Darkover, a planet of wonder, world of mystery, has been a favourite 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 new novel, Mario 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, of the psychic currents that were native only to that world, and of the price that every Earthling must pay before Darkover can claim for itself.

Fantasy.

Traitor's Sun continues the epic saga of Darkover, the award-winning series by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Her most brilliant and popular creation, the Darkover books take readers to a planet torn by rebellion--and struggling for freedom...

She had rejected her noble birthright and embraced the freedom only a man could claim. She was Romilly who lived among the beasts of hill and forest and communicated with them, who tried humanity and turned it down for its evils and jealousies. She had the MacAran Gift, the rare laran that conferred mastery over hawk and horse. There was war in the lands of Darkover for this was the age of chaos when usurpers took the throne and the true king wandered in disguise with a price on his head. Romilly wanted none of all this, but there were those who shared her talents - the men and women of the Towers. And for them, Romilly was the key. Whether male-garbed or beast-minded, she was also human. And duty to her own true kind pointed her to the ultimate decision.

...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.

The great epic of Darkover did not begin with the Terrans' arrival. For in those years, the power of the matrix was first learned - and misused in a power struggle that could have made Darkover a duplicate of Terra.

It was a place on Darkover where the Order of the Renunciates dwelled - women as Free Amazons, who had renounced all subservience to men. And who sought for total equality in all spheres of society. To Thendara House came the Terran Magda in exchange for the Free Amazon Jaella, who had become the wife of an Earthman and had entered the Terran enclave. The cross-currents of these two cultures - one male-dominated, one egalitarian, brings into focus all the deepest questions of love and marriage, of male and female, of justice and injustice. Thendaria House is a novel of future speculation destined to be a classic masterwork o the role of women in any world.