The eighth Darkover anthology returns to stories about the Free Amazons, also called Renunciates.Here are twenty-two brand new tales about the Renunciates, including Marion Zimmer Bradley's account of how Camilla and Rafaella changed from enemies to best friends. Stories in this volume were written by Marion Zimmer Bradley, Deborah J. Ross, Mercedes Lackey, Diana L. Paxson, Elisabeth Waters, Emily Alward, Priscilla W. Armstrong, Lynne Armstrong-Jones, Chel Avery, Margaret L. Carter, Patricia B. Cirone, Mary Fenoglio, Kelly B. Jaggers, Judith Kobylecky, Jean Lamb, Vera Nazarian, Patricia Duffy Novak, Diann S. Partridge, Andrew Rey, Janet R. Rhodes, Annette Rodriguez, and Joan Marie Verba.

...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? Darkover 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.

Marion Zimmer Bradley's Ravens of Avalon follows the journey of Boudica, a Celtic princess, and Lhiannon, a priestess who is Boudica's mentor on the Druids' Isle. When the Romans conquer Britain, Lhiannon fights them while Boudica marries a king who has surrendered. Theirs is a great love story, but when he dies, the Romans brutalize Boudica and her daughters. In rage, Boudica rouses the tribes in a quest to drive the Romans from Britain - and the results will seal both her own and Lhiannon's place in history.

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This is the novel of four who defied the powers of the matrix guardians - fanatics who protected those powers so that the planet of the ruddy sun might never fall beneath the influence of materialistic Terrans. The four who found themselves fused into a terrifying unity in that defiance were two men and two women. The men were Damon Ridenow, a Comyn of the ruling caste, and Andrew Carr, the Earthman who had won for himself the right of clan-entry.

A follow-up to The Ages of Chaos omnibus, Thunderlord is a brand-new novel of the genre-bending Darkover universe, expanded by Marion Zimmer Bradley's collaborator Deborah J. Ross. Far in Darkover's past, the Ages of Chaos were a time of constant warfare, when immensely powerful psychic weapons ravaged the land and slaughtered entire armies. Perhaps none was more dangerous and unpredictable than the mental Gift to sense--and control--thunderstorms. When the realm of Aldaran and their Scathfell cousins came to blows, that Gift turned the tide of battle, and Aldaran prevailed. A generation later, the heir to Scathfell, Gwynn, has grown up in the shadow of that conflict, his life shaped by the loss of his entire family. Now he plots his revenge for his family’s humiliating defeat by seeking to marry a woman who carries the storm control Gift, so that his sons will be able to wield the terrible power of storms against Aldaran. Since childhood, Kyria has been able to sense approaching storms. She had never expected to marry a rich man; independent and athletic, she defied tradition by donning her brother’s castoff clothing and trapping small game to keep her family from starvation. When Gwynn’s emissary arrives with a marriage proposal that will secure her family’s financial future, she agrees. Along with her younger sister as her companion, she sets out for Scathfell, where she will be formally wed. During their passage through rugged mountains, a blizzard drives them to seek shelter in a traveler’s hut, where they meet Edric, the young heir to Aldaran. Edric has inherited the storm control, but he has never dared to use it. His whole life, he has been warned against the consequences, not just to his enemies but to everyone he loves. Now, disguised as an ordinary traveler, he journeys home after years of study, disciplining himself to control his powers. When he meets Kyria, he senses the presence of the same storm power, but unschooled and dormant. They know each other only as Edric and Kyria--for under shelter truth, all identities are concealed--and are drawn to one another. Thus begins the saga of two kingdoms, divided by bitter history and present-day suspicions, one armed with devastating power and the other determined to overcome it, no matter what the price. Can their love and resourcefulness overcome even the overwhelming power of a Thunderlord?

First published in 1965, Star of Danger is a work that stands as a foundation for the bestselling Darkover series, introducing many loyal fans to this wonderful, mysterious world. Two natives of Darkover are forced to combine Darkover matrix magic with Terran technology to stand against a shared enemy.

The sequel to Heritage of Hastur, perhaps the single most popular of Bradley's spectacular Darkover novels, Sharra's Exile is the story of Lew Alton's return to Darkover and his battle to destroy the deadly Sharra matrix.

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.

Darkover, planet of wonder, world of mystery, has been a favorite of science fiction readers for many years. For it is a truly alien sphere--a world of strange intelligences, of brooding skies beneath a ruddy sun, and of powers unknown to Earth. In this novel, Marion Zimmer Bradley tells of the original coming of the Earthmen, of the days when Darkover knew not humanity. This is the full-bodied novel of what happened when a colonial starship crashlanded on that uncharted planet to encounter for the first time in human existence the impact of the Ghost Wind, the psychic currents that were native only to that world, and the price that every Earthling must pay before Darkover could claim him for itself.