The Spell Sword [Paperback]

Marion Zimmer Bradley (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: DAW Books (December 1987)
• ISBN-10: 9993795704
• ISBN-13: 978-9993795704
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,429,445 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Marion Eleanor Zimmer was born in Albany, NY, on June 3, 1930, and married Robert Alden Bradley in 1949. Mrs. Bradley received her B.A. in 1964 from Hardin Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, then did graduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1965-67.
She was a science fiction/fantasy fan from her middle teens. She had written as long as she could remember, but wrote only for school magazines and fanzines until 1952, when she sold her first professional short story to VORTEX SCIENCE FICTION. She wrote everything from science fiction to Gothics, but is probably best known for her Darkover novels and for her Arthurian novel, THE MISTS OF AVALON.
In addition to her novels, Mrs. Bradley edited magazines, amateur and professional, including Marion Zimmer Bradley's FANTASY Magazine, which she started in 1988. She also edited an annual anthology called SWORD AND SORCERESS, which is still published annually under the title MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY'S SWORD AND SORCERESS.
She died in Berkeley, California on September 25, 1999, four days after suffering a major heart attack.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a good Darkover novel, March 11, 2004

By 

Joe Sherry (Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Spell Sword (Darkover: Against the Terran: The First Age) (Mass Market Paperback)

"The Spell Sword" is another Darkover novel by Marion Zimmer Bradley. This one is set sometime after the Terran Empire rediscovered Darkover. Now there are both the Darkovan natives, as well as men from Terra living on Darkover. This novel begins in a way that we have seen several times before: with a crash of a Terran vehicle on Darkover. This time it is from a team based at the Terran outpost at Thendara. Andrew Carr is a member of the Mapping and Explorations team that is slowly gathering information about Darkover. In a winter storm, the plane crashed and it was only through what Andrew thought was a hallucination that he was able to survive for very long in the storm. Andrew had visions of a woman named Callista guiding him away from the plane and to safety, but he had difficulty believing that these visions might be true. Eventually, Carr does come to accept that the vision is more than a hallucination, but someone communicating with him.

Damon Ridenow has been called to help find Callista, who has gone missing without a trace. Before Damon arrives at Callista's home he has to travel through someplace called "the darkened land" where the land is in shadows, uninhabitable and attacks can come from invisible assailants. Not a place you would want to spend much time. After passing through "the darkened land", Damon learns more about Callista's abduction and also meets Andrew Carr who was led there somehow by the vision of Callista. When Andrew and Damon discuss what has happened, they see the connection and that the only way to save Callista is by working together. Damon is surprised to discover that Andrew, a Terran, also has the potential to be a telepath, which Damon believed was a skill native to Darkover.

Throughout the Darkover series we hear that there are non-human races on the planet: the chieri and the cat-people. While we see the chieri once or twice, we have never seen the cat-people before and this was an area that I was interested in. For the most part, they are not developed as a race or as characters, except that we now know that some can be telepaths like humans (and chieri). We also know that they are mainly enemies of humans (though they have worked with the less reputable humans from the Dry Towns), though Damon does allow that their motives and culture are so far removed from human that it would be difficult to truly comprehend it.

This is a short novel, coming in less than 200 pages, but I found it to be fairly entertaining and I suspect that it sets the stage for the much longer "The Forbidden Tower" which features many of the same characters. "The Spell Sword" serves as introduction to Andrew Carr, Damon Ridenow, and Callista. It is fairly good for a fantasy novel, though it does not feature the depth of some. This is a straight forward story with some action.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Darkover has lots of magic weapons..., July 15, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Spell Sword (Thorndike Press Large Print Science Fiction Series) (Hardcover)

Darkover history has a lot of magic weapons, for an example the legendary Aldones sword. This story is about another sword, one with a matrix in it that aloud Don Steban, one great warrior that has been hurted in battle and can not walk, to fight trough the person who is holding it. This book, also, present us to Andrew Carr, a terran who has been haunted by the spirit of a Keeper wich is trapped by non-humans appart from her friends and family. He found himself atracted by the strange planet and when his plane has crashed in the Hellers he needs to believe in the strange woman, which appears only to him, to survive. Another important caracther that appears in this book is Damon Ridenow, a man who has lost his faith in himself when the Keeper of Arilin Tower send him away. This man starts here his journey, to get back his own confidence and leadership; the following steps in his path will be shown in the book named Forbiden Tower.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Terran among the Keepers., August 20, 2006

By 

frumiousb "frumiousb" (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

Andrew Carr is stationed on Darkover, drawn there by a strange vision of a woman he has never met. When his plane crashes in the wild mountains of the planet, it is a power that he does not believe that draws him to safety. Both he and the Comyn Lords of the hills will have to overcome their prejudices to rescue Callista-- the mysterious woman of Carr's visions.

The Darkover series is absolutely brilliant. I still find it the best of Bradley's work. The Spell Sword is an excellent example. Prejudice, culture shock, gender, and self-confidence are the themes that make her work so very good.

Highly recommended, either as a separate book or as part of one of the omnibus editions. The Daw paperback from 1974 comes bound with a note about the chronology of the series.