Four Moons of Darkover

Marion Zimmer Bradley is famous for her Avalon books, but I'm a fan of her Darkover stories, set in an original world and a blend of science fiction and fantasy. This is one of a series of anthologies that basically are collection of "fan fiction" by other authors based on MZB's Darkover. I was impressed on reread of the first such book, The Keeper's Price. Enough I ranked it just below five stars, and was tempted to give it full marks. Not that I would argue it's deathless literature, but as a Darkover fan I loved it, and was surprised how memorable the various stories were even decades after I first read it--there were some I remembered just from the title, and no story I didn't completely enjoy.

The next three collections, The Sword show more of Chaos, Free Amazons of Darkover and Red Sun of Darkoer, though still enjoyable, didn't impress nearly me as much. I'm afraid I feel the same about Four Moons of Darkover. The first collection seemed mostly taken from a contest, and perhaps that pushed the quality up. So many in the contents page of the next three anthologies seemed the usual suspects, and 10 of the 16 stories included are by authors who appeared in previous MZB anthologies. Two of those stories are her own, and for a Darkover fan it's worth getting the book for these pieces fitting in parts of the lore. In the case of "House Rules" it deals with an aspect of the "Free Amazons" that has always bugged me (and from what MZB said in the introduction, I'm not alone) while "Man of Impulse" sheds some light on the character MZB said came closet of any of hers to a villain--Dyan Ardais. All the rest of the stories are enjoyable--I don't think there's any particularly weak link--but then I didn't think there was any standout either. show less

I wasn't expecting to like this one very much because I'm not much of one for short stories, and with a variety of authors it's hard to say how things will be. I thought it was very good, however: Bradley chose her stories well. This volume also includes two Marion Zimmer Bradley stories.