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The Other Side of the Mirror

door Marion Zimmer Bradley (Redacteur)

Andere auteurs: Paula Crunk (Medewerker), Patricia Floss (Medewerker), Linda Frankel (Medewerker)

Reeksen: Darkover: Friends of Darkover (4), Darkover: Publication order (23), Darkover: Chronological order (32)

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These 5 stories (3 by Bradley) deal with events in the imaginary land of Darkover.
  1. 00
    Snows of Darkover door Marion Zimmer Bradley (Anonieme gebruiker)
    Anonieme gebruiker: Vorgängerband der Darkover-Erzählbände.
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Toon 2 van 2
The eponymous story is by Patricia Floss and concerns the growing friendship of two young men, both outsiders. The setting is a couple of generations after the events described in the Renunciates trilogy, and the books about the Forbidden Tower. A lot more hybrid offspring of Darkovans and the original Terran stock from which the Darkovans descend have been born in the meantime, but prejudice against them endures, especially from the Comyn ruler class. However, the Comyn is shown as falling into decay and on the brink of dissolution. A group of intelligence operators from the Terran Zone are waiting to put a more egalitarian rule in place when that happens.

One difficulty with the story is that it is set between The Heritage of Hastur and Sharra's Exile, two books I once had, but can recall nothing about. Marius, one of the young men, is a brother of Lew, who was involved in a disaster of some kind triggered by the 'goddess' Sharra - a psychic creation from what I can make out, as this happened in one of the Towers where the native psychic abilities - referred to as laran - are honed. Lew was injured and had to leave Darkover, accompanied by the boys' father, to seek healing elsewhere and Marius doesn't know if they will ever return. In his father's absence, another of the Comyn has been given control of the lands ruled by Marius’ father, and Marius himself is treated as an embarrassment. He is sent to the Terran Zone for education to get him out of the way, rather than being accepted into the Cadets for training like other young noblemen. Marius nurses his anger and hatred of the Comyn throughout the story. However, in the Terran Zone, he meets another young lad, also a victim of the prejudice against part Terrans, and through him gradually learns to trust. The story is doubtless interesting to those who know more about the background of this era, but I found it a bit slow paced and didn't particularly enjoy it.

Two other stories in the book, by Bradley herself, fill in gaps in the Renunciate cycle of stories. In 'Bride Price', Lady Rohana, Jaelle's kinswoman, meditates by the body of her husband Gabriel who has finally keeled over from a combination of his heavy drinking and epilepsy, and thinks back to their wedding and how they once had regard for each other.

'Everything but Freedom' is a longer tale dealing with the time referred to in the first two novels of the Renunciate trilogy, The Shattered Chain and Thendara House. After Jaelle was rescued from Dry Town slavery in Part One of The Shattered Chain, the Comyn rulers insisted she live with Rohana for a time before they would let her take the Renunciate Vow. They hoped that, having learned what it was to be Comyn, she would decide to become a docile Comyn woman instead of renouncing that birthright to become a Renunciate aka Free Amazon.

As the story begins, Rohana is heavily pregnant with the child Gabriel insisted she have, in penance for her independence in hiring the Renunciates to try to rescue Melora, Jaelle's mother, and Jaelle herself. Kindra arrives to take Jaelle to the Guild House, but Rohana, unwell towards the end of her pregnancy, persuades her to stay for a while. Jaelle is incandescent: she is an absolute brat in this story, although the women constantly excuse her behaviour on the basis that she is sixteen years old. The story has two main aspects: the first deals with the balancing act Rohana has to perform, at a time when she is debilitated, in order to ensure the Domain operates smoothly while preserving the fiction that her husband Gabriel is managing its affairs. In reality, he is a drunkard who flaunts his liaisons with other women to her face and is prone to fits of rage which bring on epileptic seizures. In addtion, she has to contend with his envious sister who would like to usurp her role, and with the behaviour of her two sons, especially Kyril, the elder, who already shows signs of being worse than Gabriel, a promise fulfilled in the last section of The Shattered Chain. In the other important strand of the story, Rohana reconciles her Comyn upbringing with the knowledge that she loves Kindra and would be happy sharing life with her as a Renunciate, but she reluctantly decides not to leave with her because the Comyn would probably destroy the Renunciates Guild in retaliation for losing such a high-born woman as herself.

This story was interesting as a gap filler, but dragged a bit. Jaelle was annoying so it was good that she left early! It was nice to see Kindra again, as she was an interesting character, killed off off-stage between the first two volumes of the Renunciates trilogy.

Finally, the last story in the book, Blood Hunt, by Linda Frankel and Paula Crunk, is by far the best, perhaps because it is so different to the usual Darkover fare. It focuses on the catmen, a native Darkovan species who were mentioned as a feared danger in some of the other stories I’ve read recently. The background of this is that one of them has caused a disaster by using a matrix stone, a jewel normally used by humans educated in the Towers, and Damon Ridenow, a key character in the Forbidden Tower series, has had to resolve it (possibly in a novel called The Spell Sword).

A guardsman pursues a catman, aided by hunters and dogs, in revenge for the death of his close friend during this incident. The catman, Sherdra, encounters a peddler, who is educated in the use of laran himself. Coryn is the illegitimate son of a Comyn lord, who has run away from the role that would have been forced upon him. Coryn attempts to hide Sherdra from the hunters, while an unlikely friendship develops between them, as their ability to communicate using laran allows them to build a gradual understanding based on mutual knowledge and respect. The story is an interesting attempt to convey an alien viewpoint, especially as the cat people are not so uncivilised and animalistic as Coryn has been taught: they revere their women and would never take their children away from them as the Comyn do routinely. The story also has the added twist that Coryn was sent by his noble father to the monks at Nevarsin, who are often mentioned in passing in other stories. There he was educated as a healer and taught to be tolerant of others, by monks such as Brother Stefan who followed the christoforo faith. This is especially interesting as the christoforo are often mentioned, usually in derogatory fashion, in Bradley’s own writings, where they are portrayed as bigoted against same-sex couples. In this, they are given a different slant as having a non-violent approach very different to mainstream Darkovan society, and a respect for others.

In summary, the final story deserves 5 stars but the rest of the book lowers the overall rating for me to 3 stars. ( )
  kitsune_reader | Nov 23, 2023 |
The title story by Patricia Floss is one that Marion Zimmer Bradley not only admired, but she “decided that Pat’s version was henceforth to be considered the ‘official’ version of events on Darkover between the end of Heritage of Hastur and the beginning of [Sharra’s] Exile." Indeed, back in the second Darkover anthology, MZB expressed regret there was no room for the 30,000 word story--it would have taken up too much of the book. In this fourth anthology she found a way to justify including it by making this a collection of primarily novella-length stories. Besides the title story this included the novella “Blood Hunt” by Linda Frankel and Paula Crunk, as well as three related stories by MZB herself dealing with the Ardais family, Rohana and Dyan. Two are enjoyable if unremarkable short stories “Bride Price” and “Oathbreaker,” but there’s also a meaty novella, “Everything But Freedom” that takes place during the time Jaelle visited Rohana before taking her oath, a story that takes place between chapters of The Shattered Chain.

I did enjoy it--I do love Rohana and Kindra, and Shattered Chain was my introduction to Darkover in my teens. At the same time, from a more mature perspective, boy do these stories tend to villainize men--or at least those in a conventional marriage--and this story (and in my rereading Darkover in general) seems to suffer from everyone-is-gay syndrome. “Blood Hunt,” a sequel to Spell Sword dealing with the catmen, was my favorite story of the book for its alien perspective. I also did like the title story, centering on Marius Montray-Lanart, Lew Alton’s younger brother--it does feel very canonical--like something MZB could have written. Although that might be part of the problem I’m having with these anthologies. Since they were first published and I first read them, I discovered real fan fiction. And the best of it is subversive, going into territory the original author would never have touched, representing the road not taken. In comparison the published fan fiction of the authorized Darkover anthologies are tame. Maybe its why I liked “Blood Hunt” so much--that by “humanizing” the catpeople who were just ravening monsters in Spell Sword it was a tiny bit subversive. In any case, I’d say this is the strongest Darkover anthology since the first one. ( )
1 stem LisaMaria_C | Nov 27, 2012 |
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» Andere auteurs toevoegen (3 mogelijk)

AuteursnaamRolType auteurWerk?Status
Bradley, Marion ZimmerRedacteurprimaire auteuralle editiesbevestigd
Crunk, PaulaMedewerkerSecundaire auteuralle editiesbevestigd
Floss, PatriciaMedewerkerSecundaire auteuralle editiesbevestigd
Frankel, LindaMedewerkerSecundaire auteuralle editiesbevestigd

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The Other Side of the Mirror:

Marius Lanart stood on the edge of the cliff, wondering if it would be best to jump off and saved himself a good deal of misery.
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These 5 stories (3 by Bradley) deal with events in the imaginary land of Darkover.

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