Best Selling Books by Marion Zimmer Bradley

A woman seeking solace after losing her child and a divorcee become unlikely heroes when they help the people of the magical kingdom of Glenraven overthrow an evil dictator.

The novel that truly begins the bestselling Avalon saga...

A classic novel in the bestselling Darkover series. For three quarters of a century, Darkover has resisted the Terran Empire''s efforts in colonization and industrialization. But the leader of Planetary Investments Unlimited (known as Worldwreckers, Inc.) has decided to take on this assignment herself . . . for long ago, she had called Darkover home.

And it will be sated by no less than the souls of all men, the Heart of a Goddess ... and the blood of a Princess.

The continuing saga of the inhabitants of Avalon sees a young boy raised in secret after his parents are killed by traitors returning home to prove his worth and lead his followers to victory while wielding the newly forged sword Excalibur. Original.

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.

She was Margaret Alton, the daughter of Lew Alton, the Darkovan representative to the Terran Imperial Senate, but she remembered almost nothing about the planet of her birth, or her early and tumultuous childhood. What fleeting memories disturbed her sleep were fragments of terror - a strange silver man and a screaming woman with hair that circled her head like a ring of fire. As soon as Margaret was of age, she fled her stormy home and took refuge on University where she was granted the position of assistant to a renowned musicologist. This prestigious job took her to many worlds, and when she was assigned to collect folk songs on Darkover, Margaret was curious and pleased. But under the light of the red sun, Margaret''s innocent excitement quickly waned. The world of her birth evoked long-buried memories, painful and terrifying, and she soon found herself driven by a destiny more dreadful than any nightmare. For the screaming woman and the silver man were merely markers on a trail - a trail which led into Margaret''s own mind, and toward a trap which had been set for her centuries before her birth...

Nobody alive knew how the feud between Storn and Hammefell had begun, but that didn''t stop the fighting. When Storn''s men burned Hammerfell''s castle, his infant twin sons were separated, and each grew up thinking himself the rightful Duke of Hammerfell. Conn, raised in the mountains by his father''s paxman, continued to fight the Storns. Alastair grew up with his mother in Thendara and planned to marry his cousin Floria. But when Conn came to Thendara to seek King Aiden''s help and the twins encountered each other, it changed all their lives.

The authors of The Alton Gift continue the sweeping Darkover fantasy saga with more gripping action involving the Hastur family.

Darkover: for some the planet beneath the bloody far-off sun, had the reputation of being a half-frozen lump of dust on the edge of nowhere. For Jeff Kerwin, Jr, Darkover meant only one thing - home. Returning there after many long years, Kerwin had not been prepared for what he was to find . . . For from the first day he set foot on the planet he had been hounded by a sinister, swarthy man who made no secret of the shadowing. Then there was the strange discovery that there was no record anywhere of his birth and childhood on Darkover. All the dark forces of this mysterious world were banding together to deny him - and Jeff Kerwin vowed to risk everything to find out why.

Of all the worlds of the Galaxy, only the Matriarchy of Isis/Cinderella has returned to an ancient social order. It is on Isis that women rule, their control total and unbending. On Isis men are regarded as dangerous animals or, at best, as sexual playthings. And on Isis the great enigma of the known universe, the Builder Ruins - last remnant of an unknown, ancient culture. Within those strange Ruins, something survives - something which speaks to the women of Isis and to no one else.

Originally published in Amazing Stories in December 1958, The Planet Savers was the very first Darkover novel to see print. It was here that readers first encountered the now legendary world of Cottman IV, at a time when the Terrans were desperately seeking a cure for a disease of epidemic proportions that threatened the lives of Darkovans and Terrans alike.The Planet Savers introduced many readers to the wondrous world of the red sun, and it remains today a powerful evocation of the magic and mystery of Darkover.

...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.