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Darkover (Publication Order) #9
L'héritage d'Hastur
Described as "Bradley's best novel" by Locus , THE HERITAGE OF HASTUR, longest and most intricate of the Darkover books, is a brilliant epic of the pivotal event in the strange love-hate relationship between the Terran worlds and the semi-alien offspring of forgotten peoples.This is the novel of the Hastur tradition and of the showdown between those who would bargain away their world for the glories of star-borne science and those who would preserve the special "matrix" power that was at once the prize and the burden of ruddy-sunned Darkover.A Note From theTo the faithful followers of the chronicles of Darkover, whose greatest delight seems to be discovering even the most minute inconsistencies from book toThis book tells a story which a great many of the friends of Darkover have asked me to tell - the story of the early life of Regis Hastur, and of the Sharra rising, and of Lew Alton's first encounter with Marjorie Scott and the man who called himself Kadarin.The faithful followers mentioned above will discover a very few minute inconsistencies between the account herein, and the story as Lew Alton told it later. I make no apologies for these. The only explanation I can make is that in the years which elapsed between the events in this book, and the later novel dealing with the final destruction of the Sharra matrix, Lew's memories of these events may have altered his perceptions. Or, as I myself believe, the telepaths of the Arilinn Tower may have mercifully blurred his memories, to save his reason.MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY
476 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1975
17 people are currently reading
1394 people want to read
About the author
Marion Zimmer Bradley
800 books4,871 followersMarion Eleanor Zimmer Bradley was an American author of fantasy novels such as The Mists of Avalon and the Darkover series, often with a feminist outlook.
Bradley's first published novel-length work was Falcons of Narabedla, first published in the May 1957 issue of Other Worlds. When she was a child, Bradley stated that she enjoyed reading adventure fantasy authors such as Henry Kuttner, Edmond Hamilton, and Leigh Brackett, especially when they wrote about "the glint of strange suns on worlds that never were and never would be." Her first novel and much of her subsequent work show their influence strongly.
Early in her career, writing as Morgan Ives, Miriam Gardner, John Dexter, and Lee Chapman, Marion Zimmer Bradley produced several works outside the speculative fiction genre, including some gay and lesbian pulp fiction novels. For example, I Am a Lesbian was published in 1962. Though relatively tame by today's standards, they were considered pornographic when published, and for a long time she refused to disclose the titles she wrote under these pseudonyms.
Her 1958 story The Planet Savers introduced the planet of Darkover, which became the setting of a popular series by Bradley and other authors. The Darkover milieu may be considered as either fantasy with science fiction overtones or as science fiction with fantasy overtones, as Darkover is a lost earth colony where psi powers developed to an unusual degree. Bradley wrote many Darkover novels by herself, but in her later years collaborated with other authors for publication; her literary collaborators have continued the series since her death.
Bradley took an active role in science-fiction and fantasy fandom, promoting interaction with professional authors and publishers and making several important contributions to the subculture.
For many years, Bradley actively encouraged Darkover fan fiction and reprinted some of it in commercial Darkover anthologies, continuing to encourage submissions from unpublished authors, but this ended after a dispute with a fan over an unpublished Darkover novel of Bradley's that had similarities to some of the fan's stories. As a result, the novel remained unpublished, and Bradley demanded the cessation of all Darkover fan fiction.
Bradley was also the editor of the long-running Sword and Sorceress anthology series, which encouraged submissions of fantasy stories featuring original and non-traditional heroines from young and upcoming authors. Although she particularly encouraged young female authors, she was not averse to including male authors in her anthologies. Mercedes Lackey was just one of many authors who first appeared in the anthologies. She also maintained a large family of writers at her home in Berkeley. Ms Bradley was editing the final Sword and Sorceress manuscript up until the week of her death in September of 1999.
Probably her most famous single novel is The Mists of Avalon. A retelling of the Camelot legend from the point of view of Morgaine and Gwenhwyfar, it grew into a series of books; like the Darkover series, the later novels are written with or by other authors and have continued to appear after Bradley's death.
Her reputation has been posthumously marred by multiple accusations of child sexual abuse by her daughter Moira Greyland, and for allegedly assisting her second husband, convicted child abuser Walter Breen, in sexually abusing multiple unrelated children.
(from Wikipedia)
Bradley's first published novel-length work was Falcons of Narabedla, first published in the May 1957 issue of Other Worlds. When she was a child, Bradley stated that she enjoyed reading adventure fantasy authors such as Henry Kuttner, Edmond Hamilton, and Leigh Brackett, especially when they wrote about "the glint of strange suns on worlds that never were and never would be." Her first novel and much of her subsequent work show their influence strongly.
Early in her career, writing as Morgan Ives, Miriam Gardner, John Dexter, and Lee Chapman, Marion Zimmer Bradley produced several works outside the speculative fiction genre, including some gay and lesbian pulp fiction novels. For example, I Am a Lesbian was published in 1962. Though relatively tame by today's standards, they were considered pornographic when published, and for a long time she refused to disclose the titles she wrote under these pseudonyms.
Her 1958 story The Planet Savers introduced the planet of Darkover, which became the setting of a popular series by Bradley and other authors. The Darkover milieu may be considered as either fantasy with science fiction overtones or as science fiction with fantasy overtones, as Darkover is a lost earth colony where psi powers developed to an unusual degree. Bradley wrote many Darkover novels by herself, but in her later years collaborated with other authors for publication; her literary collaborators have continued the series since her death.
Bradley took an active role in science-fiction and fantasy fandom, promoting interaction with professional authors and publishers and making several important contributions to the subculture.
For many years, Bradley actively encouraged Darkover fan fiction and reprinted some of it in commercial Darkover anthologies, continuing to encourage submissions from unpublished authors, but this ended after a dispute with a fan over an unpublished Darkover novel of Bradley's that had similarities to some of the fan's stories. As a result, the novel remained unpublished, and Bradley demanded the cessation of all Darkover fan fiction.
Bradley was also the editor of the long-running Sword and Sorceress anthology series, which encouraged submissions of fantasy stories featuring original and non-traditional heroines from young and upcoming authors. Although she particularly encouraged young female authors, she was not averse to including male authors in her anthologies. Mercedes Lackey was just one of many authors who first appeared in the anthologies. She also maintained a large family of writers at her home in Berkeley. Ms Bradley was editing the final Sword and Sorceress manuscript up until the week of her death in September of 1999.
Probably her most famous single novel is The Mists of Avalon. A retelling of the Camelot legend from the point of view of Morgaine and Gwenhwyfar, it grew into a series of books; like the Darkover series, the later novels are written with or by other authors and have continued to appear after Bradley's death.
Her reputation has been posthumously marred by multiple accusations of child sexual abuse by her daughter Moira Greyland, and for allegedly assisting her second husband, convicted child abuser Walter Breen, in sexually abusing multiple unrelated children.
(from Wikipedia)
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June 27, 2020
(DAW Collectors #160
Cover Artist: Jack Gaughan.
Name: Bradley, Marion Eleanor Zimmer, Birthplace: Albany, New York, USA, (03 June 1930 - 25 September 1999)
Alternate Names: Lee Chapman, John Dexter.
The planet of Darkover is inhabited by a human civilization with medieval level technology, but extensive psychic ability (i.e. magic in a traditional fantasy novel). The Terran Empire, a star faring human empire, has discovered Darkover and limited relations have been established. In other words, the overarching story of the Darkover series imagines what might happen if a science-fiction genre civilization ran into a fantasy genre civilization.
Cover Artist: Jack Gaughan.
Name: Bradley, Marion Eleanor Zimmer, Birthplace: Albany, New York, USA, (03 June 1930 - 25 September 1999)
Alternate Names: Lee Chapman, John Dexter.
The planet of Darkover is inhabited by a human civilization with medieval level technology, but extensive psychic ability (i.e. magic in a traditional fantasy novel). The Terran Empire, a star faring human empire, has discovered Darkover and limited relations have been established. In other words, the overarching story of the Darkover series imagines what might happen if a science-fiction genre civilization ran into a fantasy genre civilization.
July 6, 2012
Before picking up this book, I had read eight Darkover novels, generally in the order of their publication. What, I wondered, drew so many readers to them? Some of them were truly awful, while others were enjoyable, but not great. Then I got to The Heritage of Hastur, and it has given me an "a-ha moment."
In previous works, Darkover as a world was much more compelling than any of its inhabitants, whose personalities melted into sameness. Dialogue tended to be stiff, the narrative erratic. Yet, this fictional planet, with its Darkovan and Terran populace in constant friction, surrounded by the planet's native inhabitants who are at turns beautiful and deadly -- what rich material to mine!
With The Heritage of Hastur, Bradley has produced a tale with believably motivated -- and believable -- characters. The complex plot involves two young men who question the society from which they come and to which they feel indebted. Each considers casting off his destiny among the highest caste of Darkover, and each must struggle with demons within and without before finding his path.
Lew and Regis have appeared in other Darkover novels, both as older and younger characters, but here we get to the heart of their transition into adulthood and their profound effect on Darkovan society.
This book, and its place in the universe of Darkover novels, is brought to light in an excellent introduction by the late Susan Wood (in the 1977 Gregg Press edition). Her comments about Bradley's earlier Darkover works helped me to understand my own reactions to them, and helped me see that part of the reason I found them so poor is that they were written during a time when science fiction publishers expected quick-reading, quickly-written, happy-ending paperback adventures.
The Heritage of Hastur gives the reader so much more; and yes, it can stand alone without one's having read other Darkover books. I recommend it.
In previous works, Darkover as a world was much more compelling than any of its inhabitants, whose personalities melted into sameness. Dialogue tended to be stiff, the narrative erratic. Yet, this fictional planet, with its Darkovan and Terran populace in constant friction, surrounded by the planet's native inhabitants who are at turns beautiful and deadly -- what rich material to mine!
With The Heritage of Hastur, Bradley has produced a tale with believably motivated -- and believable -- characters. The complex plot involves two young men who question the society from which they come and to which they feel indebted. Each considers casting off his destiny among the highest caste of Darkover, and each must struggle with demons within and without before finding his path.
Lew and Regis have appeared in other Darkover novels, both as older and younger characters, but here we get to the heart of their transition into adulthood and their profound effect on Darkovan society.
This book, and its place in the universe of Darkover novels, is brought to light in an excellent introduction by the late Susan Wood (in the 1977 Gregg Press edition). Her comments about Bradley's earlier Darkover works helped me to understand my own reactions to them, and helped me see that part of the reason I found them so poor is that they were written during a time when science fiction publishers expected quick-reading, quickly-written, happy-ending paperback adventures.
The Heritage of Hastur gives the reader so much more; and yes, it can stand alone without one's having read other Darkover books. I recommend it.
July 6, 2021
Este libro es realmente una joyita. El crecimiento y autoconocimiento de los jóvenes protagonistas de la historia, combinados con el despertar telepático de algunos habitantes de Darkover, está excelentemente construido. Por otro lado los conflictos de poder y, en general, toda la ambientación del planeta y su relación con el Imperio Terrano, es de lujo. Una digna continuación a esta saga.
May 27, 2020
Terza (o forse quarta?) rilettura di questo capolavoro della science-fantasy, in cui Marion Zimmer Bradley approfitta di un world building creato ad hoc da lei per affrontare problemi della società degli anni '70 e '80.
In cima a tutti ci sono naturalmente i giochi di potere tra Darkover e l'Impero Terrestre, che, in periodo di guerra fredda, sono chiaramente identificabili. E poi c'è il Dominio di Aldaran, che è su Darkover ma si lascia tranquillamente affascinare dalle tecnologie terrestri (leggasi: qualunque stato comunista al di qua della cortina di ferro) e il potere di Sharra, l'enorme matrice che nessuna forza psi riesce a imbrigliare (l'energia nucleare?), finendo per influenzare, cambiare drasticamente e distruggere tutti coloro che la vorrebbero sottomettere per dimostrare ai terrestri la potenza di Darkover.
Poi c'è il tema dell'omosessualità - che in quegli anni era ancora era un tabù, ma che la Bradley affronta in maniera esemplare - il risveglio della sessualità che per i telepati darkovani coincide con il risveglio del laran (i poteri psi), e il malessere della soglia che si identifica proprio con la scoperta delle preferenze sessuali, .
E nel leggere ho pensato che è molto strano che lei si sia comportata proprio come Dyan Ardais nei confronti dei suoi figli... Ma d'accordo, lasciamo da parte la vita privata degli scrittori, e limitiamoci a gustare i loro libri più belli cercando di non farci influenzare dalle loro perversioni.
In cima a tutti ci sono naturalmente i giochi di potere tra Darkover e l'Impero Terrestre, che, in periodo di guerra fredda, sono chiaramente identificabili. E poi c'è il Dominio di Aldaran, che è su Darkover ma si lascia tranquillamente affascinare dalle tecnologie terrestri (leggasi: qualunque stato comunista al di qua della cortina di ferro) e il potere di Sharra, l'enorme matrice che nessuna forza psi riesce a imbrigliare (l'energia nucleare?), finendo per influenzare, cambiare drasticamente e distruggere tutti coloro che la vorrebbero sottomettere per dimostrare ai terrestri la potenza di Darkover.
Poi c'è il tema dell'omosessualità - che in quegli anni era ancora era un tabù, ma che la Bradley affronta in maniera esemplare - il risveglio della sessualità che per i telepati darkovani coincide con il risveglio del laran (i poteri psi), e il malessere della soglia che si identifica proprio con la scoperta delle preferenze sessuali, .
E nel leggere ho pensato che è molto strano che lei si sia comportata proprio come Dyan Ardais nei confronti dei suoi figli... Ma d'accordo, lasciamo da parte la vita privata degli scrittori, e limitiamoci a gustare i loro libri più belli cercando di non farci influenzare dalle loro perversioni.
May 9, 2021
Altra bella lettura del ciclo di Darkover. Anche in questo volume si affrontano molti temi, su cui spicca il tema del potere. Troppo spesso chi lo detiene ne abusa o smette di pensare di dover dare conto delle proprie scelte e delle proprie azioni. Il potere è responsabilità. Il potere è politico, gerarchico, ma deriva anche dalla scienza e dalla tecnologia. Non tutto quello che si può fare si deve fare. Ci sono forze della natura che non sappiamo controllare o non siamo abbastanza saggi per gestirle. Avere un'immensa fonte di energia significa avere un immenso potere distruttivo (e le armi sono solo un esempio di questo potere). L'autrice non dimentica di intrecciare nella sua storia altri temi importanti della sua saga come l'identità e in particolare l'identità sessuale, riflettendo sull'importanza di vivere per come si è, sul trauma che la repressione comporta e sull'amore per sé stessi che nasce quando ci si accetta.
October 9, 2009
For those who want to read the Darkover series, I would have to say that this is the novel to start with. It's engaging and exciting enough to interest you in the series, and these characters, and this timeline, are central to the Darkover canon. As someone who's read approximately 20 Bradley titles this year, this book is the missing link, the one that explains so much of what I've read before.
Set in the last timeline of the Darkover series, what is essentially the 'present day' at Bradley conceives it, the novel tells the tale of young Regis Hastur (who becomes one of the two or three most important characters in the whole series), who has come to Thendara at the request his grandfather, the Regent and ruler of Darkover.
Regis does not have laran, the telepathic ability that is much prized and is expected of the Comyn, the ruling class of Darkover. He wishes to escape, to go off planet, to go to the stars amongst the Terrans. He has no wish to become Regent, to assume the duties expected of him as a member of the Hastur clan. He strikes a deal with his grandfather--to serve three years in the City Guards, the Darkover equivalent of the military. If, at the end of this time, Regis does not show any trace of laran and still wishes to leave, he may.
Regis' story is interspersed with that of Lew Alton, a part Terran whose status as Comyn is dubious; although he is the legitimate son of Kennard Alton, the Lord of a Domain, his Terran blood makes him highly suspect. Regis is a young adult at is one of the officers in the Guard. In the past, he has been friends with Regis, but the gap between them--Lew is a commanding officer, Regis a cadet, and at the same time, Regis is a potential monarch, and, in theory, all would be "under" him in society's pecking order.
While in the Guards, Regis befriends Danilo Syrtis, a character who will be very recognizable to Darkover fans and who actually appears in more novels than does Regis. Danilo is also young, and is from an honorable but poor family. He is very attractive, and is preyed on my an abusive older noble named Dyan Ardis; ultimately, Danilo is forced from the officer corps and sent home in disgrace on Ardis' word.
Regis is furious; despite the fact that the two young me part on poor terms, Regis is determined to defend Danilo and see Ardis' industice undone.
Lew ,in the meantime, is sent to the remote province of Alderaan, which is accused of dealing "on the side" with Terrans, purchasing illegal weapons. He is sent off by his father to deal with this issue.
The writing is tight, engaging, fast. Lot of good action, lots of interesting explorations and of gender and sexuality, a characteristic of Bradley's best fiction. Interestingly, all the protagonists are male, unusual in a feminist author. Al the characters are well done; interestingly, this the only Darkover book that has any first person narration. A la Dickens Bleak House, the novel shifts back and forth between omniscient narration and first person "I" narration; Lew is the first person narrator.
Really good; many reviews say this is Bradley's best, or was at the time. I can't say it's not excellent, but I think this book signals the beginning of Bradley's truly great phrase, when she will write Thendara House and the rest of the Renunciates seriews, which she will sustain to the end of her life with Traitor's Sun. I'd put this near the top-rank, with Thendara House and Traitor's Sun being her her absolute best.
The only thing that mars the book is some clumsy foreshadowing in the Lew Alton sections; perhaps, unfamiliar with this point of view technique, she's not as fully in control of it as she is with her other narrative methods.
Set in the last timeline of the Darkover series, what is essentially the 'present day' at Bradley conceives it, the novel tells the tale of young Regis Hastur (who becomes one of the two or three most important characters in the whole series), who has come to Thendara at the request his grandfather, the Regent and ruler of Darkover.
Regis does not have laran, the telepathic ability that is much prized and is expected of the Comyn, the ruling class of Darkover. He wishes to escape, to go off planet, to go to the stars amongst the Terrans. He has no wish to become Regent, to assume the duties expected of him as a member of the Hastur clan. He strikes a deal with his grandfather--to serve three years in the City Guards, the Darkover equivalent of the military. If, at the end of this time, Regis does not show any trace of laran and still wishes to leave, he may.
Regis' story is interspersed with that of Lew Alton, a part Terran whose status as Comyn is dubious; although he is the legitimate son of Kennard Alton, the Lord of a Domain, his Terran blood makes him highly suspect. Regis is a young adult at is one of the officers in the Guard. In the past, he has been friends with Regis, but the gap between them--Lew is a commanding officer, Regis a cadet, and at the same time, Regis is a potential monarch, and, in theory, all would be "under" him in society's pecking order.
While in the Guards, Regis befriends Danilo Syrtis, a character who will be very recognizable to Darkover fans and who actually appears in more novels than does Regis. Danilo is also young, and is from an honorable but poor family. He is very attractive, and is preyed on my an abusive older noble named Dyan Ardis; ultimately, Danilo is forced from the officer corps and sent home in disgrace on Ardis' word.
Regis is furious; despite the fact that the two young me part on poor terms, Regis is determined to defend Danilo and see Ardis' industice undone.
Lew ,in the meantime, is sent to the remote province of Alderaan, which is accused of dealing "on the side" with Terrans, purchasing illegal weapons. He is sent off by his father to deal with this issue.
The writing is tight, engaging, fast. Lot of good action, lots of interesting explorations and of gender and sexuality, a characteristic of Bradley's best fiction. Interestingly, all the protagonists are male, unusual in a feminist author. Al the characters are well done; interestingly, this the only Darkover book that has any first person narration. A la Dickens Bleak House, the novel shifts back and forth between omniscient narration and first person "I" narration; Lew is the first person narrator.
Really good; many reviews say this is Bradley's best, or was at the time. I can't say it's not excellent, but I think this book signals the beginning of Bradley's truly great phrase, when she will write Thendara House and the rest of the Renunciates seriews, which she will sustain to the end of her life with Traitor's Sun. I'd put this near the top-rank, with Thendara House and Traitor's Sun being her her absolute best.
The only thing that mars the book is some clumsy foreshadowing in the Lew Alton sections; perhaps, unfamiliar with this point of view technique, she's not as fully in control of it as she is with her other narrative methods.
April 12, 2008
Set on the planet Darkover, a lost colony of Terra. The humans who landed there have developed a feudal system of government, and have interbred with the reclusive indigenous people. Their new environment led to some families developing specific psychic abilities, and becoming leaders of the government.
The Heritage of Hastur relates the intertwined histories of Regis Hastur, the future ruler of Darkover, in his days as a youth training in the guards, and Lew Alton, son of a powerful ruling family, who is bitter about having a Terran mother.
Both young men get caught up in political and personal struggles that effect how they view their sexual identities and psychic abilities.
They come into contact with a faction that holds a wild matrix from the Ages of Chaos, a faceted gemstone that enhances psychic ability, and in this case, houses a dangerous power of its own.
This is not a book for people who have issues with same-sex relationships. But it is an excellent story of power vs. responsibility, love vs. duty, and the lure of powerful forces to lead people into horrible decisions.
This was, and is, top-notch SF that was progressive in its day.
The Heritage of Hastur relates the intertwined histories of Regis Hastur, the future ruler of Darkover, in his days as a youth training in the guards, and Lew Alton, son of a powerful ruling family, who is bitter about having a Terran mother.
Both young men get caught up in political and personal struggles that effect how they view their sexual identities and psychic abilities.
They come into contact with a faction that holds a wild matrix from the Ages of Chaos, a faceted gemstone that enhances psychic ability, and in this case, houses a dangerous power of its own.
This is not a book for people who have issues with same-sex relationships. But it is an excellent story of power vs. responsibility, love vs. duty, and the lure of powerful forces to lead people into horrible decisions.
This was, and is, top-notch SF that was progressive in its day.
July 6, 2015
The Heritage of Hastur (pub. 1975) and its immediate sequel, Sharra's Exile (pub. 1981) are in some ways the heart of the Darkovan cycle - they mark the end of the Comyn and the sociopolitical structure of Darkover as it was and, as Regis Hastur comes into his own, the beginnings of a new Darkover (which would be penned, not by Bradley, but by her successors Adrienne Martine-Barnes and Deborah J. Ross from outlines and notes).
The Heritage of Hastur details the events surrounding Regis' coming of age, amid the unleashing of Sharra, the powerful matrix we saw before in The Winds of Darkover. It is also a key part of the ongoing conversation about the position of Darkover within the Terran Empire. In all these strands of the narrative, the one common theme is responsibility for and abuse of power. In a sense, the true heritage of Hastur - and all Comyn are called the children of Hastur - is a heritage of extreme privilege and power, and its potential for abuse, as much as it is a heritage of responsibility. As Danvan Hastur acknowledges, "In the far-back days, we were given power and privilege because we served our people, not because we ruled them. Then we began to believe we had these powers and privileges because of some innate superiority in ourselves, as if having laran made us so much better than other people that we could do exactly as we pleased."
As the novel opens, relations between Terrans and Darkovans have once more grown tense, and the key issue is the Compact - an agreement banning all long-distance weapons that holds sway throughout the six lowland Domains. The Empire has technically agreed not to allow such weapons to be taken out of the Terran Zone in Thendara, but Terran officials do not really take the agreement seriously, or enforce it rigorously, and they have allowed the sale of range weapons in Alderan territory - realising that the compact exists to protect all Darkovans from the devastating matrix weapons - like Sharra. Again, this conflict adds to the themes of responsibility, power and abuse that inform all the narrative strands of the novel.
This narrative focuses on two young men - Regis Hastur and Lewis Alton - whose circumstances and experiences are in some ways counterpointed, but in other ways parallel. Regis is the grandson of Danvan Hastur (and great-grandson of Lorill Hastur), heir to the most powerful family on Darkover, the hereditary Regents of the Crown - a vital role, as many of the Elhalyn, hereditary Kings of Darkover, have been incompetent or even mad in recent generations. But Regis doesn't want to be the de-facto ruler of Darkover, he longs for the stars. Unlike the Comyn he is destined to lead, he appears to be almost completely lacking in laran - testing indicates he has the potential, but that it has been blocked from normal development.
Lew Alton is also the heir to a powerful Domain, but unlike Regis, he has had to fight to be recognised. He is the son of Kennard Alton (last seen as a boy in Star of Danger) and Elaine Montray, who is half Terran, half Darkovan, but of the outcast Aldaran Domain, who Kennard met and fell in love with on Earth. Although Kennard married Elaine di catenas - the most formal style of marriage - the Comyn refused to acknowledge his marriage and Lew has always been treated by most as a bastard, carrying both the barbarian blood of the Terrans and the traitor's blood of the Aldarans. In order to have his son declared as his heir, Kennard was forced to prove before witnesses that Lew carried the Alton Gift of forced rapport by forcing rapport on him - an act that might have killed Lew if he did not in fact have the gift. Only in the Towers, where Lew proved to be a powerful and skilled matrix technician, has he felt truly welcome, although he has won some degree of acceptance among the Guards, where he serves as an officer and his father's second - the Altons being the hereditary commanders of the Guard.
The events of the novel do in fact begin in the Guard, where Regis is beginning his duties as a cadet, where Kennard is Commander and both Lew and Kennard's cousin and childhood friend Dyan Ardais - the Lord of that Domain - are officers, as is Regis' brother-in-law (and Lew's cousin) Gabriel Lanart-Hastur. Also in his first year as a cadet is Danilo Syrtis, son of a minor Comyn house whose older brother was paxman and sword brother to Regis' father - both of whom were killed by bandits carrying Terran weapons.
As new cadets, Regis and Danilo initially become friends, but are driven apart by the actions of Dyan. As cadet master, he has the power to make any cadet's life a living hell, and when Danilo refuses his sexual advances, Dyan uses not only his official power but also his laran to torment the young man. At the same time, Dyan attempts a gentle seduction of Regis - the difference in his approach to the two being that he sees Regis as a social equal and Danilo as a social inferior. Before too long, Danilo has rejected Regis' friendship and, driven to desperation by Dyan's action, draws a knife on Dyan and is sent home in disgrace.
Meanwhile, Kennard has asked Lew to travel to Aldaran to investigate the situation with respect to Terran weapons there, under the pretext of visiting his Lord Kermiac and his other Alderan kinfolk. When Lew, who has seen Dyan in action before, witnesses the public disgrace of Danilo and senses what was behind Danilo's reaction, goes to Kennard in protest, his father will not listen to him. Lew leaves for Aldaran, but with a heart filled with anger and disgust at the abuses of power he has witnessed. Arriving at Castle Alderan he is welcomed into the family as the grandson of Kermiac's sister Meriel. Here he meets his cousin, Kermiac's son Beltran, Kermiac's wards, Thyra, Marjorie and Rafe Scott, and the mysterious Raymon Kadarin, and is drawn into their plan to recreate the old pre-Compact matrix sciences, using the Sharra matrix. As he works with Kadarin and the others, training them to be a working circle, he and Marjorie begin to fall in love, despite the fact that Lew has determined that Marjorie is the one best suited to serve as the circle's Keeper.
Regis, having completed his first year of training, travels to visit his sister; en route, he stops at Danilo's home, where the two renew their friendship, and Regis, learning what really happened to him, swears to make it right. On his return to Thendara, despite being ill with threshold sickness, a malady that often strikes telepaths whose laran has awakened, he confronts first his grandfather and then Kennard with the knowledge of Dyan's abuse. Kennard, reading his mind and the images he carries from Danilo's mind, is shocked, but accepts Dyan's guilt. He also realises that Danilo is a catalyst telepath, a rare gift thought to be extinct, and contact with him can stimulate latent laran - and that contact with Danilo is what has woken Regis' powers.
With the promise that justice will be done, Regis returns to Syrtis with Gabriel who is to take Regis to Neskaya for laran training and then bring Danilo back to Thendara, but they discover that Danilo has been kidnapped by the Aldarans. Gabriel returns to Thendara to report the crime. Regis promises to wait for Gabriel at his seat in Edelweiss, but instead, he pauses long enough to name Gabriel and Javanne's youngest son his heir, and sets out to find Danilo.
In Alderan, Lew is horrified when he learns that Beltran has kidnapped Danilo, particularly since he himself, having guessed Danilo's gift, had speculated about asking Danilo to join their circle and use his gift to help more latent telepaths find their powers. Kermiac chastises Beltran, and when Regis arrives, assures him that both he and Danilo are guests under his roof and will come to no harm, and will be allowed to leave when the weather is better.
Lew comes to the realisation that working with Sharra is corrupting all of them, awakening lust for power and dulling their consciences, he decides that they must return Sharra to the forge folk and find another way to bring about their goals. But when Kermiac dies suddenly, Beltran imprisons Regis and Danilo, and tries to force Lew to continue working with the Sharra circle. Marjorie rescues the three captives, and they flee Aldaran Castle. Lew and Marjorie set out to bring word of the Sharra circle to Arilinn, while Regis and Danilo head toward Thendara. Lew and Marjorie are recaptured, and Lew is drugged and, now controlled by Kadarin, returns to the Sharra circle. As Sharra rages, destroying the city of Caer Donn and the Terran Spaceport there, telepaths across Darkover feel the impact, and a force is sent from Thendara to stop the fires, no matter what. Regis and Danilo meet the party, led by Kennard and Dyan, on the road, and head back with them toward Alderan.
Marjorie convinces Kadarin to let Lew recover from the drugs, and together they decide that Sharra must be stopped, even if it takes their deaths - and the deaths of everyone in the Sharra circle - to close the dimensional gateway that fuels it. As they enter the circle and prepare to attempt it, Kennard finally reaches Lew and adds his power to theirs. The gateway is sealed, but Lew is gravely wounded and Marjorie close to death; with the strength of desperation, Lew manages to teleport himself and Marjorie to Arilinn, but it is too late for Marjorie.
Despite the closing of the gateway, the Sharra matrix remains too powerful to be left on Darkover where its power could be raised again; Kennard decides to leave Darkover, taking the matrix and Lew with him, hoping that Terran medicine can heal wounds that Darkovan psi power cannot. The Terrans, now aware of just what kind of long-range weapons the Compact was made to control, promise to do their part in keeping it. Dyan accepts responsibility for his abuse of Danilo, and names him heir to Ardais as recompense. And Regis relinquishes his dream of the stars and takes his place as the Hastur heir on the Council. Hard lessons have been learned - at least for a time.
The Heritage of Hastur details the events surrounding Regis' coming of age, amid the unleashing of Sharra, the powerful matrix we saw before in The Winds of Darkover. It is also a key part of the ongoing conversation about the position of Darkover within the Terran Empire. In all these strands of the narrative, the one common theme is responsibility for and abuse of power. In a sense, the true heritage of Hastur - and all Comyn are called the children of Hastur - is a heritage of extreme privilege and power, and its potential for abuse, as much as it is a heritage of responsibility. As Danvan Hastur acknowledges, "In the far-back days, we were given power and privilege because we served our people, not because we ruled them. Then we began to believe we had these powers and privileges because of some innate superiority in ourselves, as if having laran made us so much better than other people that we could do exactly as we pleased."
As the novel opens, relations between Terrans and Darkovans have once more grown tense, and the key issue is the Compact - an agreement banning all long-distance weapons that holds sway throughout the six lowland Domains. The Empire has technically agreed not to allow such weapons to be taken out of the Terran Zone in Thendara, but Terran officials do not really take the agreement seriously, or enforce it rigorously, and they have allowed the sale of range weapons in Alderan territory - realising that the compact exists to protect all Darkovans from the devastating matrix weapons - like Sharra. Again, this conflict adds to the themes of responsibility, power and abuse that inform all the narrative strands of the novel.
This narrative focuses on two young men - Regis Hastur and Lewis Alton - whose circumstances and experiences are in some ways counterpointed, but in other ways parallel. Regis is the grandson of Danvan Hastur (and great-grandson of Lorill Hastur), heir to the most powerful family on Darkover, the hereditary Regents of the Crown - a vital role, as many of the Elhalyn, hereditary Kings of Darkover, have been incompetent or even mad in recent generations. But Regis doesn't want to be the de-facto ruler of Darkover, he longs for the stars. Unlike the Comyn he is destined to lead, he appears to be almost completely lacking in laran - testing indicates he has the potential, but that it has been blocked from normal development.
Lew Alton is also the heir to a powerful Domain, but unlike Regis, he has had to fight to be recognised. He is the son of Kennard Alton (last seen as a boy in Star of Danger) and Elaine Montray, who is half Terran, half Darkovan, but of the outcast Aldaran Domain, who Kennard met and fell in love with on Earth. Although Kennard married Elaine di catenas - the most formal style of marriage - the Comyn refused to acknowledge his marriage and Lew has always been treated by most as a bastard, carrying both the barbarian blood of the Terrans and the traitor's blood of the Aldarans. In order to have his son declared as his heir, Kennard was forced to prove before witnesses that Lew carried the Alton Gift of forced rapport by forcing rapport on him - an act that might have killed Lew if he did not in fact have the gift. Only in the Towers, where Lew proved to be a powerful and skilled matrix technician, has he felt truly welcome, although he has won some degree of acceptance among the Guards, where he serves as an officer and his father's second - the Altons being the hereditary commanders of the Guard.
The events of the novel do in fact begin in the Guard, where Regis is beginning his duties as a cadet, where Kennard is Commander and both Lew and Kennard's cousin and childhood friend Dyan Ardais - the Lord of that Domain - are officers, as is Regis' brother-in-law (and Lew's cousin) Gabriel Lanart-Hastur. Also in his first year as a cadet is Danilo Syrtis, son of a minor Comyn house whose older brother was paxman and sword brother to Regis' father - both of whom were killed by bandits carrying Terran weapons.
As new cadets, Regis and Danilo initially become friends, but are driven apart by the actions of Dyan. As cadet master, he has the power to make any cadet's life a living hell, and when Danilo refuses his sexual advances, Dyan uses not only his official power but also his laran to torment the young man. At the same time, Dyan attempts a gentle seduction of Regis - the difference in his approach to the two being that he sees Regis as a social equal and Danilo as a social inferior. Before too long, Danilo has rejected Regis' friendship and, driven to desperation by Dyan's action, draws a knife on Dyan and is sent home in disgrace.
Meanwhile, Kennard has asked Lew to travel to Aldaran to investigate the situation with respect to Terran weapons there, under the pretext of visiting his Lord Kermiac and his other Alderan kinfolk. When Lew, who has seen Dyan in action before, witnesses the public disgrace of Danilo and senses what was behind Danilo's reaction, goes to Kennard in protest, his father will not listen to him. Lew leaves for Aldaran, but with a heart filled with anger and disgust at the abuses of power he has witnessed. Arriving at Castle Alderan he is welcomed into the family as the grandson of Kermiac's sister Meriel. Here he meets his cousin, Kermiac's son Beltran, Kermiac's wards, Thyra, Marjorie and Rafe Scott, and the mysterious Raymon Kadarin, and is drawn into their plan to recreate the old pre-Compact matrix sciences, using the Sharra matrix. As he works with Kadarin and the others, training them to be a working circle, he and Marjorie begin to fall in love, despite the fact that Lew has determined that Marjorie is the one best suited to serve as the circle's Keeper.
Regis, having completed his first year of training, travels to visit his sister; en route, he stops at Danilo's home, where the two renew their friendship, and Regis, learning what really happened to him, swears to make it right. On his return to Thendara, despite being ill with threshold sickness, a malady that often strikes telepaths whose laran has awakened, he confronts first his grandfather and then Kennard with the knowledge of Dyan's abuse. Kennard, reading his mind and the images he carries from Danilo's mind, is shocked, but accepts Dyan's guilt. He also realises that Danilo is a catalyst telepath, a rare gift thought to be extinct, and contact with him can stimulate latent laran - and that contact with Danilo is what has woken Regis' powers.
With the promise that justice will be done, Regis returns to Syrtis with Gabriel who is to take Regis to Neskaya for laran training and then bring Danilo back to Thendara, but they discover that Danilo has been kidnapped by the Aldarans. Gabriel returns to Thendara to report the crime. Regis promises to wait for Gabriel at his seat in Edelweiss, but instead, he pauses long enough to name Gabriel and Javanne's youngest son his heir, and sets out to find Danilo.
In Alderan, Lew is horrified when he learns that Beltran has kidnapped Danilo, particularly since he himself, having guessed Danilo's gift, had speculated about asking Danilo to join their circle and use his gift to help more latent telepaths find their powers. Kermiac chastises Beltran, and when Regis arrives, assures him that both he and Danilo are guests under his roof and will come to no harm, and will be allowed to leave when the weather is better.
Lew comes to the realisation that working with Sharra is corrupting all of them, awakening lust for power and dulling their consciences, he decides that they must return Sharra to the forge folk and find another way to bring about their goals. But when Kermiac dies suddenly, Beltran imprisons Regis and Danilo, and tries to force Lew to continue working with the Sharra circle. Marjorie rescues the three captives, and they flee Aldaran Castle. Lew and Marjorie set out to bring word of the Sharra circle to Arilinn, while Regis and Danilo head toward Thendara. Lew and Marjorie are recaptured, and Lew is drugged and, now controlled by Kadarin, returns to the Sharra circle. As Sharra rages, destroying the city of Caer Donn and the Terran Spaceport there, telepaths across Darkover feel the impact, and a force is sent from Thendara to stop the fires, no matter what. Regis and Danilo meet the party, led by Kennard and Dyan, on the road, and head back with them toward Alderan.
Marjorie convinces Kadarin to let Lew recover from the drugs, and together they decide that Sharra must be stopped, even if it takes their deaths - and the deaths of everyone in the Sharra circle - to close the dimensional gateway that fuels it. As they enter the circle and prepare to attempt it, Kennard finally reaches Lew and adds his power to theirs. The gateway is sealed, but Lew is gravely wounded and Marjorie close to death; with the strength of desperation, Lew manages to teleport himself and Marjorie to Arilinn, but it is too late for Marjorie.
Despite the closing of the gateway, the Sharra matrix remains too powerful to be left on Darkover where its power could be raised again; Kennard decides to leave Darkover, taking the matrix and Lew with him, hoping that Terran medicine can heal wounds that Darkovan psi power cannot. The Terrans, now aware of just what kind of long-range weapons the Compact was made to control, promise to do their part in keeping it. Dyan accepts responsibility for his abuse of Danilo, and names him heir to Ardais as recompense. And Regis relinquishes his dream of the stars and takes his place as the Hastur heir on the Council. Hard lessons have been learned - at least for a time.
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July 22, 2014I didn't start this until after I'd read quite a few other Darkover books, so I wasn't quite at sea (not really possible, on Darkover, from what I can tell). I already had an idea of who Danvan Hastur was, for example, and why he was fighting a rearguard action, trying to slow Darkover's absorption into the Terran Empire, and temper it so it wasn't quite so much a patron/client matter.
Regis Hastur is a character to throw shadows, even at this young age. He's still diffident and fumbling, but is beginning to develop into the figure who must eventually become so legendary that the human truth is lost. His love story with Danilo Syrtis makes me realize that that's one of the main cavils I have with Bradley's love stories. Too often, people are presented as not in love, then as in love, with no real explanation of how they got from one state to another.
Lew Alton's story (told, confusingly, in the first person, where Regis' is told in third person) is more complicated in one way, and in another it's just incoherent. Part of this is inevitable: since he spends part of the story drugged out of his mind, his version of things would necessarily be fragmentary. A third-person omniscient narration would actually contribute to the story in this case--though it would, perhaps, reveal too much.
Dyan Ardais, who is not a viewpoint character in any book, is an even more complex character. Some things are obvious. Anybody who's seen Kyril Ardais (Dyan's father) in earlier (as pertains to Darkovan chronology) books will recognize that he probably wouldn't have made a very good stab at fatherhood even BEFORE he went mad. Sending his son to Nevarsin was probably a good plan. Sending his daughters to Arilinn didn't work out quite as well.
But that raises the question--where does Rohana Ardais (Dyan's grandmother) fit into this? Kyril insisted on taking over as Lord Ardais on his father's death, without a regency. But Rohana almost certainly didn't die right away after her husband's death. Where DID she go? What part did she play in the lives of her kin? Why does she just seem to disappear? Maybe she went off and became a Free Amazon after all? But this seems improbable. She had too much of a sense of responsibility to the Comyn. Something of a mystery there.
I should point out that Regis' experience with threshold sickness would have been less grueling (it became so severe as to be potentially fatal, which was apparently much less common by this time) has mainly to do with his strange rejection of his homosexuality. It's not clear why he was so panic-stricken when he first realized these tendencies. Darkovan society seems to have no major prejudices against homosexuals, besides considering such relationships 'immature'. This is tied more to the realization of an extremely limited genetic pool than anything else--but as Regis himself discovers, homosexuality doesn't necessarily preclude reproductive affairs. So why was he so afraid that he blocked off his nascent laran?
This book, I should add, is one of the ones in which chronology becomes very knotty. There are mutterings in other works about the inconsistencies resulting from the fact that Terrans seem to have arrived on Darkover at least a thousand years before the first spaceships left Earth. The implication is that the early matter/antimatter drives may have had some sort of time travel effect--but this would have complicated reciprocal travel significantly--and at least one of the passengers on the colonizing ship had already been to several colonies, and expected to return to Earth at least once more. Perhaps there was some other element causing temporal anomalies, which didn't occur on all journeys?
By the period when Regis Hastur reached pubescence, the relatively imprecise (imprecisely relative?) chronologies start becoming really troublesome. It's established in short stories that the Terrans made (re)contact with the long-isolated Darkover at the time when the twins Leonie and Lorill Hastur were still youngsters (probably not older than 20, but it's necessary to make allowances for the different length of Darkovan and Terran years). Both Lorill and Leonie lived long lives (Hasturs often do), and both of them probably died at over the age of 90.
Leonie was aging even when Callista Lanart-Alton was a little girl. But 'aging' is not a very precise descriptor. By the time of The Forbidden Tower, Leonie is almost certainly over 70, but it's not clear how MUCH older. So assuming she was 20 when the first Terrans landed near Caer Dunn, it would have been about 50 years between the arrival of the 1st representatives of the Terran 'Empire' on Darkover, and the time Andrew Carr landed at the spaceport near Thendara.
Lorill Hastur was still Regent of the Domains at this time, but his son (? grandson? Given his age, Danvan was probably either a lateborn son or a grandson, since he was a very young man at the time) was already taking on some of the duties of Regent at the time.
Lorill apparently predeceased his sister, and by the time of the preface to later editions of The Bloody Sun, Leonie is stated to have died late in Damon Ridenow's life. Cleindori, who was Damon's daughter, was a full-grown woman by that time--but the definition of 'full-grown' is somewhat tricky: children are considered adult by Darkovan standards at 15--which is probably nearly 18 in Earth years.
So assuming that Leonie died at over 90 (for ease in figuring, say she was 100), this means that Danvan took over as full-time regent probably around the 75th anniversary of the arrival of the Terran Spaceforce on Darkover to set up a spaceport to facilitate travel through the Empire.
Regis is Danvan's grandson. Danvan's son Rafael was killed at a very young age: but he already had a nearly adult daughter (Javanne) by the time Regis was born. Regis is a posthumous child, born a few months after his father's death. So assuming that Rafael was born when Danvan was a relatively young man (not over 25, say), and that Regis was born when his sister was at least 12, and further assuming that Javanne was born when her father was not over 20, we have to allow more than 70 years between the time of the founding of the Forbidden Tower and the time of the Sharra Rebellion.
In fact, it's established fairly early in this book that Danvan is over 90 by the time of this book.
Regis is just 15, and newly returned from Nevarsin at the beginning of the book. He was fostered at Armida (almost certainly after Cleindori died, because Cleindori died when Lew Alton's father, Kennard, was still a young man--and Kennard and Cleindori were foster-siblings). Regis would probably have been fostered out at about the age of 6 or 7, since he remembers Javanne trying to mother him in his early years.
In this book, the newly-adult Regis (probably about 16 at the time) names his nephew Mikhail as his heir. Mikhail's age is given as 3 at the time. This establishes the bare skeleton of a chronology, and relative times for other stories can be established based on this substrate.
Regis Hastur is a character to throw shadows, even at this young age. He's still diffident and fumbling, but is beginning to develop into the figure who must eventually become so legendary that the human truth is lost. His love story with Danilo Syrtis makes me realize that that's one of the main cavils I have with Bradley's love stories. Too often, people are presented as not in love, then as in love, with no real explanation of how they got from one state to another.
Lew Alton's story (told, confusingly, in the first person, where Regis' is told in third person) is more complicated in one way, and in another it's just incoherent. Part of this is inevitable: since he spends part of the story drugged out of his mind, his version of things would necessarily be fragmentary. A third-person omniscient narration would actually contribute to the story in this case--though it would, perhaps, reveal too much.
Dyan Ardais, who is not a viewpoint character in any book, is an even more complex character. Some things are obvious. Anybody who's seen Kyril Ardais (Dyan's father) in earlier (as pertains to Darkovan chronology) books will recognize that he probably wouldn't have made a very good stab at fatherhood even BEFORE he went mad. Sending his son to Nevarsin was probably a good plan. Sending his daughters to Arilinn didn't work out quite as well.
But that raises the question--where does Rohana Ardais (Dyan's grandmother) fit into this? Kyril insisted on taking over as Lord Ardais on his father's death, without a regency. But Rohana almost certainly didn't die right away after her husband's death. Where DID she go? What part did she play in the lives of her kin? Why does she just seem to disappear? Maybe she went off and became a Free Amazon after all? But this seems improbable. She had too much of a sense of responsibility to the Comyn. Something of a mystery there.
I should point out that Regis' experience with threshold sickness would have been less grueling (it became so severe as to be potentially fatal, which was apparently much less common by this time) has mainly to do with his strange rejection of his homosexuality. It's not clear why he was so panic-stricken when he first realized these tendencies. Darkovan society seems to have no major prejudices against homosexuals, besides considering such relationships 'immature'. This is tied more to the realization of an extremely limited genetic pool than anything else--but as Regis himself discovers, homosexuality doesn't necessarily preclude reproductive affairs. So why was he so afraid that he blocked off his nascent laran?
This book, I should add, is one of the ones in which chronology becomes very knotty. There are mutterings in other works about the inconsistencies resulting from the fact that Terrans seem to have arrived on Darkover at least a thousand years before the first spaceships left Earth. The implication is that the early matter/antimatter drives may have had some sort of time travel effect--but this would have complicated reciprocal travel significantly--and at least one of the passengers on the colonizing ship had already been to several colonies, and expected to return to Earth at least once more. Perhaps there was some other element causing temporal anomalies, which didn't occur on all journeys?
By the period when Regis Hastur reached pubescence, the relatively imprecise (imprecisely relative?) chronologies start becoming really troublesome. It's established in short stories that the Terrans made (re)contact with the long-isolated Darkover at the time when the twins Leonie and Lorill Hastur were still youngsters (probably not older than 20, but it's necessary to make allowances for the different length of Darkovan and Terran years). Both Lorill and Leonie lived long lives (Hasturs often do), and both of them probably died at over the age of 90.
Leonie was aging even when Callista Lanart-Alton was a little girl. But 'aging' is not a very precise descriptor. By the time of The Forbidden Tower, Leonie is almost certainly over 70, but it's not clear how MUCH older. So assuming she was 20 when the first Terrans landed near Caer Dunn, it would have been about 50 years between the arrival of the 1st representatives of the Terran 'Empire' on Darkover, and the time Andrew Carr landed at the spaceport near Thendara.
Lorill Hastur was still Regent of the Domains at this time, but his son (? grandson? Given his age, Danvan was probably either a lateborn son or a grandson, since he was a very young man at the time) was already taking on some of the duties of Regent at the time.
Lorill apparently predeceased his sister, and by the time of the preface to later editions of The Bloody Sun, Leonie is stated to have died late in Damon Ridenow's life. Cleindori, who was Damon's daughter, was a full-grown woman by that time--but the definition of 'full-grown' is somewhat tricky: children are considered adult by Darkovan standards at 15--which is probably nearly 18 in Earth years.
So assuming that Leonie died at over 90 (for ease in figuring, say she was 100), this means that Danvan took over as full-time regent probably around the 75th anniversary of the arrival of the Terran Spaceforce on Darkover to set up a spaceport to facilitate travel through the Empire.
Regis is Danvan's grandson. Danvan's son Rafael was killed at a very young age: but he already had a nearly adult daughter (Javanne) by the time Regis was born. Regis is a posthumous child, born a few months after his father's death. So assuming that Rafael was born when Danvan was a relatively young man (not over 25, say), and that Regis was born when his sister was at least 12, and further assuming that Javanne was born when her father was not over 20, we have to allow more than 70 years between the time of the founding of the Forbidden Tower and the time of the Sharra Rebellion.
In fact, it's established fairly early in this book that Danvan is over 90 by the time of this book.
Regis is just 15, and newly returned from Nevarsin at the beginning of the book. He was fostered at Armida (almost certainly after Cleindori died, because Cleindori died when Lew Alton's father, Kennard, was still a young man--and Kennard and Cleindori were foster-siblings). Regis would probably have been fostered out at about the age of 6 or 7, since he remembers Javanne trying to mother him in his early years.
In this book, the newly-adult Regis (probably about 16 at the time) names his nephew Mikhail as his heir. Mikhail's age is given as 3 at the time. This establishes the bare skeleton of a chronology, and relative times for other stories can be established based on this substrate.
June 18, 2021
Con toda la admiración que siento por la obra de Marion Zimmer Bradley, es curioso que hasta la fecha nunca hubiese leído ninguna de sus novelas del ciclo de Darkover, a pesar de que era su obra más conocida antes de la publicación de "Las nieblas de Avalón". Mi primer paso hacia resolver esta laguna ha sido "The Heritage of Hastur", una de las más famosas. De entrada lo más interesante de este ciclo es su ambientación que viene a ser una mezcla entre ciencia-ficción y fantasía: "Darkover" es un planeta habitado por los descendientes de una colonia perdida de la Tierra y que vive con tecnología de la Edad Media... pero en el que también existe la magia. Esta idea fue desarrollada por MZB en poco más de una veintena de novelas (no sé exactamente el número) y un montón de relatos breves, y este libro en particular contiene (al menos según lo que indica el prólogo) argumentos clave para la historia de la saga en su conjunto, pese a que la mayoría de estos libros son autoconclusivos.
En cuanto a la novela en sí, está muy bien escrita como todo lo que salió de esta autora, aunque se trata de un libro sumamente discursivo en el que la mayor parte de las páginas se dedican a introspección de los personajes y divagaciones sobre el delicado entramado político de Darkover y su muy elaborado sistema de magia. No es difícil de entender pero sí se aprecia que el argumento es muy sencillo y la novela parece más bien enfocada a sentar las bases de otros argumentos futuros que sin duda se exploran en otros libros. Sin embargo tiene elementos realmente interesantes como por ejemplo su retrato de la sexualidad humana, algo poco habitual en el género de fantasía mainstream (al menos en el contexto en que se publicó), así como la representación abierta de la homosexualidad entre varios de sus personajes principales.
Mi edición de este libro venía incluida en el primer tomo del "Omnibus" de Darkover, que incluye también su secuela, "Sharra's Exile", con la que pienso caer en el futuro cercano.
En cuanto a la novela en sí, está muy bien escrita como todo lo que salió de esta autora, aunque se trata de un libro sumamente discursivo en el que la mayor parte de las páginas se dedican a introspección de los personajes y divagaciones sobre el delicado entramado político de Darkover y su muy elaborado sistema de magia. No es difícil de entender pero sí se aprecia que el argumento es muy sencillo y la novela parece más bien enfocada a sentar las bases de otros argumentos futuros que sin duda se exploran en otros libros. Sin embargo tiene elementos realmente interesantes como por ejemplo su retrato de la sexualidad humana, algo poco habitual en el género de fantasía mainstream (al menos en el contexto en que se publicó), así como la representación abierta de la homosexualidad entre varios de sus personajes principales.
Mi edición de este libro venía incluida en el primer tomo del "Omnibus" de Darkover, que incluye también su secuela, "Sharra's Exile", con la que pienso caer en el futuro cercano.
March 9, 2011
I recently finished yet another re-read of the Darkover books. There are mixed feelings about Bradley in the sf community: most people agree that "Mists of Avalon" is a good book, but opinions are pretty divided about the rest of her work. Literary fantasy fans in particular tend to turn their noses up at Darkover, with its clumsy moralizing, soap-opera style plots, and occasionally sloppy writing ("Two to Conquer", for instance, is actually unreadable).
These criticisms are accurate, but detractors are, I think, missing a more important point. Darkover maintains a devoted fan base. The books are constantly being brought back into print, and continue to find new generations of fans. I believe the enduring appeal lies in the completeness of the vision of Darkover. It's one of the best-developed fantasy worlds in the history of fantasy worlds - I know that's a tall claim, especially from a Dune fan, but bear with me. Reading any Darkover book gives you the feeling of looking in on a real world, with a concrete sense of history, geography, climate, and culture. Language, social mores, slang, crafts, industries, dress - these vary from place to place and from time to time throughout the novels, giving you the sense of a complex society in slow but constant motion, adding to the sense of realism. As an example of world-building, Darkover is hard to top.
I think that Darkover achieved this level of complexity and detail because it is, in a sense, a collectively built world. Fan fic, hated by writers though it may be, is and always has been an intrinsic part of sf nerd culture. Bradley took the unlikely step of embracing her fan fic and declaring it canonical. She accepted stories and published them in anthologies with her seal of approval, cartographically inclined fans drew her maps, musical fans composed songs, linguist fans mapped out the evolution of the languages spoken by her characters, and fans into handcrafts contributed their expertise. In a way, Darkover was the first open-source fantasy project, and the diversity of talents and perspectives that converged on the narrative gave it a richness and depth of detail that a single author would find hard to match.
These criticisms are accurate, but detractors are, I think, missing a more important point. Darkover maintains a devoted fan base. The books are constantly being brought back into print, and continue to find new generations of fans. I believe the enduring appeal lies in the completeness of the vision of Darkover. It's one of the best-developed fantasy worlds in the history of fantasy worlds - I know that's a tall claim, especially from a Dune fan, but bear with me. Reading any Darkover book gives you the feeling of looking in on a real world, with a concrete sense of history, geography, climate, and culture. Language, social mores, slang, crafts, industries, dress - these vary from place to place and from time to time throughout the novels, giving you the sense of a complex society in slow but constant motion, adding to the sense of realism. As an example of world-building, Darkover is hard to top.
I think that Darkover achieved this level of complexity and detail because it is, in a sense, a collectively built world. Fan fic, hated by writers though it may be, is and always has been an intrinsic part of sf nerd culture. Bradley took the unlikely step of embracing her fan fic and declaring it canonical. She accepted stories and published them in anthologies with her seal of approval, cartographically inclined fans drew her maps, musical fans composed songs, linguist fans mapped out the evolution of the languages spoken by her characters, and fans into handcrafts contributed their expertise. In a way, Darkover was the first open-source fantasy project, and the diversity of talents and perspectives that converged on the narrative gave it a richness and depth of detail that a single author would find hard to match.
January 18, 2020
This is my first MZB novel, and I was reassured by a lot of the reviews I read that although this is book nine in the Darkover series, this was the one to start with. It did stand on its own, with a fairly self-contained story, and characters introduced as if it were a stand-alone novel. The world building is also quite exceptional and the plot complex and interesting. Yet I didn’t feel that the sum of its parts added up to a satisfying whole. I chose this book because it is considered important in LGBTQ speculative fiction history in its portrayal of a gay main character in mainstream speculative literature. (I use “speculative” here because it’s something of a cross between science fiction and fantasy). The book is good, but not as great as I was expecting, or hoping, it would be.
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December 10, 2014
I grew up reading MZB and loved her work. I recently came across a book with this titla and Sharras' Exile. After reading this book I looked on line to refresh my memory of MZB's works. The recent info that has come to light about sexual abuse by MZB and her second husband disturbed me greatly. I simply could not read the second book after seeing the legal transcripts. I appreciate the influence she had on fantasy/sci-fi and women writers. But I can not separate her fiction from her real life actions and inaction's at this point.
September 10, 2016
I inherited a whole stack of Darkover books and have found the right order to read them in. No wonder I didn't get The Bloody Sun... Enjoyed this one very much, although the male-female relationships still give me the creeps. The amount of slender women fainting is just ridiculous in this day and age. But the Darkover universe is growing on me.
April 29, 2018
Cosa posso dire sulla Bradley che non sia già stato detto? Riprendo in mano un suo lavoro, dopo tanti anni, e lo trovo ancora stupefacente. Le sue opere avrebbero ancora tanto da insegnare a molti autori di fantascienza e fantasy contemporanei, in cui ultimamente mi sembra regni molta superficialità e approssimazione.
November 14, 2011
So boring I actually just read the kid's parts, ignored Lew entirely. And even then the writing about the kids and Dyan was so opaque I had no clue what the hell was going on for a good long time. I hate Darkover. Seriously.
October 30, 2018
It was a very strange feeling, slipping into a book that I've read so many times in the past, especially since I don't really re-read books these days.
It's been seven years since the last time I "set foot" on Darkover, and even longer (I guess... almost twenty years?) since the time this books were my absolute everything, the other universe in which I spent so much time and that shaped my way of thinking about so many things (I was barely a teenager, everything I chose to read at the time ended up being quite formative, one way or another).
Really, this is a perfect YA book even though it's really not meant to be a YA book: both Regis and Lew are teenagers (or at least very teenager-y in their way of thinking and acting), every emotion is OH SO INTENSE and OH SO RAPIDLY MUTABLE, the struggles they face are very much relating to identity and one's position in the world. Really, I don't blame my teenage self for liking them so much (though I had to wonder if they really were the right books for me at the time - if the fact that I liked them so much meant that I found a mirror in the pages, or if it's what I read at the time that informed my view of the world).
This is not a bad book. It is also not a great book. The writing is repetitive and verbose, the characters are shallow beneath a facade of highly introspective depth, EVERYTHING HAPPENS IN SUCH LITTLE TIME THAT IS CLEARLY UNBELIEVABLE.
And yet, I was in a certain mood this day, a teenager-y mood maybe, and coming back to this felt like being back with your old friends, and sated a certain need for angst that had been weeling inside me. The adult I am now wish there was a little more subtlety there, but I guess you can't have everything.
(also, IS MASTURBATION NOT A THING ON DARKOVER? I mean, when they were working on Sharra and Lew ended up having RAPE DREAMS because of all the pentup sexual energy that he COULDN'T POSSIBLY EASE because Thyra wasn't tower trained... what about a little self love man? Come on!)
It's been seven years since the last time I "set foot" on Darkover, and even longer (I guess... almost twenty years?) since the time this books were my absolute everything, the other universe in which I spent so much time and that shaped my way of thinking about so many things (I was barely a teenager, everything I chose to read at the time ended up being quite formative, one way or another).
Really, this is a perfect YA book even though it's really not meant to be a YA book: both Regis and Lew are teenagers (or at least very teenager-y in their way of thinking and acting), every emotion is OH SO INTENSE and OH SO RAPIDLY MUTABLE, the struggles they face are very much relating to identity and one's position in the world. Really, I don't blame my teenage self for liking them so much (though I had to wonder if they really were the right books for me at the time - if the fact that I liked them so much meant that I found a mirror in the pages, or if it's what I read at the time that informed my view of the world).
This is not a bad book. It is also not a great book. The writing is repetitive and verbose, the characters are shallow beneath a facade of highly introspective depth, EVERYTHING HAPPENS IN SUCH LITTLE TIME THAT IS CLEARLY UNBELIEVABLE.
And yet, I was in a certain mood this day, a teenager-y mood maybe, and coming back to this felt like being back with your old friends, and sated a certain need for angst that had been weeling inside me. The adult I am now wish there was a little more subtlety there, but I guess you can't have everything.
(also, IS MASTURBATION NOT A THING ON DARKOVER? I mean, when they were working on Sharra and Lew ended up having RAPE DREAMS because of all the pentup sexual energy that he COULDN'T POSSIBLY EASE because Thyra wasn't tower trained... what about a little self love man? Come on!)
January 26, 2017
A Darkover novel. In this novel the comyn council is worried about Terran weapons being brought and sold outside the Terran zone. This is not happening at Thendara, but rather at the spaceport at Caer Donn in the Aldaran domain. We alternately follow youngsters Regis Hastur and Lew Alton.
Regis is has been studying at Nevarsin. After three year studying at the monastery and not developing laran he wants to go off world. His grandfather says if he feels the same after three years in the guard he will let him. Regis strikes up a friendship with fellow cadet Danilo. Unbeknownst to Regis, head instructor Dyan Ardais is giving Danilo a hard time.
Lew Alton is being pushed by his aging father Kennard to have more responsibility. When Kennard is injured in a fall, he puts Lew in charge of the Guard. Including his friend Regis who is a brand new cadet. Kennard also needs to send someone to Aldaran to talk them about the illegal weapons. Lew just happens to be part Aldaran, on his mother's side, so he's an ideal candidate. By this time there has been fighting between Lew and Kennard, so when he gets to Aldaran he is kind of amenable to their plans.
There is an ebb and flow of emotions and relationships. Like Regis wanting nothing more than to have laran, and once he has it, maybe it's not what he wanted. I don't want to turn any one off by saying that it's like the plot of a soap opera with a few added in scifi elements and the Darkover aura, because it was fun to read and had a great flow. The Darkover books are all self-contained with slight differences. There's always tension between the Terrans and Darkovans, sometimes less, sometimes almost a complete segregation is necessary. This book is the first one I've read that mentioned a spaceport anywhere other than Thendara.
Regis is has been studying at Nevarsin. After three year studying at the monastery and not developing laran he wants to go off world. His grandfather says if he feels the same after three years in the guard he will let him. Regis strikes up a friendship with fellow cadet Danilo. Unbeknownst to Regis, head instructor Dyan Ardais is giving Danilo a hard time.
Lew Alton is being pushed by his aging father Kennard to have more responsibility. When Kennard is injured in a fall, he puts Lew in charge of the Guard. Including his friend Regis who is a brand new cadet. Kennard also needs to send someone to Aldaran to talk them about the illegal weapons. Lew just happens to be part Aldaran, on his mother's side, so he's an ideal candidate. By this time there has been fighting between Lew and Kennard, so when he gets to Aldaran he is kind of amenable to their plans.
There is an ebb and flow of emotions and relationships. Like Regis wanting nothing more than to have laran, and once he has it, maybe it's not what he wanted. I don't want to turn any one off by saying that it's like the plot of a soap opera with a few added in scifi elements and the Darkover aura, because it was fun to read and had a great flow. The Darkover books are all self-contained with slight differences. There's always tension between the Terrans and Darkovans, sometimes less, sometimes almost a complete segregation is necessary. This book is the first one I've read that mentioned a spaceport anywhere other than Thendara.
January 15, 2018
Nuevo regreso a Darkover, ese planeta que se resiste a entrar en el Imperio Galáctico y, como si del poblado galo de "Astérix y Obélix" se tratara, resiste aislada. Al mismo tiempo, lucha por mantener sus tradiciones ligadas a la magia y la telepatía.
En La herencia de los Hastur se nos dibuja ese conflicto latente entre los terranos y darkovianos, una brega que los siglos no han logrado hacer desaparecer; es interesante cómo la historia soterrada nos habla del colonialismo y cómo los autóctonos viven bajo esa extraña situación de dominio amistoso. Marion Zimmer Bradley explora también las relaciones humanas, la falta de comprensión que muchas veces nos empuja a equivocarnos sin remedio y se adentra en la influencia e importancia de las tradiciones en la cultura popular y la propia historia.
Gracias a una narrativa ágil y dinámica, las más de quinientas páginas se hacen cortas y dejan con ganas de más.
En La herencia de los Hastur se nos dibuja ese conflicto latente entre los terranos y darkovianos, una brega que los siglos no han logrado hacer desaparecer; es interesante cómo la historia soterrada nos habla del colonialismo y cómo los autóctonos viven bajo esa extraña situación de dominio amistoso. Marion Zimmer Bradley explora también las relaciones humanas, la falta de comprensión que muchas veces nos empuja a equivocarnos sin remedio y se adentra en la influencia e importancia de las tradiciones en la cultura popular y la propia historia.
Gracias a una narrativa ágil y dinámica, las más de quinientas páginas se hacen cortas y dejan con ganas de más.
November 20, 2025
Marion Zimmer Bradley, and her literary work, must be viewed through two, often competing, lenses.
First, she was writing stories with strong, relatable female protagonists battling male oppression at a time when very few other authors were prepared to do so. Many modern readers cannot conceive of a time when women were not allowed to have a credit card in their own name, which was but one of the policies Bradley was dealing with in her time. She was a feminist long before it became fashionable. She was one of a very few voices that spoke powerfully to young women about their own worth. Much of her writing, read today, can be seen as trite, obvious, or overbearing, but it must be remembered that it was none of those things at the time it was written. This was a woman who co-founded, and named, the Society for Creative Anachronism, who championed pagan rights when the mainstream saw them as satanic, and who encouraged and published unknown female authors like Mercedes Lackey. Viewed through this lens, Bradley was a progressive woman to be lauded, as she was, posthumously, when she received the World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement in 2000.
Second, and hideously, Bradley was a pedophile, who molested her own children. She also procured and groomed children for her husband, Walter Breen, to assault. She admitted to knowing what he was doing to these children, but refused to stop helping him, much less report him or interfere with his desires. Her own daughter was her accuser, so we can be assured this is not a "he said, she said" situation. Viewed through this lens, then, her life and work become irredeemably tainted.
We are, perhaps, used to evaluating art for art's sake, commenting on Ender's Game, or Harry Potter, as though their authors' views, hateful as they are, should not condemn the output of their minds and hands. Perhaps we are right to do so; after all, these views are only beliefs and words, no matter how widespread a bully pulpit their famous speakers are able to command. However, when beliefs and words turn into actions, we must draw the line. Since 2014, when definitive proof finally came to light, I have found myself unable to recommend anything written by Marion Zimmer Bradley. I remain so appalled by her actions that I can never give more than one star to anything she has written, no matter how groundbreaking, how heartfelt, how astounding it may be. I urge everyone reading this to join me in boycotting her work forever.
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* (extremely rare) There is something very wrong with this book &/or this author; never again.
** (seldom) Has flaws, or I just couldn’t get into it; no thanks.
*** (usual) Not great, not bad; no need to return to it.
**** (often) Better than average; I’d read it again.
***** (rare) A superb example of the genre, &/or an incredible piece of art; I re-read it often.
First, she was writing stories with strong, relatable female protagonists battling male oppression at a time when very few other authors were prepared to do so. Many modern readers cannot conceive of a time when women were not allowed to have a credit card in their own name, which was but one of the policies Bradley was dealing with in her time. She was a feminist long before it became fashionable. She was one of a very few voices that spoke powerfully to young women about their own worth. Much of her writing, read today, can be seen as trite, obvious, or overbearing, but it must be remembered that it was none of those things at the time it was written. This was a woman who co-founded, and named, the Society for Creative Anachronism, who championed pagan rights when the mainstream saw them as satanic, and who encouraged and published unknown female authors like Mercedes Lackey. Viewed through this lens, Bradley was a progressive woman to be lauded, as she was, posthumously, when she received the World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement in 2000.
Second, and hideously, Bradley was a pedophile, who molested her own children. She also procured and groomed children for her husband, Walter Breen, to assault. She admitted to knowing what he was doing to these children, but refused to stop helping him, much less report him or interfere with his desires. Her own daughter was her accuser, so we can be assured this is not a "he said, she said" situation. Viewed through this lens, then, her life and work become irredeemably tainted.
We are, perhaps, used to evaluating art for art's sake, commenting on Ender's Game, or Harry Potter, as though their authors' views, hateful as they are, should not condemn the output of their minds and hands. Perhaps we are right to do so; after all, these views are only beliefs and words, no matter how widespread a bully pulpit their famous speakers are able to command. However, when beliefs and words turn into actions, we must draw the line. Since 2014, when definitive proof finally came to light, I have found myself unable to recommend anything written by Marion Zimmer Bradley. I remain so appalled by her actions that I can never give more than one star to anything she has written, no matter how groundbreaking, how heartfelt, how astounding it may be. I urge everyone reading this to join me in boycotting her work forever.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* (extremely rare) There is something very wrong with this book &/or this author; never again.
** (seldom) Has flaws, or I just couldn’t get into it; no thanks.
*** (usual) Not great, not bad; no need to return to it.
**** (often) Better than average; I’d read it again.
***** (rare) A superb example of the genre, &/or an incredible piece of art; I re-read it often.
October 29, 2022
I think this is one of my favourite Darkover novels, probably because Regis is such a likeable character. There's also a touch of Boy's Own adventure story to it, although being a product of Marion Zimmer Bradley 's imagination, there's a lot more as well!
If the Forbidden Tower was, to a large extent, about women's right to self determination, this book is about young men seeking that same right, struggling to balance dreams and hopes against responsibilities and expectations. Regis and Danilo are only young teenagers, Lew a bit older. All three have battles to fight, metaphorically and literally. Regis and Lew especially find the restrictions placed upon them by their caste extremely hard to bear, but after enduring extremes of pain, loss and danger, grow to realise there is worth in the traditional roles too.
If the Forbidden Tower was, to a large extent, about women's right to self determination, this book is about young men seeking that same right, struggling to balance dreams and hopes against responsibilities and expectations. Regis and Danilo are only young teenagers, Lew a bit older. All three have battles to fight, metaphorically and literally. Regis and Lew especially find the restrictions placed upon them by their caste extremely hard to bear, but after enduring extremes of pain, loss and danger, grow to realise there is worth in the traditional roles too.
May 25, 2020
Two story lines combining into one very well-written novel: the coming-of-age story of Regis Hastur and his relationship with Danilo Syrtis (important characters from many of her books); and the tragic one of Lew Alton and the Sharra matrix. Not for the faint of heart, that one. Overall, it's about political power caught up in one ruling caste, pitted against a powerful Empire (ours, of course), and the people that affects. Throw in one mysteriously twisted character who wants the power by any means necessary, and you've got fire.
It's still not my favorite of hers, but I forgot that it was this good.
It's still not my favorite of hers, but I forgot that it was this good.
November 1, 2022
Boring.
I picked this one up as it was acclaimed to be one of Bradley's best Darkover novels. The book flip-flops between two perspectives, that of Regis Hastur and Lew Alton. It's a little jarring because Hastur's is written in the third person while Alton's is written in the first. No matter, because the book was incredibly boring. I almost DNF'd it, but pushed through to see if it would get better. It didn't.
The book isn't terribly written, it just doesn't have a lot to it. There's a plot, there are some twists, there is a peak and denouement, but none of them captured or engaged me.
I picked this one up as it was acclaimed to be one of Bradley's best Darkover novels. The book flip-flops between two perspectives, that of Regis Hastur and Lew Alton. It's a little jarring because Hastur's is written in the third person while Alton's is written in the first. No matter, because the book was incredibly boring. I almost DNF'd it, but pushed through to see if it would get better. It didn't.
The book isn't terribly written, it just doesn't have a lot to it. There's a plot, there are some twists, there is a peak and denouement, but none of them captured or engaged me.
June 8, 2023
I tried a couple times to get into the Darkover novels when I was younger and never made it through the book. I picked this one up last summer and once again only made it in so far. It was only when I tried again on Audiobook that I was able to really get into it.
I really wish i had read this when I was in highschool. It's complex characters, and especially its portrayal of gay men, written decades ahead of other authors amazed me. The conflict between Darkovan and Terran culture was very interesting and I appreciated how neither side was portrayed as right, but both sides were flawed and fascinating. Now that I have read the one I need to dig more into the series.
I really wish i had read this when I was in highschool. It's complex characters, and especially its portrayal of gay men, written decades ahead of other authors amazed me. The conflict between Darkovan and Terran culture was very interesting and I appreciated how neither side was portrayed as right, but both sides were flawed and fascinating. Now that I have read the one I need to dig more into the series.
September 5, 2023
So I wanted to read this book ("Bradley's best novel") to decide whether to get rid of the entire Darkover series I had lying around. The precept: science fiction with telepaths, and this specific novel with some gay content. Sounds good, right? Why my hesitance? One of the three books I've never finished is Bradley's, and her Thieves World entry was just icky.
Why was this book hard to read?
- the abuse
- I would expect telepaths to have empathy
- terms used without explanation
- characters that felt like forty at first are teenagers
- characters are wooden and inconsistent
- all the emotions are so damn negative
So any redeeming qualities? Hm. The corrupted telepathic crystal was an interesting concept. I liked the scene of Regis visiting Danilo's homestead. I liked some side characters.
_Not_ recommended.
Why was this book hard to read?
- the abuse
- I would expect telepaths to have empathy
- terms used without explanation
- characters that felt like forty at first are teenagers
- characters are wooden and inconsistent
- all the emotions are so damn negative
So any redeeming qualities? Hm. The corrupted telepathic crystal was an interesting concept. I liked the scene of Regis visiting Danilo's homestead. I liked some side characters.
_Not_ recommended.
February 7, 2017
This was the first Darkover book I read, back when I was spending part of summer vacation at my grandmother's house. Their library had a lot of 70s and 80s sci-fi and fantasy, and there was a whole shelf of Darkover books. I picked this one first--I no longer remember the reasons why--and it was good enough then that I went back and read almost all of the other Darkover books I could find, even the ones like The World Wreckers that I found almost completely incoherent. I went back to The Heritage of Hastur to see if it holds up, and I'm glad to say that it does.
At its base, the book is about power and duty. Noblesse oblige, in other words, which makes a lot more sense as a concept in a world where the nobility has psychic powers to the extent that having psychic powers is a requirement for wielding power as Comyn. Both Regis and Lew are born to privilege, and they follow opposite paths. Regis starts out believing that he'll never be able to inherit because (he thinks) he doesn't have laran, and so he is determined to leave Darkover behind and take a Terran starship out to the rest of the Empire until his grandfather extracts a promise from him to spend three seasons in the Thendara guards. From there, he gets tied tighter and tighter into the web of Comyn society that he originally expected to abandon until he willingly takes the oath of service to the Comyn Council.
Lew's path, the other narrative voice in the book, is perpendicular to Regis's. The son of a Terran mother, his father spent a ton of political capital to have him acknowledged as the legitimate heir, and he spends much of the book working in the service of the Comyn, first in the guard and then as an emissary to the breakaway Aldaran domain. But once in Aldaran, he gets caught up in a plan to go over the Comyn Council's heads and prove to the Terrans that Darkover laran is just as valuable as scientific progress. When it all ends in fire and death, his father defies the council and takes Lew off world, away from Darkovan society.
I liked the way the perspective of each narrative reinforced the themes. Regis's sections are in third person, which ties in to the way that he's buffeted by society and eventually, bound by ties of fealty, bows to the whims of his elders. Lew's sections are in first person, showing how he increasingly relies on his own judgement over what is best for his world and how to serve Darkover. That was well done.
It did make the Dyan Ardais abuse plotline in the first third of the book almost painful to read, though. It would be one thing if Bradley had been subtle about what was going on, but she wasn't, and the main takeaway I had was that Regis was an idiot who was incapable of recognizing the obvious. Sure, you could say it runs parallel to his initial belief that he lacks laran, rendering him at a huge disadvantage in a telepathic society, and that his understanding of Dyan's crimes parallels his awakening to mental world of the Comyn nobility...but it just seemed heavy-handed to me.
Also, knowing what we now know about Bradley and her husband, it was really uncomfortable to read.
Once that was done and the plot was devoted to the Sharra matrix, though, these complaints vanished and I had a lot of fun following the plotline to its end, although the foreshadowing was so heavy that it would have been obvious what was going to happen even if I hadn't read the book before. It did leave me with a lot of questions about exactly how laran works and the limits of its powers, since Lew comments that a single laranzu with a matrix can lift a helicopter by themselves and a circle using the Sharra matrix could pull a moon out of orbit.
I know laran's power has always been determined by the limits of plot, and there's the time where it was indistinguishable from sorcery as an excuse for how its powers are shadowy and mysterious, but my major problem with the Darkover books is that it feels like laran has no rules at all. It just does what it needs to when the author needs it to, and that makes it hard to buy in to the worldbuilding. That's not a major problem in The Heritage of Hastur, where the major takeaway is just that laran is incredibly and indefinably powerful and the specifics don't matter, but it does make it difficult to determine whether the "some things are too dangerous to be used" message is actually true or not when we don't know how powerful or useful laran is normally.
I did like the contrast drawn between Terran society, which relies on the law to protect people, and Darkover, where every man of age carries a sword and is expected to answer a challenge. I especially liked it when the book pointed out that this was mostly a empty custom and that Comyn lords almost never had to actually fight duels because it's a wasteful practice that just gets good people killed.
All in all, pretty satisfying. This may be labeled as #18 here, but it's a great intro to Darkover and I would have been fine even if I hadn't read any of the other books beforehand. I look forward to reading more Darkover books and seeing if they're also as good as I remember them.
Next Review: Sharra's Exile.
At its base, the book is about power and duty. Noblesse oblige, in other words, which makes a lot more sense as a concept in a world where the nobility has psychic powers to the extent that having psychic powers is a requirement for wielding power as Comyn. Both Regis and Lew are born to privilege, and they follow opposite paths. Regis starts out believing that he'll never be able to inherit because (he thinks) he doesn't have laran, and so he is determined to leave Darkover behind and take a Terran starship out to the rest of the Empire until his grandfather extracts a promise from him to spend three seasons in the Thendara guards. From there, he gets tied tighter and tighter into the web of Comyn society that he originally expected to abandon until he willingly takes the oath of service to the Comyn Council.
Lew's path, the other narrative voice in the book, is perpendicular to Regis's. The son of a Terran mother, his father spent a ton of political capital to have him acknowledged as the legitimate heir, and he spends much of the book working in the service of the Comyn, first in the guard and then as an emissary to the breakaway Aldaran domain. But once in Aldaran, he gets caught up in a plan to go over the Comyn Council's heads and prove to the Terrans that Darkover laran is just as valuable as scientific progress. When it all ends in fire and death, his father defies the council and takes Lew off world, away from Darkovan society.
I liked the way the perspective of each narrative reinforced the themes. Regis's sections are in third person, which ties in to the way that he's buffeted by society and eventually, bound by ties of fealty, bows to the whims of his elders. Lew's sections are in first person, showing how he increasingly relies on his own judgement over what is best for his world and how to serve Darkover. That was well done.
It did make the Dyan Ardais abuse plotline in the first third of the book almost painful to read, though. It would be one thing if Bradley had been subtle about what was going on, but she wasn't, and the main takeaway I had was that Regis was an idiot who was incapable of recognizing the obvious. Sure, you could say it runs parallel to his initial belief that he lacks laran, rendering him at a huge disadvantage in a telepathic society, and that his understanding of Dyan's crimes parallels his awakening to mental world of the Comyn nobility...but it just seemed heavy-handed to me.
Also, knowing what we now know about Bradley and her husband, it was really uncomfortable to read.
Once that was done and the plot was devoted to the Sharra matrix, though, these complaints vanished and I had a lot of fun following the plotline to its end, although the foreshadowing was so heavy that it would have been obvious what was going to happen even if I hadn't read the book before. It did leave me with a lot of questions about exactly how laran works and the limits of its powers, since Lew comments that a single laranzu with a matrix can lift a helicopter by themselves and a circle using the Sharra matrix could pull a moon out of orbit.
I know laran's power has always been determined by the limits of plot, and there's the time where it was indistinguishable from sorcery as an excuse for how its powers are shadowy and mysterious, but my major problem with the Darkover books is that it feels like laran has no rules at all. It just does what it needs to when the author needs it to, and that makes it hard to buy in to the worldbuilding. That's not a major problem in The Heritage of Hastur, where the major takeaway is just that laran is incredibly and indefinably powerful and the specifics don't matter, but it does make it difficult to determine whether the "some things are too dangerous to be used" message is actually true or not when we don't know how powerful or useful laran is normally.
I did like the contrast drawn between Terran society, which relies on the law to protect people, and Darkover, where every man of age carries a sword and is expected to answer a challenge. I especially liked it when the book pointed out that this was mostly a empty custom and that Comyn lords almost never had to actually fight duels because it's a wasteful practice that just gets good people killed.
All in all, pretty satisfying. This may be labeled as #18 here, but it's a great intro to Darkover and I would have been fine even if I hadn't read any of the other books beforehand. I look forward to reading more Darkover books and seeing if they're also as good as I remember them.
Next Review: Sharra's Exile.
March 1, 2022
This is probably the first Darkover novel I read some 40 years ago. This author hated stories that didn't resolve within one book. However, MZB didn't care to keep details straight between stories, and the stories were not written in a continuing timeline. One needs to be able to let discrepancies go and enjoy each story. Nonetheless, once I got into this storyline i was compelled to read the next book and the next. Then I started collecting all the Darkover books that I could find. These remain favorites that I still re-read from time to time.
March 25, 2023
The Darkover universe is one of my favorites. Ms Bradley did a great job of intuiting the culture of some peoples of our Earth today, to a future that I can follow and found believable.
I'd read this book a couple times from my own physical library but today it's much easier to read via audio so I'm grateful Recorded Books took the time to convert it to audio for my use.
This book has nice transitions back and forth between 2 primary characters because the shift is provided in the chapter title. One of my personal pet peeves is no visual or audible clue of perspective / time shift.
I'd read this book a couple times from my own physical library but today it's much easier to read via audio so I'm grateful Recorded Books took the time to convert it to audio for my use.
This book has nice transitions back and forth between 2 primary characters because the shift is provided in the chapter title. One of my personal pet peeves is no visual or audible clue of perspective / time shift.
January 9, 2023
Very good fantasy novel (actually science fiction, but between the relative lack of technology in Darkover and the psi powers it feels like fantasy). The story is told from the alternating points of view of Regis Hastur and Lewis Alton. What made the novel work for me is how intensely their feelings and perspectives are explored, making me care for their fate. Now I need to read the following books in this arc.
December 26, 2017
This was a re-read for the Popsugar Challenge (book you loved as a child) and while I wouldn't necessarily say that I fell as deeply in love with the novel as before (I used to dream of moving to Darkover), it still is among my favorite books of all times (and certainly among the Darkover novels). Maybe next year, I'll get around to re-reading more of them ...
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