Stormqueen! (Darkover, #2)

This Darkover novel is set in Darkover's Age of Chaos. It is set several hundred years after Darkover Landfall. The ruling powers in Darkover ruled in what feels like a feudal system. I would compare this period in Darkover's history to the European Dark Ages. At the beginning of the novel we are introduced to Donal, an 8 year old boy. Donal is the son of a woman who was the mistress of Mikhail Aldaran, lord of the Aldaran... Read Full Review

This was the first Darkover book I ever read, when I was about eleven. I found it fascinating but confusing. I didn't really appreciate it until after I had read The Forbidden Tower and The Bloody Sun. Even those these novels are set hundreds or even thousands of years after the Ages of Chaos in which Stormqueen is set, they give you the background necessary to understand what was going on in this novel. The bewildering... Read Full Review

Most Darkover books I *can't* put down. This one, I *had* to put down here and there because it was so disturbing -- I guess I needed the reassurance of knowing I was on Terra after all. :)This is not an easy book to read, but it is WELL worth the effort. As you might expect of someone who was considered "precocious" as a girl, I could definitely identify with Dorilys the Stormqueen. But don't let the book's title... Read Full Review

Stormqueen! is set in the chaotic age of Darkover where people were bred for increasingly powerful (and lethal) forms of psychic ability, called laran. Although, like all Darkover books, this is a stand-alone novel, Darkover fans will enjoy the familiar place-names and legendary characters fleshed out. (Example: Varzil the Good, who appears or is referenced in The Forbidden Tower, The Shadow Matrix, and Traitor's Sun, is... Read Full Review

Of all the Darkover novels (a wonderful series, everyone of them), this is the one that most captures the beauty of the planet Darkover and the horror of laran gone wrong. The protagonist Dorilys Rockraven is understandable and amusing. A true heart-breaker, especially the ending.