Darkover: First Contact


Book Description

This omnibus features two classic, long-unavailable Darkover novels-Darkover Landfall and Two to Conquer-in one volume for the first time.




Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover


Book Description

This collection of stories, including two never-before-published tales, travels through the history of Darkover, the planet of the Bloody Sun, from the Founding to the time of Recontact. Original.




Darkover Landfall


Book Description

Darkover, a planet of wonder, world of mystery, has been a favourite 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 new novel, Mario 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, of the psychic currents that were native only to that world, and of the price that every Earthling must pay before Darkover can claim for itself.




Rediscovery


Book Description

Leonie Hastur has a high degree of laran, the telepathic power of the Comyn caste, and wants to be Keeper of Arilinn Tower, which will give her as much power as her twin brother Lorill, Heir to Hastur. But she has a premonition that something strange and disturbing will come from the sky and change their world forever. She is correct. Ysaye Barnett loves life on shipboard and would happily stay right there, with her beloved computers, forever. Her best friend Elizabeth Mackintosh, a musician and anthropologist, and her fiance, linguist David Lorne, want to marry and have children, which means they need a planet they can settle on and make their lives' work. They are very excited about the new planet, especially when they realize that it's a lost Terran colony. As five young lives and their very different cultures meet, all of them will be changed by the encounter.




The Forbidden Tower


Book Description

Fantasy.




To Save A World (Darkover Omnibus #7)


Book Description

An omnibus volume of two of Marion Zimmer Bradley's classic, long-unavailable Darkover novels, including the first Darkover novel ever written! To Save a World includes The World Wreckers and the Planet Savers, plus the short story "The Waterfall." The Planet Savers: Originally published in Amazing Stories in December 1958, The Planet Savers was the very firs Darkover novel to see print. It was here readers were first introduced to the now legendary world of Cottman IV, at a time when the Terrans are desperately seeking a cure to a disease of epidemic proportions that threatens the lives of Terrans and Darkovans alike. For every forty-eight years, Trailmen’s fever, a childhood illness among this native and venerable race, becomes pandemic, decimating the human population of this rustic planet. Now, one brave Terran doctor must join a Darkovan expedition into the wild mountainous terrain of the Trailmen in a desperate attempt to create a vaccine and eradicate this terrible plague once and for all. The World Wreckers: Planetary Investments Unlimited—that was the company’s official name, but unofficially it was known as Worldwreckers, Inc. For a fee, its agent would infiltrate any world unwilling to give up its independence, and do enough damage that 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 the planet 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….




The Heritage of Hastur


Book Description

The most dangerous magical implement on all of Darkover was the infamous, legendary Sharra Matrix. The Sharra Matrix had been exiled offworld in the protective custody of Comyn Lord Lew Alton. But when Lew was called back to Darkover to contest his rights, he had no choice but to bring this dangerous matrix back with him.




Hawkmistress!


Book Description

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. There was war in the lands of Darkover for this was the age of chaos when usurpers took the throne and the true king wandered in disguise with a price on his head. Romilly wanted none of all this, but there were those who shared her talents - the men and women of the Towers. And for them, Romilly was the key. Whether male-garbed or beast-minded, she was also human. And duty to her own true kind pointed her to the ultimate decision.




The Shadow Matrix


Book Description

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!




Stormqueen!


Book Description

The great epic of Darkover did not begin with the Terrans' arrival. For in those years, the power of the matrix was first learned - and misused in a power struggle that could have made Darkover a duplicate of Terra.