The Laran Gambit (Darkover)
by Marion Zimmer Bradley, Deborah J. Ross
Darkover: The Second Age (11), Darkover (Chronological Order) (41), Darkover (Publication Order) (42)
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Terran child psychologist Bryn Haslund has her hands full, treating the traumatized young victims of the interplanetary Star Alliance. She's tried to stay out of politics, leaving that to her charismatic statesman father, Ernst. Despite her best efforts to remain neutral, she gets caught in the crackdown of a protest-turned-riot. Then Ernst delivers a robotic speech in support of the Alliance's tyrannical leader and goes missing.With the Alliance's secret police hot on her heels, Bryn show more finally locates her father in the research labs on Alpha, only to find that a mind-control device has been implanted in his brain. Searching for a way to disable the device, she discovers the records of a remote, almost-forgotten planet where telepathic powers have been developed to an extraordinary degree...Darkover, a Lost Colony world circling a dim red star far out on the galactic rim. In the desperate hope that natural telepathy can disable the mechanical device and free her father's mind, she hustles him onboard a smuggler's ship. When they try to land on Darkover, however, powerful winds knock their shuttle off-course, and it crashes in a rugged, glaciated mountain range. As the shuttle spins out of control, Bryn cries out for help...
...and someone answers her telepathic plea.
Darkover poses its own dangers, from ice avalanches to bandits to gigantic carnivorous birds. Moreover, the planet has a complicated, often contentious history with Terra. When the Terrans rediscovered Darkover after millennia of isolation, the aristocratic Comyn struggled to maintain their unique culture, often at a terrible price. Using their extraordinary psychic abilities called laran, they forced the Terrans to honor Darkover's independence. The vicious interstellar wars waged by the Star Alliance eventually forced the Terrans to withdraw. Two generations later, smugglers, pirates, and rebels still use Darkover as a hidden base, threatening to drag the Comyn into their own battles. So far, Darkover's leaders have managed to avoid becoming a battleground for a larger conflict. Now Bryn and her father threaten to break that precarious isolation.
To make matters worse, the mind-control device seems to be tightening its hold over Ernst, the Darkovans have their own agenda, and Bryn's newly awakened psychic powers just might turn out to be lethal.
Can Bryn convince Darkover's telepaths to help, when they are deeply suspicious of Terrans and would rather remain forgotten? What are these strange new powers she's developing? And can she restore Ernst's mind before the Alliance enforcers track them down?
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Darkover returns
Deborah J Ross has written a Darkover tale that has no trouble fitting seamlessly into the arc of novels created by Marion Zimmer Bradley.
Terran child psychologist, Bryn Haslund is fleeing the star alliance with her Senator father Ernst and her teacher and mentor Felicity Sage. Her father has had a mind control device inserted into his brain and Bryn’s research has found allusions to a lost planet world out on the galactic arm that mentions psychic abilities and telepathy.
Bryn herself has strange precognitions about danger, enough to evade capture by the Alliance dictator’s heavy, Black.
The fight for freedom continues and Bryn has a dangerous part to play. She meets Desiserio a matrix technician whose help is show more essential.
It was warming to once again tread the literary ground of Darkover, bathe in the light of the four ? moons and have Darkover come to life. Very enjoyable and prompted me to go to my paperback collection and revisit some of my favorites.
A Victory ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher. show less
Deborah J Ross has written a Darkover tale that has no trouble fitting seamlessly into the arc of novels created by Marion Zimmer Bradley.
Terran child psychologist, Bryn Haslund is fleeing the star alliance with her Senator father Ernst and her teacher and mentor Felicity Sage. Her father has had a mind control device inserted into his brain and Bryn’s research has found allusions to a lost planet world out on the galactic arm that mentions psychic abilities and telepathy.
Bryn herself has strange precognitions about danger, enough to evade capture by the Alliance dictator’s heavy, Black.
The fight for freedom continues and Bryn has a dangerous part to play. She meets Desiserio a matrix technician whose help is show more essential.
It was warming to once again tread the literary ground of Darkover, bathe in the light of the four ? moons and have Darkover come to life. Very enjoyable and prompted me to go to my paperback collection and revisit some of my favorites.
A Victory ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher. show less
If you really must re-visit Darkover, you get the chance for a short stay with Bryn in a very contrived plot, but really no one you cared much for is still around and you have to get past the dreadful space tyrant fist.
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409+ Works 99,018 Members
Marion Zimmer Bradley is a science-fiction and fantasy writer, novelist, and editor. She was born in Albany, New York on June 3, 1930. Bradley attended the New York State College for Teachers from 1946 to 1948. She earned a B.A. from Hardin Simmons University in 1964. Bradley did graduate work at the University of California at Berkeley from 1965 show more to 1967. Bradley sold her first story to Fantastic Amazing Stories as part of an amateur fiction contest. She sold her first professional story to Vortex Science Fiction in 1952. Her novels include The Sword of Aldones and The Planet Savers. Both novels were set on Darkover, the setting for more than 20 subsequent Bradley novels. Bradley also wrote The Mists of Avalon, a reworking of the King Arthur legend with more emphasis on the female characters. She used the same approach with The Firebrand, which was based on The Iliad. In addition to writing more than 85 books, Bradley was the editor of an annual anthology for DAW Books, as well as the editor of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine. Bradley died in 1999. (Bowker Author Biography) Marion Zimmer Bradley was the bestselling author of "The Mists of Avalon", "Lady of Avalon", "The Forest House", & "The Firebrand", as well as the popular Darkover series of science fiction novels. She died in 1999. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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