Wish there was more bridge story to this one. It was written before most of the others. As I read there were so many missing links I wish were filled in.

Wish there was more bridge story to this one. It was written before most of the others. As I read there were so many missing links I wish were filled in. ( )

boys adventure: Terran & Hastur teens in the wilderness.
Noted during my 1980's attempt to read every book in my small town library.

I remember the Darkover Series as edgy, fantastic, and pushing the envelope, with a heady mix of telepathy/technology, strict cultural codes, clear but not tacitly acknowledged gay relationships. An edifice of triggers for a budding lesbian/feminist. What I'd forgotten was that MZB was often repetitive, with a writing voice that strove for sonorous dignity but missed. And "show, don't tell" wasn't part of her writing philosophy.
The plot is simple,with the requisite adventures, joys and resentments. This is the first meeting between Kennard Alton and Larry Montray, Much is revealed about the tangled history of Darkover and its denizens, and as is true of much sff, it's not the star that's the danger - it's the people.. (It's hard to describe more of the plot without spoilers.)
And yet, for all my nitpicking, MZB's Darkover remains one of my favorite series ever. Hence the 4 stars. It's worth reading.

(Plus, novels were MUCH shorter then!) ( )

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 after centuries it's rediscovered by a star-spanning high-tech human federation, giving the series a feel of both science fiction and fantasy. The series as a whole features strong female characters, (although not in this particular book) 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. It's one of the weaker books in the series, and because MZB decided not to let the hobgoblin of inconsistency trap her into ideas she outgrew, you'll find things that won't fit with books that were written later. This is definitely not the book where I'd start with the series (I'd recommend either The Shattered Chain or Heritage of Hastur.) However, it is an entertaining read and as a fan of the Darkover books, I'm happy having it among my books. But it doesn't represent the series at its best. ( )