Best Selling Books by Marion Zimmer Bradley

SUDDEN PANIC It was a week before the Lhari ship went into warp-drive, and all that time young Bart Steele had stayed in his cabin. He was so bored with his own company that the Mentorian medic was a welcome sight when he came to prepare him for cold-sleep, The Mentorian paused, needle in hand. Do you wish to be wakened for the time we shall spend in each of the three star systems, sir? You can, of course, be given enough drug to keep you in cold-sleep until we reach your destination. Bart felt tempted -- he wanted very much to see the other star systems. But he couldn''t risk meeting other passengers. The needle went into his arm. In sudden panic, he realized he was helpless. The ship would touch down on three worlds, and on any of them the Lhari might have his description, or his alias He could be taken off, unconscious, and might never wake up He tried to move, to protest, but he couldn''t. There was a freezing moment of intense cold and then nothing. . . . * Marion Zimmer Bradley was born in Albany, New York and before she started her writing career she was a file clerk, music teacher, and a carnival performer. Her hobbies are reading science fiction novels, going to the opera and listening to folk music. In addition to having written a number of other books, she has written more than thirty magazine stories and articles and has been writing professionally for the past ten years.

A gripping fantasy novel set in Marion Zimmer Bradley''s Darkover universe. Regis Hastur was the heir to the most powerful domain on Darkover. When his grandfather died, he would inherit the title Hastur of Hastur, Regent of Darkover—king in everything but name. But ironically, this mantle was the last thing Regis had ever wanted. For he dreamed of a different kind of life—a life with the freedom to live and love like an ordinary man, without the expectations and responsibilities of his position. Yet even Regis recognized Darkover’s desperate need for strong, rational leadership—leadership only he had been trained to provide. But now that his time was at hand, was Regis willing to make the personal sacrifices necessary to lead his world? Or would he turn away from his destiny and finally make his real dreams come true? For on his grandfather’s deathbed Regis learns that he has a brother—an older half-brother who could finally relieve Regis of the burden of title he had never wanted…. Would Regis finally let himself be free to be the man he had always dreamed of being?

It''s a long wait until the Last Battle of Law and Chaos, when the forces of Good and Evil will clash for the final time. So what''s a body to do in the meantime? Lythande has to earn a living, after all. Music and magic are saleable skills--sometimes both together. There''s a magic lute.... Mermaids, dragons, small children--Lythande''s life is full of challenges, of which the biggest is never allowing the Secret to be revealed, on pain of total loss of magic... oh, and death.

An omnibus volume of three classic, long-unavailable Darkover novels--Star of Danger, The Bloody Sun, and Winds of Darkover--tell of two men of mixed Darkovan ancestry, who must choose where their true allegiances lie.

Darkover was experiencing a flare-up of trailmen''s fever, a disease that would decimate the entire human population of Darkover, from the Comyn to the Terrans. The Medical Branch at Terran HQ had the start of a cure, but in order to finish it, they needed trailmen to come out of their mountain heights and donate blood. Only one man on Darkover stood any chance of persuading the trailmen to help, but he occupied the same body as the doctor capable of doing the medical side of the work, and he was the personality the doctor had utterly suppressed. Even with hypnosis, only one of them could be active at a time, and the solution would need both of them. This edition contains an introduction by Marion Zimmer Bradley and a foreword by Elisabeth Waters.

Here, in a single volume, it has been our intention to list, document and review every novel dealing, however slightly, with female variance, lesbianism or intense emotional relationships between women. We have also included a majority of the better known novels which, dealing primarily with male homosexuality, are of interest to the collector of variant fiction in general. In related supplements we have compiled lists of variant poetry, variant films, of the major book services and publishing houses where these books can be obtained, and of the homosexual press. The titles in the major portion of the Checklist are listed in a single comprehensive index by author. Information includes date published, number of reprints and publisher’s name. Brief reviews are included of most titles. An effort has been made in each case to distinguish whether the work under discussion is a novel about lesbianism, whether the variant content has been included mostly for shock effect, or whether (as in some excellent modern novels) homosexual characters appear incidentally to the other main themes of action in the book. In such a comprehensive listing, reviews must of necessity be brief. For further discussion of many of the titles listed here, with excellent and complete critical analysis of their variant content, the serious student or collector is earnestly urged to invest in the definitive and major work on the subject: FOSTER, Jeannette Howard; Sex Variant Women in Literature. N. Y. Vantage Press, 1956. Although now officially out of print, this book can occasionally be obtained second hand, and copies will soon be offered for sale through the Daughters of Bilitis publication, THE LADDER. (See appendix.) We have made no effort to give more than cursory reviews of titles which are discussed at length in Dr. Foster’s work. However, since the publication of the Foster book, many new novels of lesbianism have been published, and the diligent search of many collectors, working with the Checklist editors, has brought many old ones to light. We have tried to review in some detail the novels which were omitted from Dr. Foster’s work, and to strive for completeness, even at the expense of discriminatory judgment about the excellence or otherwise of the works included. Therefore this Checklist includes many works whose lesbian content was too slight, too subtle—or too “trashy”—to have come within the scope of the scholarly studies of Dr. Foster or the running column, Lesbiana, conducted by junior editor Gene Damon in the pages of THE LADDER. It is our further contention that many novels dealing with male homosexuality come also within the province of the serious collector of lesbiana. We make, however, no claim for completeness for novels which fall within the homosexual, rather than the lesbian province. In general, the male titles included in this list—clearly defined, in each case, by the sign (m)—have been included because they were of special interest to the editors and therefore are presumably of interest to other collectors of lesbiana. For those who wish a complete list of works dealing with male homosexuality, we suggest the comprehensive bibliography compiled by Noel I. Garde, discussed in the Appendix of Related Publications. Mr. Garde has indexed virtually every homosexual work from antiquity to the latest paperback shocker, and has also performed the mighty task of separating them into categories ... a task from which the Checklist editors have shrunk, though we have made some attempt at classification in our reviews and by awarding a plus sign to books of exceptional value.

The tenth anthology of all-original stories returns readers to Darkover to explore some of its most fascinating places: the Towers, where those gifted with "laran" join together to work, theoretically for the common good. Sometimes, however, politics takes over, resulting in the creation of the horrific weapons used in power struggles of the Comyn. This anthology contains stories by Marion Zimmer Bradley, Deborah J. Ross, Elisabeth Waters, Dorothy J. Heydt, Diana L. Paxson, Emily Alward, Lynne Armstrong-Jones, Aletha Biedermann-Wiens, Nina Boal, Margaret L. Carter, Patricia B. Cirone, Mary Ellen Fletcher, David R. Heydt, Judith Kobylecky, Lynn Michals, Patricia Duffy Novak, Diann Partridge, Charley Pearson, Alexandra Sarris, Glenn R. Sixbury, and Joan Marie Verba.

The city-state of Merina has no means to stop an invading army, so Dowager Queen Adele, Queen Lydana, and Princess Shelyra disappear from the palace. Hiding in places no one would suspect, they lead a counter-attack against the Emperor and his forces.

When a Terran ship crashed on Darkover, many of the colonists and crew wished to stay and build an Earthlike society on the alien planet. They might be the most intelligent species on that world and could make themselves its lords and masters. They didn''t realize the dangers that lurked until the Ghost Wind began to blow and the powers of Darkover worked to claim them completely...

...an incredible blending of fantasy and science fiction.Eventually the Terrans rediscover their long-lost -- and now alien -- colony: Darkover.Things are different there.While adolescent male homosexuality is generally tolerated on Darkover, men are expected to outgrow it. When Dyan Ardais takes lovers young enough to be his sons, he risks not just his reputation, but his life.Life in a Tower as a Keeper, the chaste virgin who holds a circle together, is grueling. Few succeed in the long, painful years of training. The ones who do have power greater than any queen, but what happens to the ones who don''t?Darkovan technology is based on matrix stones that amplify psychic gifts, and people with those gifts work in the Tower circles. But duty to family outweighs everything else, and anyone can be called home from the Tower to marry as her family dictates. A Comyn lady can have lands, wealth, family...everything but freedom.Women can become Free Amazons, but that life has its own set of challenges. Before a candidate''s trial period ends, she must decide if she is truly meant to cope with everything being a Free Amazon entails.

A volume in the Darkover saga presents four challengers to the planet''s sacred traditions--ruling cast member Damon; his betrothed; Earthman Andrew; and Andrew''s betrothed, a Keeper of the Sacred Tower