Darkover Series by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Darkover #1
The Planet Savers
Marion Zimmer Bradley
In The Planet Savers Marion Zimmer Bradley introduced the world to her amazing Darkover series. A disease threatens all of Darkover and the only man that can save Darkover has a multiple personality disorder. He is two distinct men. But two men who hate one another and vie for possession of their one body. But to save Darkover they must work together.
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Darkover #2
The Sword of Aldones d-2
Marion Zimmer Bradley
After Lew Alton unwittingly roused the fire demon Sharra, the Sword of Aldones was the only weapon that could lay her to rest again. But only one man could wield the sword, and getting it was an even bigger problem.
Nominated for Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1963.
Later the novel was revised and rewritten by author and published as Sharra’s Exile in 1981.
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Darkover #2
The Sword of Aldones
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Lew Alton was returning to Darkover - returning at the command of men who had once been all too glad to see him leave. For Lew, a Darkovan on his father's side, and a Terran on his mother's, had always walked between two worlds, accused by each of belonging to the other, and trusted by neither. Yet Lew alone had the power to understand both worlds and to save them from each other's unknown forces. That was the reason he had returned at last - armed with the legendary sword of the Sharra matrix, whose destiny was to cross forces with the equally mystic Sword of Aldones in one mighty battle that would decide Darkover's fate . . .
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Darkover #3
The Bloody Sun
Marion Zimmer Bradley
This is the re-written version of the original story.
To Terran Jeff Kerwin the distant planet he remembered only as a childhood dream was home. But when years of planning finally brought him back to Darkover, ha found that there was no peace for him there--not for someone with both the red hair of a Com'yn lord and the bastard strains of Terrani in his blood; not for someone who carried a Darkovan matrix jewel without knowing where it came from; not for someone who managed to win th trust of the sacred Keepers and the secrets of their Tower, only to be accused of betrating them to his Terran masters...
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Darkover #4
Star of Danger
Marion Zimmer Bradley
First published in 1965, Star of Danger is a work that stands as a foundation for the bestselling Darkover series, introducing many loyal fans to this wonderful, mysterious world. Two natives of Darkover are forced to combine Darkover matrix magic with Terran technology to stand against a shared enemy.
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Darkover #5
The Winds of Darkover
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Turning under a blood-red sun, Darkover had always been a mystery to the Terrans. Its most puzzling riddles lay in the incredibly high mountains known as the Hellers. These jagged and almost impassable peaks sheltered races and enigmas that had become legend in the outside world--the howling inhuman Ya-men, the deadly Ghost Wind, the fiefs of barbaric brigand chieftains, decaying eldritch Dry-Towns...and the eerie forces that were worshiped as gods.
Dan Barron was a rational and highly efficient member of the Terran Spaceforce--until nightmare visions drove him from the safety of the Trade City into the unmapped heart of the Darkovan mountain ranges...into an ancient battle that would shape the destiny of more than one world.
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Darkover #6
The World Wreckers
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Planetary Investments Unlimited--that was its official name. But unofficially it was knows as Worldwreckers, Inc.. For a fee, its agents would infiltrate any world unwilling to give up its independence, and do enough damage so the natives would be forced to allow Terran investors to step in and salvage their planet. And now, once again, its agents were at work.
In the 78 years since Cottman IV, called Darkover by its natives, was rediscovered by the Terran Empire, all efforts to colonize and industrialize this exotic world had failed.
And the person in charge of "Worldwreckers, Inc.", a centuries-old being who appeared to be a woman, had decided to take on this particular assignment herself. After all, she had special insight into this world, for long ago--lifetimes ago--she had called Darkover home...
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Darkover #7
Darkover Landfall
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Darkover, planet of wonder, world of mystery, has been a favorite of science fiction readers for many years. For it is a truly alien sphere--a world of strange intelligences, of brooding skies beneath a ruddy sun, and of powers unknown to Earth. In this novel, Marion Zimmer Bradley tells of the original coming of the Earthmen, of the days when Darkover knew not humanity. This is the full-bodied novel of what happened when a colonial starship crashlanded on that uncharted planet to encounter for the first time in human existence the impact of the Ghost Wind, the psychic currents that were native only to that world, and the price that every Earthling must pay before Darkover could claim him for itself.
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Darkover #8
The Spell Sword
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Although Darkover was a world inhabited by humans as well as semi-humans, it was primarily forbidden ground to the Terran traders. Most of the planet's wild terrain was unexplored...and many of its peoples seclusive and secretive.
But for Andrew Carr there was an attration he could not evade. Darkover drew him, Darkover haunted him--and when his mapping plane crashed in unknown heights, Darkover prepared to destroy him.
Until the planet's magic asserted itself--and his destiny began to unfold along lines predicted only by phantoms and wonder workers of the kind Terran science could never acknowledge.
THE SPELL SWORD is a Darkover novel to stand with the great ones of the series.
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Darkover #9
The Heritage of Hastur
Marion Zimmer Bradley
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 the Author:
To the faithful followers of the chronicles of Darkover, whose greatest delight seems to be discovering even the most minute inconsistencies from book to book:
This 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
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Darkover #10
The Shattered Chain
Marion Zimmer Bradley
While only women can command the power of the matrix and the secret sciences which keep Darkover from Terran hands, in most respects they are still chattels. But the Free Amazons are considered equal to men, and it is they who provide the key to the Terran-Darkover dilemma.
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Darkover #11
The Forbidden Tower
Marion Zimmer Bradley
This is the novel of four who defied the powers of the matrix guardians - fanatics who protected those powers so that the planet of the ruddy sun might never fall beneath the influence of materialistic Terrans.
The four who found themselves fused into a terrifying unity in that defiance were two men and two women.
The men were Damon Ridenow, a Comyn of the ruling caste, and Andrew Carr, the Earthman who had won for himself the right of clan-entry.
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Darkover #12
Stormqueen!
Marion Zimmer Bradley
paperback, vg++ In stock shipped from our UK warehouse
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Darkover #13
Darkover #14
The Keeper's Price
Marion Zimmer Bradley
From the back cover:
The lore of the planet of the Bloody Sun, Darkover, with its human and semi-human peoples, its science of emntal powers, its loves and hates, its feuds and favors -- all have grown into one of the greater classics of the imagination, comparable only to the Middle Earth of Tolkien.
For so deep and complex has been the creation of this worlds that readers have sought to fill in the unknown spots of its saga. They, forming the Friends of Darkover, have joined with Marion Zimmer Bradley to create this anthology of new stories of Darkover, written by its most talented followers.
Here are stories that span the whole of Darkover history -- from the days after the original landfall, through the Ages of Chaos, the Pact of the Comyn, and the coming of the Terrans. Included are three original stories by Marion Zimmer Bradley and her editorial commentaries on each story.
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Darkover #15
Sharra's Exile
Marion Zimmer Bradley
The sequel to Heritage of Hastur, perhaps the single most popular of Bradley's spectacular Darkover novels, Sharra's Exile is the story of Lew Alton's return to Darkover and his battle to destroy the deadly Sharra matrix.
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Darkover #16
Hawkmistress!
Marion Zimmer Bradley
She had rejected her noble birthright and embraced the freedom only a man could claim. She was Romilly who lived among the beasts of hill and forest and communicated with them, who tried humanity and turned it down for its evils and jealousies. She had the MacAran Gift, the rare Laran that conferred mastery over hawk and horse.
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Darkover #18
The Heritage Of Hastur d-18
Marion Zimmer Bradley
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.
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Darkover #18
Thendara House
Marion Zimmer Bradley
The cross-currents of two cultures, one male-dominated, one egalitarian, combined with the human problems of two who switched allegiances, brings into focus all the deepest questions of love and marriage, justice and injustice. THENDARA HOUSE is a novel of speculation which has become a classic masterwork on the role of women on any world, past, present, or future.
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Darkover #19
City of Sorcery
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Haunted by mysterious images of hooded figures, Magdalen Lorne, chief Terran operative on Darkover, pursues a quest not only to the frozen ends of the physical world but also to the perilous limits of the spiritual world. And there she is tested by the evil sorcery of the Dark Sisterhood.
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Darkover #21
Sharra's Exile d-21
Marion Zimmer Bradley
The sequel to Heritage of Hastur, perhaps the single most popular of Bradley's spectacular Darkover novels, Sharra's Exile is the story of Lew Alton's return to Darkover and his battle to destroy the deadly Sharra matrix.
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Darkover #23
Hastur Lord d-23
Marion Zimmer Bradley
The world of Darkover, a unique, isolated, and protected world, has long avoided becoming part of the technologically advanced Terran Empire. But things are about to change. Regis Hastur, lord of the most powerful of the seven Domains in Darkover, learns that the Empire is about to become a Federation, and is extending an invitation for all of the worlds to join. While the offer seems tempting to his people, Regis knows that Darkover would become little more than a military base, used for its unique planetary position, and will be sapped of its resources. He must now stop at nothing to save his world.
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Darkover #24
Darkover #29
Rediscovery
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Leonie Hastur, headstrong and lovely daughter of the Hastur Clan, most powerful of all the telepathic families who rule Darkover, is being escorted by her twin brother Lorill to Dalreuth Tower for training in the use of her psychic powers. Although this is the event she has long dreamed of—for her laran is so strong that she has been able to use it without benefit of training or the need of a matrix crystal—and she yearns for the power which will come to her if she succeeds in becoming a Keeper, she is deeply disturbed. For she is plagued by a terrifying premonition that haunts her days and disrupts her nights, the inescapable feeling that something is about to happen—something monumental and dangerous which will descend upon her world and change it utterly. And all she knows for certain is that this something will be coming from one of Darkover’s four moons…
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Darkover #30
Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover
Marion Zimmer Bradley
...an incredible blending of fantasy and science fiction.
Eventually the Terrans rediscover their long-lost — and now alien — colony: Darkover.
Things are different there.
While adolescent male homosexuality is generally tolerated on Darkover, men are expected to outgrow it. When Dyan Ardais takes lovers young enough to be his sons, he risks not just his reputation, but his life.
Life in a Tower as a Keeper, the chaste virgin who holds a circle together, is grueling. Few succeed in the long, painful years of training. The ones who do have power greater than any queen, but what happens to the ones who don’t?
Darkover technology is based on matrix stones that amplify psychic gifts, and people with those gifts work in the Tower circles. But duty to family outweighs everything else, and anyone can be called home from the Tower to marry as her family dictates. A Comyn lady can have lands, wealth, family…everything but freedom.
Women can become Free Amazons, but that life has its own set of challenges. Before a candidate’s trial period ends, she must decide if she is truly meant to cope with everything being a Free Amazon entails.
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Darkover #32
Exile's Song
Marion Zimmer Bradley
She was Margaret Alton, the daughter of Lew Alton, the Darkovan representative to the Terran Imperial Senate, but she remembered almost nothing about the planet of her birth, or her early and tumultuous childhood. What fleeting memories disturbed her sleep were fragments of terror - a strange silver man and a screaming woman with hair that circled her head like a ring of fire. Since leaving Darkover as a child, Margaret had lived her life on Thetis. Lew and her stepmother, Diotima, were gone much of the year, working in the Senate, struggling to keep Darkover safe from the all-consuming imperialism of the Terran Federation. She hardly knew her father, a brooding man who, when he returned to Thetis, was prone to long bouts of drinking. At these times, his normally morose and uncommunicative demeanor would take on an even darker hue ... times when he seemed to look at Margaret and see someone else - someone he did not want to remember. As soon as Margaret was of age, she fled her stormy home and took refuge on University. Here Margaret, strangely uncomfortable around her peers, found solace in the isolation of study. She excelled in music and was granted the position of assistant to her mentor, renowned musicologist Dr. Ivor Davidson. This prestigious job took her to many worlds, and when she and Professor Davidson were assigned to collect folk songs on Darkover, Margaret was curious and pleased. But once on Darkover, Margaret's innocent excitement quickly waned. The world of her birth evoked long-buried memories, painful and terrifying, and she soon found herself falling deeper and deeper into a waking dream that threatened to become a nightmare. Margaret began to hear voices in her head- one voice in particular which seemed to confront her at every turn - and she wondered if she were losing her mind.
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Darkover #33
The Shadow Matrix
Marion Zimmer Bradley
After spending her youth in the Terran Empire, Margaret Alton returns to Darkover, the planet of her birth. There she discovers she has the Alton Gift--forced rapport and compulsion--one of the strongest and most dangerous of the inherited Laran gifts of the telepathic Comyn--the ruling families of Darkover. And even as she struggles to control her newfound powers, Margaret finds herself falling in love with the Regent to the royal Elhalyn Domain, a man she has been forbidden to marry, for their alliance would irrevocably alter the power balance of their planet!
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Darkover #34
Traitor's Sun
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Traitor's Sun continues the epic saga of Darkover, the award-winning series by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Her most brilliant and popular creation, the Darkover books take readers to a planet torn by rebellion--and struggling for freedom...
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Darkover #35
The Fall of Neskaya
Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Fall of Neskaya, Book One of the Clingfire Trilogy, marks the legendary author's final return to Darkover before her death. Set in the tumultuous era of The Hundred Kingdoms, a terrible time of strife and war, this unique fantasy world is divided into a mutlitude of small belligerent domains vying for power and land. One ambitious and corrupt tyrant will stop at nothing to control Darkover-even wield the terrifying weapons of the matrix.
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Darkover #36
Zandru's Forge
Marion Zimmer Bradley
In the era of The Hundred Kingdoms, a time of war and unrest, a legendary friendship is forged between king and keeper which will lead to a new destiny for Darkover.
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Darkover #37
A Flame in Hali
Marion Zimmer Bradley
In the era of The Hundred Kingdoms, a time of war and unrest, King Carolin of Hastur and his friend Keeper Varzil Ridenow work selflessly to put an end to the destruction caused by the long range weapons of the magical matrix Towers. But Eduin Deslucido-who once called Carolin brother-has been consumed with a vengeful rage, and will stop at nothing to destroy the king and his plan for peace.
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Darkover #38
The Alton Gift
Marion Zimmer Bradley
The long-awaited continuation to the popular science fiction saga is the story of Darkover's ruling class, the comyn, and their struggles to reclaim their realm from the devastating effects of the Terran Federation.
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Darkover #39
Darkover #40
The Children of Kings
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Although the Terran Federation has departed Darkover due to a nasty interstellar civil war, the planet's location in the galactic arm makes it a prime hideout for smugglers, rebels, and other refugees. When smugglers start arming the warlike Dry Towners with forbidden weapons, Gareth Elhalyn, grandson of Regis Hastur and heir to the throne, takes off on a secret mission to stop them...
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Darkover #45
Thunderlord
Marion Zimmer Bradley
A follow-up to The Ages of Chaos omnibus, Thunderlord is a brand-new novel of the genre-bending Darkover universe, expanded by Marion Zimmer Bradley's collaborator Deborah J. Ross.
Far in Darkover's past, the Ages of Chaos were a time of constant warfare, when immensely powerful psychic weapons ravaged the land and slaughtered entire armies. Perhaps none was more dangerous and unpredictable than the mental Gift to sense--and control--thunderstorms. When the realm of Aldaran and their Scathfell cousins came to blows, that Gift turned the tide of battle, and Aldaran prevailed.
A generation later, the heir to Scathfell, Gwynn, has grown up in the shadow of that conflict, his life shaped by the loss of his entire family. Now he plots his revenge for his family’s humiliating defeat by seeking to marry a woman who carries the storm control Gift, so that his sons will be able to wield the terrible power of storms against Aldaran.
Since childhood, Kyria has been able to sense approaching storms. She had never expected to marry a rich man; independent and athletic, she defied tradition by donning her brother’s castoff clothing and trapping small game to keep her family from starvation. When Gwynn’s emissary arrives with a marriage proposal that will secure her family’s financial future, she agrees. Along with her younger sister as her companion, she sets out for Scathfell, where she will be formally wed.
During their passage through rugged mountains, a blizzard drives them to seek shelter in a traveler’s hut, where they meet Edric, the young heir to Aldaran.
Edric has inherited the storm control, but he has never dared to use it. His whole life, he has been warned against the consequences, not just to his enemies but to everyone he loves. Now, disguised as an ordinary traveler, he journeys home after years of study, disciplining himself to control his powers.
When he meets Kyria, he senses the presence of the same storm power, but unschooled and dormant. They know each other only as Edric and Kyria--for under shelter truth, all identities are concealed--and are drawn to one another.
Thus begins the saga of two kingdoms, divided by bitter history and present-day suspicions, one armed with devastating power and the other determined to overcome it, no matter what the price. Can their love and resourcefulness overcome even the overwhelming power of a Thunderlord?
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