approfondimento sconclusionato e demente sui "Chieri" (elfi di Darkover) ( )

One of the first written and I liked it a lot. Many fabulous characters, great history lessons, tension and then great resolution and hope for future. ( )

Noted during my 1980's attempt to read every book in my small town library.

This was, in many ways, supposed to be the end of the Darkover series. It wrapped up multiple plot lines from earlier (published) books, and ended the Darkover from those books.

Spoiler Alert ***************************************************************

Darkover 'loses', and ultimately becomes a part of the Terran Empire, like every other human colony. But it makes that Empire change its policies and practices, something no other lost colony ever has. It's the best outcome Darkover could ever expect to get. ( )

I'm a fan of Marion Zimmer Bradley, but my affection for her rests not on the Avalon books, which I didn't care for, but her Darkover series. Darkover is a "lost colony" of Earth that falls into a medieval society. Ruled by a psychic aristocracy it is later rediscovered by a star-spanning high-tech human federation after centuries, giving the series a feel of both science fiction and fantasy. The series as a whole features strong female characters, but it has enough swashbuckling adventure to draw the male of the species, and indeed this series was recommended to me by a guy (when we were in high school!)

Although some books are loosely connected, having characters in common, they were written to be read independently and were written out of sequence. Part of the difficulty of knowing what to read, and in what order to read comes from that. This is an early book in terms of Marion Zimmer Bradley's career, in my opinion before she had come into her own and honed her craft; I'd count this as one of her weakest books among those not involving collaborations. Yet chronologically in terms of the timeline of the series, this is the last book, at least if you count those we can be sure MZB wrote on her own, not part of any collaboration. It's definitely not the book where I'd start. (I'd recommend The Shattered Chain or Heritage of Hastur as better entry points.) There are also inconsistencies between this book and those that fall earlier in the chronology but written later. For someone who has become a fan of Darkover though, well, I couldn't resist seeking it out, but it doesn't represent the series at its best. ( )