World Divided: The Bloody Sun / Star of Danger / The Winds of Darkover (A World Divided: THE BLOODY SUN/STAR OF DANGER/THE WINDS OF DARKOVER)

A nice omnibus edition of terran-themed Darkover stories. I had previously read both Star of Danger and The Winds of Darkover in my youth and remembered them both vividly and well. Star of Danger is my favorite novel in the collection, and although the characters appear again briefly in other books, I remember loving it enough that I would have really enjoyed a sequel. It contains just the right amount of adventure, alien worlds, and cultural interaction to make a very satisfying read. The Bloody Sun is probably the most interesting for the Darkover fan. Bradley set up many people's idea of a kind of fantasy low-tech future-- probably hers at a certain moment as well. But what worked so well with the books is that she was clearly never quite comfortable with the traditional limitations of her worlds. This book rather explicitly examines the human cost of maintaining a traditional culture and the Terrans are used as a vehicle for exploring the tension. In the The Bloody Sun there is a fair amount of attention paid to bloodlines and inheritance. The Winds of Darkover is an entertaining book with a focus on the issue of ethics and psychic powers, and an interesting nod to the history of Darkover. I always enjoy the Darkover novels. These three are good examples.

Among all of Marion Zimmer Bradley's impressive body of work, she loved and cherished her Darkover novels and stories above all others. From the publication of Planet Savers in 1962 until her death in 1999, Bradley published over twenty Darkover novels and a dozen Darkover anthologies. It is a remarkable series covering six major stages of Darkovan history. Tragically, many of the Darkover publications have gone out of print over the years; thankfully, in 2002, Daw began publishing special omnibus collections such as this one. A World Divided consists of three novels: Star of Danger (1965), The Bloody Sun (1965), and The Winds of Darkover (1970). One of the best things about Bradley's Darkover series is the fact that each can book can be read and enjoyed in and of itself; while there is a definite history and chronology of the planet Darkover, the reader does not have to tackle the books in any certain order. A World Divided gives us an interesting mix: two relatively minor Darkover novels and one major novel of great importance, each of them taking place in an era of great historical change. Star of Danger reads like an exciting juvenile novel, and I believe it serves as an excellent, solid introduction to the planet Darkover. The book's protagonists are two teenaged boys standing on the cusp of adulthood, natives of two different cultures coming together for the unplanned-for adventure of a lifetime. The "backwards" Darkovans do not trust the Terrans, afraid of the type of change Earthmen will bring to their traditional, highly structured society, but Larry Montray, a young Terran new to the planet, is easily mistaken for a native inhabitant. After striking up a friendship with a young Darkovan aristocrat named Kennard Alton, Montray is given an unprecedented opportunity to spend the summer with the Altons in the countryside. Larry's great adventure soon becomes a perilous ordeal. In order to survive, Montray and Kennard must learn from and defer to one another's strengths. Culture clashes are inevitable, but in such a bond of friendship is forged the bridge that may one day unite the competing Terran and Darkovan cultures. The Winds of Darkover shows us a side of the planet rarely explored. Alienated from the ruling families on Darkover, Loran Storn has no one to call upon for aid when bandits seize the outlying Castle of Storn. His blindness is a further impediment, and in desperation he seeks out another mind and engineers a rescue mission through that person. The mind he finds is that of a Terran named Dan Barron, and thus in one character we are presented with two unique, fresh viewpoints of Darkovan life - one by the Terran who is journeying into this world for the first time, and the other by the blind Storn aristocrat seeing the world of Darkover for the first time through Barron's eyes. The winds of change blowing in the realms outside the control of Darkover's ruling families portend the sweeping changes coming to th

Larry Montray is a Terran boy who befriends a Darkovan boy, Kennard Alton. Together, they are thrown into an adventure that requires each learn about the other ... and in the process learn more about Terra *and* Darkover...Jeff Kerwin is a Terran orphan who remembers Darkover in an odd way ... the more he remembers, the stranger he seems to be. Is he 'Jeff Kerwin' ... or the son of a leronis who fulfilled the promise of the Forbidden Tower?Finally, the adult Larry Montrey journeys through the sky-raping Hellers in an attempt to save the Storn family...Each story tells the efforts of Earth-humans to reconcile what they *think* they know about Darkover when actually plunged into the planet's culture ... to learn that there is more to Darkover than its 'primitive' appearance, and that 'superstitions' can be based on more than mere myth. Finding out the differences -- and similarities -- in the types of people on the planet is only the start of the journeys of discovery, through the divided world that is Darkover!