And even as he paused, looking up at the flaming sky, the sun sank with a rush and the swift dark came swooping across the sky, a darkness like great soft wings, folding to blot out the brilliance; the fast-dropping night that gave this world it’s name. Leaping out in a sudden glare came the crown of vast white stars; and three of the small jeweled moons were in the sky, jade-green, peacock-blue, rose-pearl.
Kerwin stood staring upward, his eyes wet, un-ashamed of the sudden tears that had started to them. It was not illusion, then, despite the commonplace spaceport bars and the disillusion of the streets. It was real; he was home again
Marion Zimmer Bradley – The Bloody Sun

Now did George Lucas steal this for Star Wars or did Marion? No it’s in the original... *never mind it's all good*. I wrote the original review for this book back in August 29 2002 and since I’ve hit my 50th review on this site I thought some upkeep and all out scraping of the barrel was needed so here you go. A rewrite and maybe some more experienced reviewing chops and my constant need to link people all over this damn site. What can I say I'm a fool for your love.

Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Bloody Sun (published 1964 and rewritten in 1979) is set in her well known world of Darkover and is (by readers accounts only) placed as the third book of a set within the Darkover series called The Forbidden Tower subcycle. Now frankly Marion never explicitly told anyone this or separated these books out as such but if you've read most of the series and count yourself a fanatic you just know these things. In fact one of the best things about Marion's style is she did not want to spell too much out for you, you simply needed to discover such things for yourself. The other books that I recommend you should read with this one since they share characters and background stories and thus make more sense by doing so but are not being sold together by the current publisher are

The Spell Sword
The Forbidden Tower


The Story
Our (typical Marion Zimmer Bradley) lonely misunderstood hero tm from outer space Jeff Kerwin Jr. orphan of a Terran father and a Darkovan mother returns to Darkover the planet of his birth to find out what he can of who his parents were and hopefully who he is... and hey, was there by any chance an inheritance? With this return back to his planet of origin a trap is laid. We shall meet the Comyn who lead the Darkovan’s and their seemingly anachronistic world of swords and castles and the Terran’s who are evidently hell bent on exploiting these backwards people with their secretly secreted super secret sciences that the Terrans obviously know all about and force them to become part of the Terran Empire and experience the devastating effects of the Caramel Macchiato Grande at the local Starbucks. Will the ancient Comyn Council in their dark mysterious ways accept Jeff? Will the Terrans win thus opening Darkover to the true horrors of over priced coffee franchises? I could tell you more, this was the first Darkover book I ever read and still my favorite, but why give away a good story?

In Summary
The Bloody Sun was Marion Zimmer Bradley’s first adult novel in the Darkover series, which is probably why she decided to rewrite this particular book in 1979 in order to make it more consistent with the world she had created and to set the book more firmly into the series that had evolved. To do this she wove in a tragic end to the story from her then most recent novel The Forbidden Tower written in 1977 and tied those sad events into this book to add more depth and background to what was originally a mostly standalone one off novel. Marion did this to only a couple of other books but here I'm happy to say it actually worked. The Bloody Sun, I must add, was also the first successful use of a formula she would go on to perfect in allot of her other Darkover books although in most of them she would elaborate upon it removing most of the annoyance of repetition.

I have had a long relationship with the Darkover series and there has been an obvious lack of good support from the publisher and some poorly thought out reprints. Don't even get me started on the novels that were ghost written by that half witted biatch Adrienne Martine-Barnes who seems hell bent on destroying the reputation of this fine writer. I cannot for the life of me believe they still have the nerve to display the poor dead (in 1999) authors name on the cover! Even when it is quite obvious from the amateur style of writing, the absolute ineptness of characterization and the total lack of knowledge in the history of Darkover... It is plain as day that Marion never touched one single page of any novel after 1995.

It is incredibly sad but since her death allot of people are missing out on a very unique amalgamation of space ships and technology, and sword & sorcery (well ok... psychic, mental matrix magic, whatever!) done in a fashion that is quite entertaining. If Anne McCaffrey can write nothing but disappointing formula pulp novels year after year with such acclaim, I sure as hell can forgive Marion even if she liked to rant about her politics and beliefs sometimes quite bluntly in her books. I'll warn you to just be prepared for the occasional preachy moment usually concerning feminism and/or sexuality, but look there's 40 years worth of writing in something like 22 books so a couple of ups and downs should be expected, at least that's my take.

As you can tell in the quote above Marion has a beautiful narrative style even if some of the details concerning the characters can senselessly conflict novel to novel. The saving grace and the reason you can forgive these inconsistencies is that she makes sure to keep the world of Darkover quite mysterious and unexplored with no overly involved or poorly thought out explanations unlike some other hacks we know. Darkover becomes a shadowy snow covered place you can visit over and over and still have room to let your imagination run loose.
That my friends is real magic.

If by chance you are looking for further books in the Darkover series. I can't help but point to Marion Zimmer Bradley's most hard hitting one two punch in Darkover, the subsequent events that take place in the Sharra's subcycle. Now in this convenient two for one pack which unfortunately has a rather clumsy title but here's the books it contains...

The Heritage of Hastur
Sharra's Exile


For even more Darkover goodness check out this site...

The Darkover Site
http://darkover.apiacoa.org/index.en.html

Non-Darkover books I have reviewed from this author...
The Catch Trap


Happy reading.

Recommended: Yes