisa Waters about the failed keeper Hillary Castamir, "Everything But Freedom", about the Lady Rohana, and several tales of Dyan Ardais.

The writing is excellent, as any regular reader of Marion Zimmer Bradley could have guessed, and the stories give us interesting glimpses into the interstices between the full-length Darkover novels.

If you've collected all of the Friends of Darkover Collections, you may not feel that it's worth the price of a whole book just for two new stories (although the new ones -- "Hillary's Homecoming" and "Hillary's Wedding" -- are both quite good) but if you have not been willing to buy collections of fan fiction for the one or two actual MZB stories per book, this is the book for you.

This book (kindle version) contains:

To Keep the Oath
Bonds of Sisterhood
House Rules
Knives
Firetrap
The Keeper's Price
The Lesson of the Inn
Hilary's Homecoming
Hilary's Wedding
Everything But Freedom
Oathbreaker
Hawkmaster's Son
A Man of Impulse
The Shadow

I bought this book because I wanted to fill in the holes between the Darkover books without having to wade through fan fiction. I've never read any of the other Friends of Darkover collections. In my opinion, the stories ranged from excellent to painful.

"Hilary's Homecoming" was a nightmare continuitywise. I know that MZB has stated that she was never concerned about continuity in her books, but there is a minimum. I mean, Hilary comes home as a very young virgin from Arilinn and meets her grandson as a potential suitor!

The longest story in this book "Everything But Freedom" about Rohana Ardais (from the Renunciate trilogy) ran nearly 100 pages and was only vaguely interesting. Several of the other stories were also about the Free Amazons; they were interesting, but forgettable.

The highlight of this book was definitely the section on Dyan Ardais; specifically, the last two stories, "Man of Impulse" and "The Shadow". "Man of Impulse" deals with Dyan's stay with Merryl and Marilla at Lindirsholme, which was referenced in "Sharra's Exile". "The Shadow" is about the relationship between Regis and Danilo between "Heritage of Hastur" and "Sharra's Exile".

Although most of the collection was pretty mediocre, the book is definitely worth buying if just for Dyan's stories.

Marion Zimmer Bradley declares in her preface to one of these stories that she was "not generally infatuated with [herself] as a short story writer," but she still found it worthwhile, over 37 years writing about Darkover, to turn out a few short pieces, and here she collects them for readers who are unable to obtain them in the original form. The stories are arranged according to focus: four about the Free Amazons, five about Hilary Castamir, four about Dyan Ardais (whom Bradley calls "by far the most popular character [she] ever invented"), and a novella focusing on Lady Rohana Ardais. In these stories we learn how Camilla, familiar to readers of The Saga of the Renunciates (The Shattered Chain, Thendara House, City of Sorcery) (Darkover) as Magda Lorne's lover, joined the Amazon order, and visit Guildhouses large and small to see something of how Renunciates live. We follow Hilary of The Forbidden Tower through her difficult and painful attempt at Keeper training, through her disappointed return home and her conflicts with her mother over suitors, to her rejection of the widower Farrill Lindir in favor of Colin Syrtis. We share Rohana's difficulties with a hard-drinking husband and son, an intransigent fostri (Jaelle n'ha Melora of the Renunciates novels), and the management of her family's estate; in many ways, despite Darkover's level (or lack) of technology, Rohana seems more Victorian than Medieval. And in a quartet of stories unfortunately not chronologically arranged (continuity buffs should read "Hawkmaster's Son" first, then "Oathbreaker," "The Shadow," and "Man of Impulse" last of all) we watch the development of Dyan from class-conscious youngster (he ruins the happiness of at least three people when he warns a young girl's noble father of her plans to elope with a commoner) to mature, urbane homosexual--who has a love affair, and a child, with a friend's sister. As in all Darkover books, there are tidbits aplenty about Darkovan society, the planetary environment, and all the other background information that made the planet come to life for a large fandom and keeps most of the novels in print to this day. Since the stories are best appreciated if you're already familiar with the later exploits of the characters, this shouldn't be your introduction to Darkover; start, rather, with one of the books set following the Terran rediscovery, such as those already mentioned or THE SPELL SWORD - A DARKOVER NOVEL, Sharra's Exile, or The World Wreckers (Darkover: Against the Terrans: The Second Age), then use this collection to better understand the people you meet in them.

I was a fan of the different Darkover anthologies when they first came out. They were uneven - some of the stories were great and some were horrible. This collection is made up of the stories that Marion Zimmer Bradley wrote for the collections and shows an inside look at some of her characters.

As a technical note, the Kindle version has a somewhat linked table of contents. From the table of contents, you can jump to any story, but you can't jump back to the table of contents from inside the book. It's not that important as the table of contents is at the very beginning.