Darkover for beginners
Aznin
I have never read a Darkover novel, but I recently read a review of
the latest novel in the series and it sounds interesting. So I
decided to give the series a try. I immediately got very confused by
the difference between publication dates and internal chronology. So,
I have a simple question: Where should I start reading? What would
you recommend as a good order for reading the books?
Aznin
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<insert standard witticism here>
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az...@say-NO-to-SPAM-hotmail.com
Remove the spamblocker for personal replies.
Lori Coulson
Aznin (az...@Say-NO-to-spam-hotmail.com) wrote:
: I have never read a Darkover novel, but I recently read a review of
: the latest novel in the series and it sounds interesting. So I
: decided to give the series a try. I immediately got very confused by
: the difference between publication dates and internal chronology. So,
: I have a simple question: Where should I start reading? What would
: you recommend as a good order for reading the books?
It depends. Do you like to read a series in chronological order? If so,
start with _Darkover Landfall_. I really do not suggest reading them in
publication order, but some folks do (personally, I pay no attention to
it. When I do a re-read of the series, I do follow the timeline in the
later books). My favorite "begin with" books are _Storm Queen_ and/or
_Heritage of Hastur_, then read the rest in "timeline" order. Some books
are weaker than others, my least favorite is _The Heirs of Hammerfell_.
Lori Coulson
--
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...Or do you still wait for me, Dream Giver...
Just around the riverbend? Pocahontas
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Michael Martinez
In article <3426495...@news.erols.com>, az...@Say-NO-to-spam-hotmail.com
says...
>
>I have never read a Darkover novel, but I recently read a review of
>the latest novel in the series and it sounds interesting. So I
>decided to give the series a try. I immediately got very confused by
>the difference between publication dates and internal chronology. So,
>I have a simple question: Where should I start reading? What would
>you recommend as a good order for reading the books?
This information is taken from the Darkover Bibliography that is posted to
alt.fan.created-worlds (and sometimes this group) every few weeks. It's
somewhat dated:
The Founding:
------------
DARKOVER LANDAFALL, Daw Books, 1972.
The Ages of Chaos:
-----------------
STORMQUEEN, Daw Books, 1978, ISBN 0-88677-092-0. Contains an
illustration.
HAWKMISTRESS, Daw Books, 1982, ISBN 0-88677-064-5. Contains an
illustration.
The Hundred Kingdoms:
--------------------
TWO TO CONQUER, Daw Books, 1980, ISBN 0-88677-174-9. Contains a
"Reader's Guide to DARKOVER".
The Renunciates:
---------------
THE SHATTERED CHAIN, Daw Books, 1976.
THENDARA HOUSE, Daw Books, 1983.
CITY OF SORCERY, Daw Books, 1984.
Against The Terrans (First Age -- Recontact):
--------------------------------------------
THE SPELL SWORD, Daw Books, 1974, ISBN 0-88677-091-2. Contains
an illustration.
THE FORBIDDEN TOWER, Daw Books, 1977, 0-88677-029-7. Contains an
illustration.
THE WORLD WRECKERS, Ace Books, 1971, ISBN 0-441-91175-7.
Against the Terrans (Second Age -- After the Comyn):
---------------------------------------------------
THE HERITAGE OF HASTUR, Daw Books, 1975, ISBN 0-88677-079-3.
Contains an illustration.
SHARRA'S EXILE, Daw Books, 1981, ISBN 0-87997-988-7.
THE PLANET SAVERS/SWORD OF ALDONES (double novel), Ace Books,
1985, ISBN 0-441-67026-1. Contains an essay, "A Darkover
Retrospective", by MZB. Both books were originally published in
1962.
THE WINDS OF DARKOVER, Ace Books, 1970, ISBN 0-441-89260-4.
STAR OF DANGER, Ace Books, 1965, ISBN 0-441-77958-1.
THE BLOODY SUN, Ace Books, 1964, ISBN 0-441-06863-4. Contains a
Free Amazon story, "To Keep The Oath", added in 1979.
The Anthologies. These are collectives, containing stories from
authors other than MZB, although she wrote some. The books refer
to "Marion Zimmer Bradley"
SWORD OF CHAOS, Daw Books, 1982, ISBN 0-88677-172-2.
FREE AMAZONS OF DARKOVER.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MIRROR.
--
++ ++ "Well Samwise: What do you think of the elves now?"
||\ /|| --fbag...@mid.earth.com
|| v ||ichael Martinez (mich...@swcp.com)
++ ++------------------------------------------------------
Celia Malm
Michael Martinez <mich...@swcp.com> penned the following:
>In article <3426495...@news.erols.com>, az...@Say-NO-to-spam-hotmail.com
>says...
>>I have a simple question: Where should I start reading? What would
>>you recommend as a good order for reading the books?
>This information is taken from the Darkover Bibliography that is posted to
>alt.fan.created-worlds (and sometimes this group) every few weeks. It's
>somewhat dated:
<list snipped>
That IS a pretty dated list, but I'm not up to updating it. However, I
would say that reading them in chronological order as much as possible
is one good way of doing it. But if you find _Darkover Landfall_ a bit
slow and boring, I'd recommend the following as good "introductions"
to Darkover:
_Stormqueen_, to understand the Ages of Chaos. It's my feeling that
unless you have a picture of how things were back then, you don't
appreciate all the (seemingly) silly rules of the later books.
_Star of Danger_ and _Winds of Darkover_ are two
post-recontact-with-Terra books that have non-Darkovan main
characters, so they have some more introductory-type stuff. Not her
best, but still pretty good.
_The Heritage of Hastur_ is another fairly good book, and essentially
a re-write of her original Darkover book _The Sword of Aldones_. I
wouldn't start with anything chronologically later than this one,
because so much of what happens later is a direct result of things
that happen in this book. I'd ALMOST recommend reading this one first,
then going back and reading chronologically.
Enjoy!
Cee
------------------------------------------------
"If I must be this...this thing they have made of me,
I shall at least give it my voice and my heart."
Walker Boh
Georgiana Gates
Celia Malm wrote:
> _The Heritage of Hastur_ is another fairly good book, and essentially
> a re-write of her original Darkover book _The Sword of Aldones_. I
> wouldn't start with anything chronologically later than this one,
> because so much of what happens later is a direct result of things
> that happen in this book. I'd ALMOST recommend reading this one first,
> then going back and reading chronologically.
Not to nitpick, but Sharra's Exile is the rewrite of Sword of Aldones.
Sword of Aldones was MZB's first book, and then later she wrote
Heritage of Hastur as a prequel, in a different style. Then she wrote
Sharra's Exile as a sequel to Heritage of Hastur, thereby rewriting
Sword of Aldones.
>
> Enjoy!
Agreed.
>
William George Ferguson
az...@Say-NO-to-spam-hotmail.com (Aznin) wrote:
>I have never read a Darkover novel, but I recently read a review of
>the latest novel in the series and it sounds interesting. So I
>decided to give the series a try. I immediately got very confused by
>the difference between publication dates and internal chronology. So,
>you recommend as a good order for reading the books?
People's mileage will truly vary in answering this.
First thing to understand is that this is really an old-fashioned
series, that is, it didn't start out as one.
MZB wrote at what is in her own words a completely unreadable novel of
unmanagable size, taking place in alternate world Holy Roman Empire
type setting, when she was a teenager. As she grew older, and learned
more about writing, she realized how unreadable the book was and set
it aside, borrowing some of the concepts and wrote more manageable
stuff.
She took one chunk, boiled it down to a hundred or so pages, pruning
out large, and to her (slightly) older eye extraneous, chunks of plot,
and discarded and combined characters to get a manageable cast (she
has acknowledged that one reason Dyan Ardais is so unrelievedly evil
is he is about four different villains combined into one), and set it
on another planet. Specific pieces she kept included a magical sword
dedicated to evil opposed by a magical sword dedicated to good, and a
hero named Hastur. While this story, Sword of Aldones, was her first
sale, due to problems endemic to sf publishers in the late 50s-early
60s (and maybe still today), it was actually the second published. It
is however certainly her oldest work, since the core of the story was
written when she was 15.
MZB became reasonably proficient at writing salable stories to a
variety of markets, including sf, and, to save effort in
world-building, frequently placed sf stories against the background
planet and society she had established in SoA. It wasn't until she
had written about 7 books set on this world, and had an editor ask for
'another Darkover story', that she realized she had a 'series'.
If you want to read them in publication order (for some strange and
mysterious reason), by all means read The Planet Savers, followed by
Sword of Aldones, and onward.
If you want to read them by internal chronology, then Darkover
Landfall, followed by, errrr...
The problem is, there isn't a really tight internal chronology, just a
general one. Probably Stormqueen is the novel set the farthest back,
although some short stories in the anthologies are set even farther
(but not all the stories in Friends of Darkover anthologies are
considered canon by MZB).
My own recommendation will run one of two paths:
One:
The Shattered Chain
Heritage of Hastur
Sharra's Exile
... and then start skipping around as you find books that interest
you.
Two:
Sword of Aldones (pub. 1962)
Heritage of Hastur (pub. 1975), in which a lot of the history in SoA
is changed
Sharra's Exile (pub. 1981), a complete, and expanded rewrite of SoA
This will give you a very good feel for how MZB's Darkover has grown
and changed over her career. Also, the events of SoA/SE form one of
the major pivot points of Darkover history.
The Blue Rose
>>the latest novel in the series and it sounds interesting. So I
>>decided to give the series a try. I immediately got very confused by
>>the difference between publication dates and internal chronology. So,
>>I have a simple question: Where should I start reading? What would
>>you recommend as a good order for reading the books?
Many of the books are stated as stand alone novels, but I have found
that some idea about previous things makes understanding the later on
books easier.
I started with The Renunciates trilogy which is
THe Shattered Chain
Thendara House
City of Sorcery
Heritage of Hastur sort of follows on from their, as does The
Forbidden Tower.
I suggest you read them in the chronological order of the stories -
things are MUCH easier that way :-)
Enjoy them as much as I do
Stacey
Stacey Hill (note spambuster in my address if replying by e-mail)
"Men are like parking spaces: the best ones are taken and
the only ones left are handicapped!"
sta...@xtra.co.nz
Lori Coulson
The Blue Rose (sta...@xtra.co.nz) wrote:
: I started with The Renunciates trilogy which is
: THe Shattered Chain
: Thendara House
: City of Sorcery
: Heritage of Hastur sort of follows on from their, as does The
: Forbidden Tower.
No, No, No! The events in The Spell Sword and its' sequel The Forbidden
Tower happen between the beginning segment of The Shattered Chain (where
Jaelle is rescued from the Dry Towns) and the beginning of Magda's story
in the same book. Magda meets Andrew Carr in _Thendara House_ and we are
told that the events in TSS/TFT are several years in the past.
Heritage of Hastur is after The Forbidden Tower because Gabriel Alton is a
child of the protagonists in TFT and brother-in-law to the protagonist of
HoH. Clear as mud, huh?
Aznin
Okay, after all these answers (my thanks to all) I have decided to try
to read some of the books by internal chronology, NOT by publication
date. But, I will skip "Landfall" because, well, I don't like
prequels. I don't like the *word* prequel. And anyway, I still have
to read a good one.
So, I will start with "Hawkmistress" and "Stormqueen" and see what
happens. If I enjoy those, I'll get a few more novels. If not, at
least I'll know I'm not missing anything great.
Again, thanks to the Darkover fans for helpful remarks. I'll post my
questions/thoughts as soon as I get into the books.
Aznin
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<insert standard witticism here>
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az...@NOSPAMhotmail.com
Celia Malm
Georgiana Gates <ram...@hal-pc.org> penned the following:
>Not to nitpick, but Sharra's Exile is the rewrite of Sword of Aldones.
>Sword of Aldones was MZB's first book, and then later she wrote
>Heritage of Hastur as a prequel, in a different style. Then she wrote
>Sharra's Exile as a sequel to Heritage of Hastur, thereby rewriting
>Sword of Aldones.
Oops! You are right.
Carol R. Strand
Aznin wrote:
>
> I have never read a Darkover novel, but I recently read a review of
> the latest novel in the series and it sounds interesting. So I
> decided to give the series a try. I immediately got very confused by
> the difference between publication dates and internal chronology. So,
> I have a simple question: Where should I start reading? What would
> you recommend as a good order for reading the books?
>
>
>
> ********************************
> <insert standard witticism here>
"Darkover Landfall" because you think of it as a prequel. Since the
books weren't written in chronological order, but do have a chronology,
thinking of any of them as "prequels" is not very useful. And Landfall
*is* useful, and a very quick read. From one who read them in order (As
of the 70's, when I started reading them) and is *very* glad she did,
--
___ _
/ (_) | |
| __, ,_ __ | | in
| / | / | / \_|/ Berkeley
\___/\_/|_/ |_/\__/ |__/
The Blue Rose
lcou...@freenet.columbus.oh.us (Lori Coulson) wrote:
>The Blue Rose (sta...@xtra.co.nz) wrote:
>
>: I started with The Renunciates trilogy which is
>
>: THe Shattered Chain
>: Thendara House
>: City of Sorcery
>
>: Heritage of Hastur sort of follows on from their, as does The
>: Forbidden Tower.
>
>No, No, No! The events in The Spell Sword and its' sequel The Forbidden
>Tower happen between the beginning segment of The Shattered Chain (where
>Jaelle is rescued from the Dry Towns) and the beginning of Magda's story
>in the same book. Magda meets Andrew Carr in _Thendara House_ and we are
>told that the events in TSS/TFT are several years in the past.
Agreed and you might note that I did say "sort of" follow on.
>
>Heritage of Hastur is after The Forbidden Tower because Gabriel Alton is a
>child of the protagonists in TFT and brother-in-law to the protagonist of
>HoH. Clear as mud, huh?
I was not specifically clear because the original poster wanted an
idea of where to start from. I provided the list of books I started
with and chucked in HoH and TFT because they have related people in.
Because the stories are quite complex and the characters appear in
different places in different times etc, I did not want to cause
unnecessary confusion. I did state that it does help to read in
chronological order of the stories.
After all, figuring out what and who is going on is half the fun!