|
|
 The history of Darkover Anthologies
The Friends of Darkover
The success of the Darkover early novels (especially the first version of
Sharra's Exile, i.e., The Sword of
Aldones) was so important that fans begun to organize special meeting in
SF conventions, and to ask Marion clarifications about her world (the youth of
Lew Alton for instance).
All this fannish activity ends up with the creation of The Friends of Darkover. This
amateur group started to publish a periodic letter (the Darkover
Newsletter) in 1975 which turns into a fanzine named
Starstone in 1977.
Starstone used to publish apocryphal Darkover fiction, written by young
authors. Marion used to patronize this fanzine. She wrote, in the introduction
to The Keeper's Price anthology, the
following sentences (but see her new policy at
the bottom of this page):
I have always encouraged young writers to write in my world; I think it's
fun. Besides, how else can I get to read Darkover stories without going to the
trouble of writing them?
Marion even published some short stories in the fanzine:
[...] I made a habit of publishing, in Starstone, various short bits of
Darkover fiction which I considered too short, or too fragmentary, to develop
into novels.
Marion had nothing against apocryphal Darkover fiction. She gave in the
introduction to The Keeper's Price
anthology precise explanations about her feeling towards young writers' use of
Darkover:
[...]I don't mind other writers writing about Darkover [...].
Nor do I feel
threatened by stories not consistent with my personal vision of Darkover. To
me, all Darkover stories written by anyone else are presumed to be in a
parallel world to "my" Darkover; [...].
Because, in a very real sense, I regard myself not as the "inventor" of
Darkover, but its discoverer. If others wish to play in my fantasy world, who
am I to slam its gates and in churlish voice demand that they build their
own? If they are capable of it, they will do so someday. Meanwhile, if they
wish to write of Darkover, they will. [...] Why should I deny myself the
pleasure of seeing these young writers learning to do their thing by, for a
little while, doing my thing with me?
Unfortunately (??), this is not the case anymore (see the end of the page).
First professional publication: The Keeper's Price
Donald Wollheim, the founder of DAW Books, knew that Marion used to publish
short stories in Starstone. He thought that an anthology of Darkover
short fictions can be interesting. Marion's answer was simple: there were not
enough of these short stories to make a book. D. Wollheim thought that
Darkover apocryphal fiction contained some good stories and therefore
[...] he suggested that I [Marion] might include the best of the short stories
written by the Friends of Darkover, some of whom showed tremendous talent.
This suggestion ended up with the publication in 1980 of the anthology The Keeper's Price.
After the success...
The first Darkover anthology was a commercial success and D. Wollheim asked
Marion to keep on editing such work. She wrote in the introduction to Sword of Chaos, the second anthology, the
following sentences:
Don Wollheim, who over the years has been the first friend of Darkover, and
most helpful of editors, has helped this phenomenon [the fact that
many writers write about Darkover] to emerge, not only by urging me to
continue with the Darkover series when I felt hesitant to do so, but also by
publishing the first volume of stories by me and the other writers, The
Keeper's Price; and then by giving me the go-ahead for a second
volume. When I made this known, through the mechanism of the Friends of
Darkover, I was promptly deluged with stories.
The story if the Darkover anthologies had just begin at this moment. There are
now twelve anthologies and there will never be others, as explained in the
following section. Anyway,
Darkover is now more or less the property of Mercedes
Lackey. In the anthology Snows of
Darkover, Marion writes (page 179) in the introduction to Mercedes
Lackey's short story:
Betsy Wollheim and I have chosen her [Mercedes Lackey] to inherit the Darkover
series in the unlikely event that I ever become unable-or unwilling-to do any
more of them.
This anthology was printed in April 1994 and Marion's sentences make
official what have been already announced by the co-authoring of Rediscovery, printed in April 1993.
Official goal of the Anthologies
This goal was described in the Reader's guide included in each Darkover book
printed by Daw. It has recently changed so I include here the old one, which
can be found for instance in Renunciantes of
Darkover:
These volumes of stories written by Marion Zimmer Bradley herself, and various
members of the society called The Friends of Darkover, strive to "fill in the
blanks" of the Darkover history, and elaborate on the eras, tales and
characters which have captured their imaginations.
This is to my mind the publisher's point of view: do buy these books, they are
great and they "fill in the blanks". But Marion herself does not believe that
everything written in these anthologies really belongs to the true Darkover.
The end of the story..
I don't really know about the quality of the Darkover anthologies, but
wathever you think about them, you won't ever read new Darkover fiction
written by anyone else than Marion herself or specifically chosen authors. In
fact, has explained in the DARKOVER
NON-GUIDELINES Marion had a legal problem that made her waste a
lot of work, and the only manageable answer was to stop working on those
anthologies.
Moreover, she now forbids the use of Darkover stuff (the world itself,
characters, etc) in fictional work. I strongly suggest you to read those
non-guidelines in order to understand the
details.
source file (Last modification: Wed Apr 21 17:21:45 1999)
|
