Showing results by author "Marion Zimmer-Bradley" in All Categories

A posthumous recipient of the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, Marion Zimmer Bradley reinvented - and rejuvenated - the King Arthur mythos with her extraordinary Mists of Avalon series. In this epic work, Bradley follows the arc of the timeless tale from the perspective of its previously marginalized female characters: Celtic priestess Morgaine, Gwenhwyfar, and High Priestess Viviane.

She was Eilan, the daughter of a Druidic warleader and gifted with visions. In a land struggling to survive both Roman conquerors and her own people's enemies, surely fate had marked her to become a priestess of the Forest House. But first Eilan had chosen a different, forbidden path - to love Gaius, a soldier of mixed blood among the legions sent to subdue her country. So she must hide a terrible secret when she is anointed as the new High Priestess.

The colony ship from Earth had been on its way to the Coronis colony — a flourishing mining settlement — where crews of engineers and technicians had been working for 10 years preparing the planet for settlement and studying its ecology. But disaster had struck.

During the lawless Ages of Chaos, when the ruling families of Darkover ruthlessly inbred their laran-gifted offspring to gain powerful talents, a baby was born to the lord of Aldaran. This child, born on a dark and thunder-filled night, was possessed of a terrifying and uncontrolled talent: Dorilys, heiress to her father’s domain, could unwittingly call forth lightning, even while still a fretful child.

Nobody alive knew how the feud between Storn and Hammerfell had begun, but that didn't stop the fighting. When Storn's men burned Hammerfell's castle, his infant twin sons were separated, and each grew up thinking himself the rightful Duke of Hammerfell. Conn, raised in the mountains by his father's paxman, continued to fight the Storns. Alastair grew up with his mother in Thendara and planned to marry his cousin, Floria. But when Conn came to Thendara to seek King Aiden's help, and the twins encountered each other, it changed all their lives.

Since time immemorial, the Kingdoms of Sun and of Night have been at war. Pamina, daughter of the Starqueen, supreme symbol of the Night, and of Sarastro, King of the Royal House of the Sun, must now choose which of her parents' ways she will follow. Together with her love, Prince Tamino, she must face the Ordeals at the Court of Wisdom, of Earth and Air, of Fire and Water. Only if she and Tamino pass all these trials can they have a life together.

The Darkovans are descendants of a long-lost Terran colony ship and distrust the Terrans, who have taken up residence on their planet, fearing these strangers intend to disrupt the Darkover society. Many Terrans do feel that the people of Darkover should abandon their “backward” culture and join the Terran Empire.

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.

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 attraction he could not evade. Darkover drew him, Darkover haunted him — and when his mapping plane crashed in unknown heights, Darkover prepared to destroy him.

After the flaming final days of the Ages of Chaos, when the Keeper known as Varzil the Good struggled to bring peace to the warring Hundred Kingdoms through a law called the Compact, there were still those who fought against him for their own ends. And Bard Di Asturian, the outlaw known as The Wolf of the Kilghard Hills, would go to any extreme to bring all those near him under his brutal sway.

In Darkover’s dim past, before the tumultuous Ages of Chaos, small kingdoms still vied for power. But with the rise of psychic abilities called laran, unscrupulous leaders turned to half-trained sorcerers for an advantage. One such struggle arose between the realms of Hastur and its ambitious neighbor, Carcosse. Leora Hastur is still a child when her laran awakens, and the resulting crisis almost claims her life. Her beloved older sister, Neave, and her father’s small circle of telepathic workers manage to save her, but nothing can shield her from the horrors of the impending war.

At one time Race Cargill had been the best Terran Intelligence agent on the complex and mysterious planet of Wolf. He had repeatedly imperiled his life amongst the half-human and non-human creatures of the sullen world. And he had repeatedly accomplished the fantastic missions until his name was emblazoned with glory.But that had all seemingly ended. For six long years he'd sat behind a boring desk inside the fenced-in Terran Headquarters, cut off there ever since he and a rival had scarred and ripped each other in blood-feud.But when THE DOOR THROUGH SPACE swung suddenly open, the feud was on...

Potente maga dotata della Vista, Morgaine ha sempre avuto la capacità di scrutare nella mente delle persone e di conoscere i loro pensieri. Ora, in là con gli anni e in pace con il mondo e con se stessa, ha deciso di ripercorrere la propria vita e di narrare l'epica storia dell'ascesa e della caduta di Camelot. E ha scelto di farlo non attraverso le gesta eroiche dei cavalieri della Tavola Rotonda, ma attingendo a ciò che il suo potere le ha permesso di conoscere, per dare finalmente voce alle donne.

Die berühmte Artus-Sage aus weiblicher Sicht: Marion Zimmer Bradley erzählt in "Die Nebel von Avalon" die bekannte Geschichte von König Artus völlig neu. Die Fernseh- und Theaterschauspielerin Katharina Spiering verleiht dem Hörbuch mit ihrer lyrischen Erzählstimme eine ganz besondere Atmosphäre.

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.

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.

Jeff Kerwin spent the first decade of his life in the Spacemen’s Orphanage in the Terran Trade City on Darkover. Yet he never felt that he belonged. When Jeff is shipped back to Earth at the age of 12, he becomes haunted by dreams of the world surrounding the Terran oasis that had once been his. He is convinced that only on Darkover can he discover his true identity.

A strange electrical power transports Mike Kenscott from the Earth he knows to the strange land of Narabedla in another man’s body. Now as Adric of the Crimson Tower, Kenscott must solve the mystery of Narabedla’s Dreamers or perish in a foreign world.

Romilly was an independent tomboy from a noble family, contrary to the social demands of Darkovan women. That was bad enough, but when Romilly’s father arranged her marriage to a nobleman she found repulsive, she rebelled. Disguising herself as a boy, she fled into the deep forests. Living off the land was not nearly as difficult for Romilly as for most people, for she possessed a rare and highly treasured gift — telepathic communication with hawk and horse.

The most dangerous matrix on all Darkover was the legendary Sharra. Embodied in the image of a chained woman, wreathed in flames, it was the last remaining weapon of the Age of Chaos that had almost destroyed civilization on the planet of the Bloody Sun.