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 Official Darkover short stories
Introduction
There are 198 published Darkover short stories, written by 95
different writers (including Marion). Only 22 of them have been written by
Marion herself. Because of these facts, many fans ask the following natural
questions:
- Do the short stories belong to the true Darkover history, even if they
have not been written by Marion?
- Is it worth reading something about Darkover not written
by Marion herself?
Marion's point of view
In fact, the easiest way to answer to these questions, is to ask to Marion
herself. She had already answered in several anthology introductions.
Official part
In the introduction to Domains of Darkover,
Marion wrote:
On idea that has somehow found lodgment in the public mind is that each story
I select for the anthology is somehow official; that my approval of a story,
or wanting to share it with other readers somehow gives it legitimacy in the
Darkovan chronology. If it isn't apparent from internal evidence, let me state
now that apart from the short stories I have written myself, no; the anthology
stories are not official, or at least all of them are not. A few of them fall
in so readily with my own feelings about Darkover that they might
really-really in the context of the Darkovan universe-have "happened": that
is, if I thought of it, I might have written them myself. But of these, there
are only a sparse handful: Pat Floss' "The Other Side of the Mirror" seemed so
near to what I has envisioned without bothering to write it down that now I
think what happened between HERITAGE and SWORD OF ALDONES or, if you prefer,
SHARRA'S EXILE, was probably what Pat envisioned. The stories written by Diana
Paxson about early days on Darkover-say between LANDFALL and the Ages of
Chaos-are very near to officialdom because Diana and I are dear friends, and
her mind works much as mine does. The same can be said of the stories by
Elisabeth Waters, and a few other stories;
In several other places (individual short story introductions, etc.), Marion
has repeated that The Other Side of the
Mirror definitely belongs to the true Darkover story.
Anthologies quality
In the introduction to Marion Zimmer Bradley's
Darkover, Marion wrote:
I was the very first writer to encourage other writers to write in my
universe. Not everybody approved; Lester Del Rey told me that he, for one,
would never consent to read a single world of Darkover fiction written by
anyone else. All I can say to that is that it is a free country and he is
entitled to his opinion. It's his loss. Most of the Darkover stories were
about as good as any slush anywhere, which means not very good, at least at
first; but after reading a lot of it, I came to the conclusion that a lot of
it-being written by women who where obsessed with writing-was readable.
A first list of official short stories
Based on "Marion's advice", I have build a quite imprecise list of official
short stories written by other authors. You need of course to add to this list
short stories written by Marion herself which have been collected in the
anthology Marion Zimmer Bradley's
Darkover.
- Patricia Floss:
- Diana L. Paxson:
- Elisabeth Waters:
source file (Last modification: Wed Apr 21 17:21:45 1999)
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