This is a reread in my quest to read all the Darkover books, both the ones I've missed and the ones I've read, in order. The story deals with the Free Amazons, or Renunciates, a guild of women who live amidst the more feudal settings on Darkover. Jaelle and Magda are the protagonists: Jaelle is a Comyn Renunciate who marries Magda's ex-husband and goes to live among the Terrans while Magda takes oath in the guild house. Both women must navigate living in strange settings with people of different cultures.
The book probes questions about what the role of women is: are they merely carriers for children, or can they do meaningful work? The book was written in the early 1980s, and while times have changed, this is still an ongoing question in our society. There's a lot to think about here, now as much as when I first read the story. ( )

This is the sequel to The Shattered Chain and begins directly where that book leaves off. It is less plot driven than the previous book; most of it deals with the culture shock experienced by the two main characters: Jaelle, the Darkovan woman who has been a Renunciate (aka Free Amazon) since she was a teen, and Magda, the Terran woman raised on Darkover who in the previous book joined the Renunciates. Both must struggle with being accepted by their new colleagues and coming to terms with the realities of - in Jaelle's case - the Terran zone with all its technological and bureaucratic strangeness, plus being in a marriage with Peter Haldane, Magda's ex husband, and -in the case of Magda/Margali - with the different expectations of the Renunciates who in effect deprogramme new members to break down the dependency on men that is normal to Darkovan women.

Magda, who is a product of both worlds, makes mistakes along the way, resulting in friction with other women in the Renunciate Guild House, while Jaelle contends with the indifference and lack of understanding of the Terrans. This is worsened by her husband's chauvinism. Magda previously divorced Peter because of his controlling ways and jealousy of her competence, although annoyingly for this reader, she continues to entertain doubts that perhaps it was her "fault" the marriage failed because she didn't want a child with him. He is an absolute pig who tries to destroy Jaelle's independence while exhibiting a smarmy 1950s style head-patting attitude. At one point, he orders her to fetch his shoes then throws a tantrum in the bathroom because she didn't order his beard removing cream! The problem is compounded because Jaelle's laran - the psychic ability a lot of Darkovans have - strengthens when she becomes pregnant, so she is made aware of his obsession with getting a son and also with climbing the greasy pole of career progression in the Terran Zone, where he sometimes views her as a liability.

Jaelle constantly has insights into Peter's bullying and small minded attitude, partly through the incipient telepathy she is developing, but she makes excuses for him to such an extent that I started to lose sympathy with her. It isn't till late on in the story that she gains the insight that having blotted out the memory of her upbringing in the Dry Towns and her mother's traumatic death which occurred in the previous book, she is now re-experiencing the trauma due to her subconscious awareness that Peter is figuratively at least putting her in chains as the Dry Town men literally do to their womenfolk. But because of this underlying reason, Jaelle becomes rather a whiny character in this book, and Magda is much more interesting and engaging, as is the new character of Cholayna Ares, an Empire woman who is dark skinned and is used by Bradley to examine the question of prejudice on a planet where the population, derived from an Earth colony centuries before, is exclusively white.

Magda, who was told in the previous book by Lady Rohana that she also has laran, experiences issues with it too, and it eventually brings her into the closeness with Jaelle that she has apparently been fighting all along. Both are caught up in a problem concerning the safety of a Terran Empire man who goes off into the foothills just before a serious storm, without waiting for help from a native guide, but there are political ramifications because he is trying to find a Terran called Andrew who has gone missing but is now operating as a Darkovan man. This part of the book segues into a whole different situation which apparently ties in with another sub-series of Bradley's starting with The Forbidden Tower, a book I read years ago but cannot recall a thing about. Anyway, the impression at the end is that both women will leave the Renunicates to join this group.

Although the interactions of the various characters are of interest, some aspects of the book haven't dated well. Even in 1983, when this was published, surely the practice of referring to a married woman by her husband's name was swiftly dying out, so it comes across as ludicrous that this is the practice among Terrans thousands of years into our future: despite their supposedly 'egalitarian' society as the book blurb would have it, they insist on calling Jaelle Mrs Peter Haldane. In fact, it is pretty obvious that the Terrans as well as the Darkovans are male dominated; they just have a more 'equal' gloss over it. Despite the fact that Magda is repeatedly stated to be highly competent - her work is studied on other planets! - she is barred from senior rank supposedly because the Darkovans wouldn't accept a woman in a high position. Considering that Terran society is different in so many other aspects - chiefly its reliance on advanced technology for everything - why shouldn't the Terrans put women into prominent positions to gradually break down this attitude among the native population? Especially as women are accepted in certain roles among the Darkovan nobility, such as Keepers of the Towers and as representatives of the family from which Lady Rohana stems. This is obviously a completely transparent excuse for unfair discrimination against women, especially since the Empire would rather put a grossly incompetent man in charge who his underlings have to constantly steer into not causing a diplomatic incident. This issue isn't really explored in the book which dwells more on the aspects of male-female personal relationships, childbearing etc. So it features an interesting exploration of the issues up to a certain point, but ultimately it ducks the glass ceiling. ( )

A great read, engrossing. Much loved characters. ( )

One of MZB's longer Darkover novels, and one in which she did write as a continuous part of the series, clearly having it's sequel in mind and taking advantage of The Shattered Chain's character and plot. It still has some strange jerks in it's story telling as if scenes from multiple drafts were never entirely integrated. Thendara House could fairly be described as a feminist tract, but the quality of the characters and the validity of multiple types of interaction kept my interest on more than one read, though this is by no means a favorite. ( )

Re-read. Hack writing, lousy editing, strong characters & plotting. ( )