My life in books

Some of Heinlein’s early published novels - Revolt in 2100, Methuselah’s Children - are, I think, among his best. At least, they are some of my favourites. They’re tightly written, with lots of action and not a lot of editorialising or rambling - although both Revolt in 2100 and Beyond This Horizon have a number of passages where the characters, or the authorial voice, present large chunks of background on topics ranging from semantics to Mendelian genetics.

At the same time, two of Heinlein’s novels that I think are among his worst, Sixth Column and Orphans of the Sky, were also published in the first few years of his writing career, though Sixth Column we can perhaps excuse, as he wrote it to John Campbell’s specifications.

His first published novel, “—If This Goes On” - which is packaged, along with two linked shorter works, “Coventry” and “Misfit,” as Revolt in 2100, is the first of his Future History novels.

Methuselah’s Children, the novel that follows “—If This Goes On” introduces two key elements of Heinlein’s universe, to which he would return again and again at various points in hus writing career - the Howard Families, and the iconic figure of Lazarus Long, the irascible, irreverent, Senior of the Howard Families, the oldest human being thanks to a genetic quirk at the early stages of the Howard Family longevity breeding experiment. There’s a line in Methuselah’s Children that places Lazarus in the background of Heinlein’s first published short story, “Life-Line,” and Lazarus will play a key role in the last novel Heinlein wrote, To Sail Beyond the Sunset. In a way, Lazarus is Heinlein’s Everyman, not as he is but as he should be, the personification of everything Heinlein sees as quintessentially human, from his eternal restlessness to his refusal to be broken in spirit, no matter what befalls him.

Methuselah’s Children opens in the year 2125, a quarter-century after the end of the American theocracy described in Revolt in 2100. America is now part of a global world government, and is back in the space era - we can assume from various comments in both books that the exploration and development of colonies in the solar system continued under the management of other countries while the US was isolated. The establishment of a planetary civilisation the has as its main values peace and tolerance, in which we assume economic inequality has been overcome through technology and global resource management, has led the secretive Howard Families to believe that they can finally come out of hiding and live among short-lived humans without the need for changing identities and moving on every few decades to conceal their longevity.

Of course, it’s a mistake. Shorter lived humans refuse to believe that it’s just a matter of genetics, and set aside the Covenant that guarantees the rights of every human bring so that the Howard Families can be arrested and the ‘secret’ of long life forced from them. Fortunately, Federation Adnimistrator Slayton Ford, recognises from the early reports of interrogated Howards that there is no secret, and decides to try and resolve the situation without more violence - he, Howard Foundation Chief Executive Zaccur Barstow, and Lazarus, develop a daring plan - to highjack the generation star ship New Horizons, which is about to be launched on the Second Proxima Centauri Expedition, and use it to evacuate all the Howards to another solar system, so the two branches of humanity can continue in isolation.

The plan works, and Ford, deposed and labelled as a traitor, joins the fleeing Howard Families as they seek a new home world. While a trip that would ordinarily take generations would be less daunting to the long-lived Howards, the timeline is further shortened by the invention, by Andrew Jackson Libby - last seen in Misfit - which brings them to a possible planet in a much shorter period of time, relatively speaking (a minor character, Hubert Johnson, who is an infant at the time of the evacuation, has grown into a nasty spoiled brat when they reach their destination). But the planet they land on is inhabited, and as it turns out, is no place for humans - the most numerous species, the Jockaira, may be intelligent and human-like, but they are all the willing servants and worshippers the dominant species of the planet, whom the perceive as gods. When it becomes apparent that the humans cannot, and will not, enter into the same relationship with the true rulers if the planet, the ‘gods’ of the Jockaira use their advanced abilities - whether science or psionic, is never clearly determined - to send them to another system, also inhabited. At first it seems like a paradise, but eventually the deep differences between the two species - the Little People are in fact a society of communal minds, with each ‘individual’ living in many different bodies - make it clear that this is no home for humans either. Frustrated and homesick, they return to Earth, prepared to fight for their rights as members of the human race - only to find that in their absence, determination and allocation of vast resources have achieved what the Howard Families’ more limited resources were unable to - a real technology of rejuvenation that is affordable for all, and which puts Howards and non-Howards back on an equal footing. And their exploration adventures - and Libby’s star drive - are enough to wipe clean the criminality of their escape. Humanity is reunited, the stage is set for real space exploration, and all is well.

The inability of humans to become, like the Jockaira, servants, or perhaps pets, of a dominant race, and their general reluctance to merge into communal groupings of Little People, are, like Lazarus himself, keys to Heinlein’s beliefs about the essential nature of human beings. Throughout his novels runs the theme of the ‘free man’ - an individual who can be captured, even killed, but cannot be conquered. There’s an interesting tension here - on the one hand, Heinlein sees this as the defining quality of humanity, and yet so often, it’s only his heroes and their associates who display this trait, and they are surrounded by weaker men who give up and give in.

Hidden in the story of the highjacking of the New Horizons is the seed of Heinlein’s next novel, Orphans of the Sky - which comprises two distinct sections, Universe and Common Sense. The New Horizons was built for the Second Proxima Centauri Expedition. Heinlein’s next novel would backtrack slightly and tell the story of the first Proxima Centauri Expedition.

The first part of Orphans of the Sky, Universe, begins with the notation “The Proximo Centauri Expedition, sponsored by the Jordan Foundation in 2119, was the first recorded attempt to reach the nearer stars of this galaxy. Whatever its unhappy fate we can only conjecture . . .” The novel is the story of what happened to the lost expedition. The protagonist is a young man named Hugh Hoyland, who is apprenticed to become a scientist - which, we quickly learn, has nothing to do with science, and is rather his culture’s term for priest. It is through his eyes that we discover what’s happening on the lost ship, generations after its launch. For Hugh, there is only Ship. It is his universe, and he has no concept of an outside, a space through which the ship moves. Few people can read or write, outside of the ranks of the scientists, and what oral history there is has become entangled with a theology in which Jordan, the supreme god, created the ship and its people, who when they die will go to Centaurus to live forever in paradise. There’s a memory of a mutiny, in which most of the original ship’s crew was killed, which is probably the point at which survival needs took over and much of the basic knowledge about the nature of the true universe was lost. What books remain have been interpreted by the scientists as religious allegories.

The plot begins to develop when Hugh, on an expedition with some other young scientists to the sectors where Muties - mutants born as a result of higher radiation levels in the ship, though it’s generally attributed to the resurgence of the original sin of mutiny - live, is injured and left for dead. He’s taken as a servant by conjoined twins, Jim and Joe, who share one body and who are also possibly of Howard stock, being several generations old. Jim and Joe are highly intelligent, and have gained a position of some leadership within the Mutie community. They have also read extensively, explored the low-gee areas of the ship, found the main control room, and looked out at the stars. They have deduced much of the true nature of the ship and its voyage - though their sense of scale is sadly lacking - and they introduce Hugh to the truth as well.

The second part of the novel, Common Sense, is largely about Hugh’s attempts, with the backing of Jim and Joe, to take control of the Ship and carry out ‘Jordan’s Plan’ - colonisation of a new planet. Of course, the attempt to convince the other ship’s officers of the truth eventually fails, and Hugh, Jim, Joe, and a small handful of supporters find themselves hunted, with no way out - except the single shuttle remaining after the catastrophe that was the mutiny. The novel ends as Hugh and the others - minus Jim and Joe, who died in the fight to get to the shuttle, land through the greatest of luck on an unknown planet that can sustain human life. We would not learn if Hugh and his followers survived until ears later, when Heinlein revealed their fate in a casual discussion in the novel Time Enough for Love.

Orphans of the Sky has never been one of my favourite Heinlein novels. It’s an interesting concept, with a reasonable amount of action, but the characters are thinly realised and even Hugh Hoyland doesn’t have much depth to draw one into the story. Conjoined twins Jim and Joe are perhaps the most memorable characters, but it’s rather annoying the way that Heinlein can’t quite figure out whether to treat them as one person, because they share a body, or two people, because each head clearly belongs to a distinct individual with a definite sense of personal identity. Plus, there are virtually no women in the story, other than a mutant woman knifesmith who has one short appearance, and the wives of Hugh and his handful of human supporters. Women on the Ship are slaves, used for domestic and sexual service, treated with physical violence even by the supposed hero, and don’t even have names of their own, only what their men choose to call them - at least among the ‘normal humans.’ Hugh hasn’t even bothered to give one of his wives a name. It is clear, hiwever, that the female Mutie, Mother of Knives, has not only a name but a degree of respect within her community.

It’s an early novel, but where his other early novels, Revolt in 2100 and Methuselah’s Children, and even, to some degree, Sixth Column, are already clearly ‘Heinlein’ novels - well-written, strong characters of both genders, solid plots - Orphans of the Sky does not pass muster.

The last of Heinlein’s early novels for adults is Beyond This Horizon, written in 1942. The world as portrayed in Beyond This Horizon owed much background to his unpublished novel, For Us, the Living. It’s not hard to see where he built the flesh and muscle of this book, on the skeleton of the socialist-influenced, socially progressive society he invented in that very early work. Gender equity in many respects (though in an armed duello society, women generally go unarmed and have immunity from challenge), a multi-national government (in Heinlein’s future, Asia and Africa were virtually destroyed by imperialistic wars their people are considered to be at the developmental level of barbarians), guaranteed annual income, respect for privacy and personal choice - there’s a lot here that’s admirable. What’s highly questionable is his whole-hearted embrace of eugenics - the deliberate breeding of human beings for so-called desirable traits - which underlies both the entire notion of the Howard families in the Future History novels, and the way that, in Beyond This Horizon, ‘genetically compatible’ humans are urged to create children together, with or without any existing or on-going relationship between them. He goes to some lengths to differentiate ‘bad’ eugenics, which produced humans bred for specific functions and purposes and the horrors of two world wars, and the ‘scientific’ eugenics of his near-utopian civilisation that sought to conserve positive traits and eliminate inherited weaknesses, from bad teeth to depression.

The protagonist of Beyond This Horizon is Hamilton Felix, a product of multiple generations of genetic selection designed to conserve several favourable traits, who presents a serious problem to the genetics planners - he sees no particular reason why the human race should continue, genetically improved or not. Felix is intelligent, rational, highly adaptable, a survivor on many levels, the kind of person the natural selection would favour if civilisation wasn’t making that aspect of evolution obsolete. He himself enjoys life, but he does not see much real happiness around him, nor a clear argument for continuing humanity, or at least, an argument fir him contributing to its continuation.

It’s clear, though, that he’s not as disaffected as he seems. When he comes into contact with a revolutionary group planning to overthrow the current world government and replace it with a fascist regime that sounds far too close to the ideas behind the empire that was responsible for the Second Eugenics War, he willingly volunteers to infiltrate the organisation and report on its plans. In the meantime, his life becomes complicated when Longcourt Phyllis, the woman who’s been selected as the best match to conserve and strengthen the genetic lines that make him of some importance to the genetic planners decides to look him up, he discovers that she’s exactly the sort of woman he’d like to be involved with - except for the fact that she, like every perfect Heinlein woman, wants a passel of kids.

Everything comes to a head when, during the attempted coup, Felix, Phyllis, and Mordan Claude, the genetic planner responsible for the breeding lines they represent, are all pinned down in Claude’s office, fighting off the rebels trying to seize control of the valuable stores of germ plasm Claude is responsible for. Facing death, Felix realises what it is that would make him sufficiently interested in the future of humanity to participate in its continuation - answers to, or at least, a serious investigation of, the great philosophical and metaphysical questions that have haunted humankind. The nature of consciousness. The fate of the self after death. The limits of human knowledge. The beginning and the end of time.

The revolution is, of course, unsuccessful. Felix, Phyllis and Claude survive. And Claude presents Felix’s questions to the world ruling council, who realise that Felix has in fact identified a key lack in their modern, rational world. After some discussion, they establish a massive foundation (a society where technology ensures high productivity and values tend not to encourage obscene concentration of wealth and power being a society with cash to spare) to explore exactly the kinds of questions Felix wants answers too. He and Phyllis marry and proceed to have children who are even more exceptional than they are. The end.

What’s interesting about Beyond This Horizon is Heinlein’s argument, presented through Felix, that freedom, love, and material well being, as important as they are, are not enough to satisfy the human soul. That there are needs beyond the physical and emotional, questions that reach beyond the realm of the rational and phenomenological world, that are of importance to human societies. That the driving question that underlies all others is simply “is this all there is?”

The publication of Beyond This Horizon marked a sharp change in Heinlein’s writing career, likely brought about at least in part by the entry of the US into WWII and Heinlein’s war work. After this novel, he would spend the next ten years writing mainly short stories and juveniles, until 1952 when he would write the thinly disguised Cold War, Communist-under-the-bed novel The Puppet Masters.

Nominating short fiction for the Retro Hugos is difficult. It’s easier with novels, as there were far sff fewer novels published then, and the ones that were, are mostly still in print. But this was in the heyday of the pulps, there was a lot of short fiction published, and most of it is unavailable, unless you collect the classics pulp magazines. While most of the stories that were considered really good have been anthologised, you have to go through a lot of anthologies to read them all, and that’s not easy to do, especially if you’re reading ebooks only.

So, I do what I can. This post contains my thoughts on the eligible novellas I managed to find and read.


In A. E. Van Vogt’s Asylum, a pair of space vampires, aliens who live off both blood and the vital “life force” of their victims, land on an Earth which has developed interplanetary space flight and learned to live without interpersonal violence - rape, murder, even war are considered “social perversions,”

Merla and Jeel are advance scouts for their people, the Dreegh, who violate the laws of Galactic society to raid relatively primitive human planets, harvesting as much blood and life energy as they can before their activities are noticed and thwarted by the Galactic Observers. But this time, Merla and Jeel decide to attack and destroy the system’s Observer before they are noticed, so that the Dreegh can drain Earth of all its life. To do this, they kidnap and interrogate a reporter named William Leigh to help them find the hidden Observer.

The novella is written in a rather florid style, and suffers from too many descriptions of the extreme magnetism and vast intelligence of the nonhuman characters. As well, Van Vogt has some very odd ideas about psychology and how to write internal conflict. I’ve read a fair bit of his work over the years, and I would not rank this among his best, despite the interesting storyline and the foreshadowed but still surprising last minute plot twist. Some pulp sf ages well; this unfortunately did not.


Lester del Ray’s novella Nerves, on the other hand, reads almost like modern fiction, albeit with some quirks in dialogue that mark it as being from an earlier area, and a very bad excuse for a Japanese accent. The novella begins with a team of medical personnel dealing with the aftermath of a serious accident - thirty-odd injured and 17 fatalities - in an industrial facility where an assortment of radioactive products are constructed. The lead physician, Dr. Ferrel, is a former ‘star’ surgeon, who has lost his confidence ever since he had to perform on his dying pregnant wife, and was unable to save her. He has been working in obscurity ever since. His assistant, Dr. Jenkins, a young doctor who once dreamed of being an atomic scientist, is in his own way unsure of his limits, and still longing for the career he could not have.

As the action unfolds, we learn that the plant where everything went drastically wrong was being used to test an experimental process, and that if the still ongoing, but dangerously malfunctioning process isn’t shut down properly, the plabt will explode in a matter of hours, taking the whole facility, and possibly a large region of the populated area nearby, with it. When it turns out that the only man who has the knowledge and experience to safely shut down the process is severely injured and suffering from serious radiation exposure, Drs Ferrel and Jenkins will need every but of their combined experience and background to save the dying atomic engineer. Nerves is a story about damaged people facing an extreme crisis and finding ways to overcome their limitations under pressure. In that sense, it is a very timeless story.


Alfred Bester’s novella Hell is Forever is a rather dull and dreary recapitulation of the rather common idea that hell is of out own making. Of the top of my head, I can think of several plays that have gotten the idea across much better, including Sartre’ No Exit. In Bester’s version, six annoying people accidentally summon something rather like a devil who offers each of them their own reality - which of course turns out to be an eternity of experiencing their own worst nightmares. I really couldn’t get excited about it, it was far too repetitious and once the point is made with the first of the obnoxious protagonists, the fate of the others is of little interest. They are simply not sympathetic enough as characters for us to care about the specifics of each individual hell.


I’ve also reread Heinlein’s novella Waldo. This time around, I feel a strong connection to the title character that is new, and connected to the severe degeneration of my own physical state since my last reading; now, I perceive Waldo as “crip lit” and a fairly sensitive example, for something written by a man who likely perceived himself as able bodied. I was struck by the unifying metaphor of the waldo, the device that allows Waldo to manipulate objects on scales that would be impossible, not just for his crippled self, dealing with severe myasthenia gravis, but in some cases, for any human. This concept is recapitulated in the concept of the Other World which Waldo learns from a traditional hex doctor, the other dimension in which mind resides, and from which mind extends to influence, direct, manipulate the material world through its connections with brain and body.

There are other interesting and very modern ideas in Waldo - including the concern about untested long-term consequences of exposure to new technologies. All in all, a fine example if Heinlein’s early work.


Anthony Boucher’s The Compleat Werewolf is a nicely comedic novella about a university professor named Wolfe Wolf who has fallen in love with one of his former students, the actress Gloria Garton. When she declines his marriage proposal, he goes out drinking, meets a magician who calls himself Ozymandias, and learns that he is a werewolf. But that’s only the beginning of the tale, which also involves satanic temples, a German spy ring, and a taking cat.

The tone is light and just a bit on the frivolous side, the story pure entertainment.


Robert Heinlein’s novella The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag takes a fascinating conceit - the world as a work of art - and turns it into a baffling and rather frightening story of supernatural mystery. (And also, in its description of Hoag’s profession as unpleasant, an in-joke for writers.) Jonathan Hoag is an amnesiac. Not only has he no memory of his live before a time five years ago. He has no idea what he does during the day. Distressed by the sudden realisation that he doesn’t really know who he is, he turns to a private detective to discover the things about himself that he doesn’t know.

Their investigation leads to a series of strange events, terrifying nightmares, unnatural threats, and unbelievable encounters, a sense that either they or the world is gong mad. As it turns out, it’s the world that is subtly wrong, and Hoag’s unknown profession carries with it the potential to make things right.

It’s like one of those secret history stories, in a way. It is so very unbelievable, and yet it could be true, and one would never know. Both the story and the concept stay with the reader after the process of reading is over - surely one of the qualities of good art.

Of the novellas I found and read, I thought both of Heinlein’s pieces, plus the Boucher and del Ray offerings, worth nomination. It will be interesting to see what works others found and decided to nominate.

And now for my thoughts on a Heinlein book i’d never read before, For Us, the Living. I think I’ve read everything else he wrote, but this was released so late in the game that I hadn’t gotten around to it til now. I’m glad I read it, because it’s in some ways a sourcebook for some of his greatest works.

It’s not actually a novel, of course. It’s a utopian treatise, one in a long line of such works that goes all the way back to Plato’s Republic. The story is the same in every case - dump unsuspecting everyman into your ideal society and find reasons for people to kindly take the time to explain everything about their world in depth. What is interesting is that as one reads For Us, the Living, one sees Heinlein publicly doing the worldbuilding for some of the novels and other writings that would follow. This is the world of Beyond This Horizon, and Coventry. It’s a world that came dangerously close to -If This Goes On, but escaped the theocracy (and tells us everything we needed to know about Nehemiah Scudder).

I like many of the ideas of this Heinlein, from a guaranteed annual income for everyone to the end of marriage as a public contract to compulsory voting to running a society on the idea that religious morality has nothing to do with law. To be sure, Heinlein is still pretty sexist - he thinks women are essentially different from men in some crucial ways and he couldn’t quite imagine a utopia where women are fully half of the politicians and engineers and test pilots and surgeons, though he could imagine some women being among the best in any field. But there are some bits in his utopian musings that are very much at the centre of even modern feminist thinking - such as his analysis of how giving women full economic equality, through the GAI he envisions, changes the entire nature of relationships between men and women. And there’s a bit where he accurately describes the way that male possessiveness turns into controlling relationships that stifle women.

This is the manifesto of the young (pre-Virginia) Heinlein, and it’s important because it shows where his “future history” came from. I kind of wish this Heinlein had stayed around, and avoided the plunge into John Birchism that influenced aspects of his later work.


Having read the first book Heinlein wrote, It seemed somehow appropriate to next read the last book he wrote, To Sail Beyond the Sunset. This is a book I both love and am frustrated by. Maureen Johnson is quite a tour de force of a character, the most vividly presented woman in all of his books - only a few of which are centred on a female protagonist, as this one is. She is everything I appreciate about the feminist Heinlein’s idea of the independent woman, and everything that makes me want to pitch something nasty at the old sexist’s ghost. Maureen is brilliant, practical, she adapts easily to new situations, she earns five or six degrees in subjects as diverse and complex as medicine, the law and philosophy, she is a financial genius, an amazing mother, a sexual free spirit. She also is the ever-ready sexual fantasy of too many entitled man-boys and just loves being pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen. It’s the quintessence of Heinlein’s ideas about the perfect woman, one who is strong but wants her man stronger, one who never says no to the ‘right’ men, one who loves to take care of her men and her children, who is as smart and brave and competent as any man but goes out of her way to make the men in her life feel smarter and braver and more competent. She lets her first husband control her life, make all the important decisions, for over 40 years of marriage, acting for herself only when he decides to ask for a divorce, at which point she outmaneuvers him with impressive ease and goes on to live an unapologetically independent life. She inspires and infuriates me.

She’s also the mouthpiece for Heinlein’s later political views. While his attitudes about sexuality and religion remain pretty constant throughout his working life - he was always in favour of sexual freedom and thought religion was a crock used to manipulate the masses - the man who began his writing career extolling the virtues of socialised medicine and a guaranteed annual income ended it ranting against freeloaders snd governments that gave people handouts.

And then there’s the stuff that squicks. In the course if her long life, Maureen has sex with her cousin, her son, at least one son-in-law (and probably at least some heavy petting with a daughter or two) and tries her hardest to seduce her father. Heinlein puts a lot of incest in both this book and in Time Enough for Love, his novel about the lives and loves of Maureen’s son Woodrow, aka Lazarus Long. He seems quite unaware of, or unwilling to acknowledge, the power issues of parent-child sex, which exist well into adulthood. Never having had a sibling, I’n not really equipped to comment on his insistence that left to their own devices, siblings are going to form sexual relationships, but even as adults, it seems to me that there are some serious complications arising from the intense emotional cauldron that is the family. I don’t believe in sin myself, only in harm, and if siblings or other close relatives who have never lived in the same family and don’t bring that potentially hazardous baggage with them should meet as adults and decide to enter a sexual relationship, the only major objection I have is that of genetic consequences should there be children. But there’s way too much potential for psychological harm if there are already familial bonds established, and you attempt to build sexual bonds on top f them. So Maureen’s willingness to hop into bed with anyone, even her own father and son, as long as she isn’t risking pregnancy, bothers me. And I wonder what brought it to such a prominent place in Heinlein’s ideas about sexual freedom.

The other thing that’s both fun and strange is Heinlein’s quest, in the last years of his creative life, to amalgamate the universes of all of his works - and those of some other authors he admired - into one giant multiverse with multiple timelines. He carefully determined which stories and novels took place in which timelines, and created a Time Corps and a theory of creativity as reality to explain how he brought together not only his own science fiction works, but the fantasy worlds of writers from Burroughs to Baum. It’s fun, in a way - much as Philip Jose Farmer’s Wold Newton family of superheroes is fun - but it also seems oddly obsessive.

It’s a sprawling, self-indulgent novel that never ceases to fascinate and infuriate me.

I am embarking on a reading project, it seems. I am rereading Heinlein books. Probably not all of them, though it is possible. I started this project because my partner and I were talking about the Japanese anime version of Starship Troopers, and its portrayal of certain characters in terms of race. Heinlein is not always obvious about the race of his characters, he tosses clues in and leaves you to make your own assumptions. Anyway, we were discussing Sergeant Zim, who is portrayed as black in the anime. We both agreed that this was unlikely, as one of the few clues to his race is a reference to him being 'shaved blue' which I and my partner took to mean very closely shaved, in line with other references to his precision in terms of proper presentation. I'd had the vague sense that he might be Asian, based on his comment about not speaking Standard and having been taught martial arts by cadet Shikumi's father. But nothing else confirms that, and Sergeant Zim's race remains ambiguous. But that was why I started rereading.

I'm continuing with the reread because Farah Mendlesohn's long awaited (by me, at least) critical study of Heinlein is getting ready for publication and I want to reacquaint myself with a fair chunk of Heinlein's work before I read Mendlesohn's study.

(By the way, due to some contractual issues with the press that had originally accepted Mendlesohn's proposal for the book, she is publishing it through a crowdsourcing publisher. If you want a copy - and you are going to want one if you are in any way a science fiction fan - you can pre-order at the link below. It's already fully funded, so there's no risk, you will get what you order.

https://unbound.com/books/robert-heinlein

I repeat, if you are an sf fan, you will want this book. Go order it now.)

Right, back to Heinlein.

So, I reread Starship Troopers, because you can't just check out something in a Heinlein book, you get sucked into the story and you have to read it all. At least I do.

It's still a damned good story. I've never agreed with the philosophy behind his 'volunteer for the army and you prove you are deserving of the vote' but it is not necessary that you agree with him to enjoy a story based on some theory he's cooked up. And there is a small something in his argument that, if broadened, does make some sense. It's a seductive argument that one should have to demonstrate some sense of civic responsibility in order to participate in the democratic process. Maybe if we had to perform a term of service - not necessarily military (in fact, I'd say definitely not military) - but something, like giving your time and skills to a public service organisation for a few years. Meals on Wheels. A free health clinic. After school programs for kids. Something that puts you in contact with people who aren't like you, and asks you to serve, to make things better, to think about others rather than yourself. Maybe if we had something like that, we wouldn't run the risk of democracies that go soft in the head and elect leaders like Trump. I don't know. It has become an article of faith that we do not question the prime importance of universal franchise, largely because it is so easily taken away for the wrong reasons - sex, race, not owning land or having enough money or attending the right church.

Anyway, that's what's so good about the best of Heinlein. He entertains immensely, and seemingly effortlessly - but he also invites you to think. I am always amused by the more extreme among his fans, who don't think about what he wrote, and construct arguments about it, and critique it, but who just worship it. He would have hated those fans, I think. My image of Heinlein is of someone who'd rather have everyone disagree with him after thinking, than everyone agree with him without thinking.

The next book I decided to reread was Podkayne of Mars. I like Podkayne as a character - more so right at the beginning of the book than further on, as she becomes more 'sophisticated' and starts compromising her dreams. Heinlein does better at writing three-dimensional, complex and competent women than most other male sf writers of his time, but he was undeniably sexist by any standards. For instance, there's the scene where she re-evaluates her dream if being a spaceship pilot/captain: "I've been doing some hard thinking about piloting - and have concluded that there are more ways of skinning a cat than buttering it with parsnips. Do I really want to be a "famous explorer captain"? Or would I be just as happy to be some member of his crew?"

And there's the stuff about how being a woman means instinctive and overriding maternal instincts. Podkayne's mother is one of the top engineers in the solar system - she holds a "systemwide license as a Master Engineer, Heavy Construction, Surface or Free Fall" - and yet the unexpected decanting of three frozen embryos turns her into a mindless milk machine who can't even tell whether an infant's diaper is clean or dirty. And it's a stint of caring for infants during a solar flare emergency on a spaceliner that makes Podkayne think it might be better to run a crêche on a spaceship than be a pilot. It's these things that 'mystify' both femininity and motherhood in so many of Heinlein's novels that kick me out of my enjoyment of the story itself whenever they crop up.

The edition I have of the book has both endings - Heinlein's unpublished original ending in which Podkayne dies, and the ending demanded by the publisher, in which she is wounded but survives. I'm still not sure which one I prefer.

And then I moved on to Revolt in 2100. Considering the current political situation in the US, this was an inevitable early pick from among Heinlein's oeuvre. It's far too easy to see the US sliding into a theocratic dictatorship these days, what with fascists in the White House and the Republican party doubling down on 'sin and immorality.' Given the way Trump is stacking the courts, it's not hard to imagine the reversal of key SCOTUS and lower court decisions on abortion, sexual assault, gay and trans rights, maybe even, given the overt racism of the times, Loving vs. Virginia.

Heinlein knew his people. He knew there was a massive streak of religious fanaticism in American culture, to say nothing of virulent nationalism, just waiting to be fanned by the 'right' person. But the core novella in the collection that's come to be known as Revolt in 2100, -If This Goes On, isn't just about the dangers of a religious dictator, it's also about how the organs of the establishment - media, the church, the schools - shape public knowledge and manipulate public opinion. There's practically an entire primer on the uses of propaganda in supporting - or destabilising - a government buried in the narrative, to say nothing of some ideas about how to organise an underground revolution.

Not surprisingly, -If This Goes On has a lot to say about religion and spiritual practice. Rereading it, I wonder how much my own ideas were shaped by some of the observations placed in the mouth of the protagonists friend, Zebediah Jones. For instance, "I believe very strongly in freedom of religion—but I think that that freedom is best expressed as freedom to keep quiet. From my point of view, a great deal of openly expressed piety is insufferable conceit" - that's pretty much the central tenet of my belief about spiritual performance. I have some very strong spiritual beliefs - and I almost never talk about them. For what it's worth, Zebediah is one of the few Heinlein avatars (there's one in most of his novels for adults) that I had a crush on as a youngish person.

The story is tightly plotted and fast-paced despite the multiple ruminations on religion, dictatorships, the process of decolonising the mind, and other themes. It's a very quick read in spite of its depth. And there are somr things that just sit perfectly with me. I've always felt a strange sense of rightness in the last sentences of the novella. For all his annoyingly sexist assumptions about women, he got one thing dead right - the deep level of anger that exists in women who have been sexually abused should never be underestimated.

As for the two shorter pieces that are bundled with -If This Goes on in the Revolt in 2100 volume, "Coventry" and "Misfit" - they're both in their own way variations on a theme, that of the young man who needs to find his way to be part of society.

"Coventry" is not quite as successful as some of Heinlein's other stories, in my opinion. Heinlein's characters all do a lot of talking about ideas, but not so much about themselves, and Heinlein doesn't usually talk to the reader about them, he lets the reader see for herself who they are. But in "Coventry" the omniscient third person narrator pointedly backs up what we have already seen in David McKinnon's behaviour - that he is the classic entitled, self-pitying and angry young man who thinks he deserves everything despite giving nothing back. This makes McKinnon at first seem overdone, more like a caricature than a real person - though to be honest, some of the real young men of his ilk that I've met seem like caricatures of themselves. It also makes his sudden transformation into a responsible human being, willing to sacrifice for the common weal, less believable. Why does this whiny prat suddenly decide to risk his life for the society he turned his back on merely a few weeks earlier? Because he's shamed by the courage of a young girl? Because he's been mistreated in Coventry? Because he feels gratitude to the Fader? Because he sees how power without responsibility destroys lives? How has he "cured himself"? It's a little too pat for my tastes. If we accept the suggested etiology of his entitlement and rage, years of emotional abuse primed him to be a selfish and angry man, and the effects of that kind of abuse don't go away that quickly.

I'm also curious about the Covenant itself. Dismissing the concept of justice as undefinable, it takes as the cornerstone of appropriate behaviour, doing no damage. Yet it does not recognise the damage of emotional abuse. McKinnon's crime is responding with physical force to verbal abuse. Given his history, it may well have been a matter of PTSD. He's not ready to be a responsible citizen, but he's been damaged and no one has given him any redress. (Yes, it's possible, perhaps even common, to be an abuse survivor and an entitled prat simultaneously.) I must remember, when rereading the other novels set during the tine of the Covenant, to read them with this story in mind.

"Misfit" is, on the other hand, a story about a marginalised outsider finding his gift, the thing that makes him special and gives him a sense of worth. The young Andy Libby doesn't have a problem with entitlement or with a lack of responsibility to his fellow human beings, he just doesn't realise what he has to offer. The situation is another of Heinlein's patented 'hard work and discipline will make you a man' scenarios - a whole generation of misfits being sent out into dangerous conditions in space to do construction work, an uneasy cross between the Peace Corps and a chain gang. In the context of the society of the Covenant, it's likely an alternative to the 'psychological readjustment or Coventry' choice offered to adults. These are barely more than boys, who don't fit into society, but theoretically aren't so set in their ways that they can't be salvaged without psychological manipulation.

It's also our introduction to one of my favourite characters in Heinlein's Future History series, Andrew Jackson Libby, mathematical wild talent and one of 'traditional' science fiction's first trans characters.

And now I shall have to consider what to reread next. Another of my favourites, I think. Double Star.

Quite a few years ago, a person of my Internet acquaintance, who is known on the Net as The Plaid Adder, started writing one of the best fantasy series I have ever read. It grew to five volumes - a tight trilogy (Taken Child, Another Country and Darkness Bright), a sequel (Redemption) and a prequel (Better to Burn) - and it is in my opinion a great sadness that none of the books were ever published.

I've never really understood why my acquaintance was never able to get these published, unless it was that they were written from a deeply feminist perspective, featured mostly female protagonists, a goodly number of whom were lesbians, and provided, along with compelling stories well-written about interesting and fully realised characters, serious critiques about just about every aspect of Western culture and society, an invitation to really think seriously about things like love, good and evil, materialism and progress, religion, and other core stuff of life, and a meta-narrative about the process of creation. Plus, the core trilogy is somewhat of a genre-bender, encompassing elements of fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, suspense, romance and political satire, and while this kind of blurring of the boundaries has recently come more into vogue, it wasn't as salable back when these books were written.

I was fortunate enough to read these books chapter by chapter as they were written, and then to acquire printed copies of the complete and edited volumes from the author - which I of course reread. Then came my increasing environmental sensitivities, which made my treasured spiro-bound print copies unreadable. But now the author is distributing the novels as ebooks to those who know where to ask for them, and I've had the absolute delight of starting to reread these books again.

The first volume I reread was Taken Child, which introduces the land of Ideire and its low-tech, telepathy and magic-reliant culture, its somewhat eccentric semi-deity Idair and her nemesis the Dark One, the women-only order of magic-using clerics known as shriia who follow Idair and serve the people of Ideire, and their enemies, the female dark users of magic who receive their power from the Dark One.

At the centre of the trilogy is Theamh ni hUlnach, a shriia - albeit a somewhat unconventional one. In Taken Child, we meet as she goes about her duties, including the training of her apprentice Aine. In the course of this, she is sought out by a woman whose child has suffered the supernatural theft of its soul. In the process of trying to save the child, Theamh uncovers a horrifying secret linked to both an old enemy and a long-lost love, and a corrupt plot that threatens the very future of Ideire.

The second volume of the trilogy, Another Country, sees Theamh and Aine following the tracks of Theamh's nemesis, Lythril, into the neighbouring, technology-reliant Cretid Nation, which is in many ways a dystopic distillation of much that is wrong with our own society, as civil war erupts at home. A deft blend of heroic quest, political thriller, biting satire, and poignant love story, Another Country is genre-bending at its best.

The final volume, Darkness Bright, sees Theamh and Aine returned to an Ideire in chaos. They join up with the resistance - both martial and magical - fighting corrupt shriia and their secular allies who have overthrown the legitimate leadership of the country. An unflinching portrayal of the horrors and sacrifices made in war and the tragedy of a country torn apart by lies and greed, Darkness Bright is also a story of courage, commitment to the good, and enduring love.

If anything in what I've written here seems interesting to you, the author can be contacted on tumblr as http://plaidadder.tumblr.com/.

The Children of Kings (pub. 2013), focuses on Gareth Marius-Danvan Elhalyn y Hastur, the oldest son of Dani Hastur and Miralys Elhalyn, grandson of Regis Hastur and Linnea Storn. Last seen in Traitor's Sun as an angry adolescent manipulated by Javanne Hastur and Francisco Ridenow, Gareth has grown to be a more tempered young man, chafing as others of his kin have done before him at the restrictions placed on a Comyn Heir. As heir to Elhalyn, he is destined to inherit a wholly honorary title. Thanks to years of inbreeding and other misfortunes, the Elhalyn line is seen as being tainted by mental instability and a lack of intelligence. Thanks to his youthful mistake in listening to Javanne, many see him as either weak-willed and easy to manipulate, or a potential traitor. He longs to prove himself, to be useful, and to get away from sycophants hoping to entangle him in their marital or political schemes.

The novel begins with the departure of Mikhail and Marguerida on holiday to Armida. After seeing them off, Gareth inadvertently "overhears" snippets of a telepathic conversation between his cousin Domenic, acting Regent in Mikhail's absence, and Danilo Syrtis, advisor now to three generations of Hasturs. Domenic, who possesses a previously unknown form of laran which can sense geological activity, has perceived unusual tremors which may have been caused by the landing of a spacecraft.

Curiosity aroused, Gareth follows Domenic and Danilo as they slip out of the Castle, and observes their meeting with a Dry-Town merchant who appears to be their agent. Suddenly embarrassed over spying on his friends and seeing something he ought not to have seen, he wanders aimlessly around Thendara before, ending up in the city's caravanserai quarter - where he is struck with the idea of running away to Carthon, to be free of his life for a while and to see something of life. When he encounters the trader he saw meeting with Domenic and Danilo, he makes up a cover story and asks to travel with him.

Two days later, with only his grandmother Linnea and a household retainer having any idea of where he is headed, Gareth sets out on his adventure.

In Carthon, staying with the merchant Cyrillon (who has received a message from Danilo Syrtis alerting him to Gareth's identity) he hears rumors suggesting that Terrans have landed in the desert and are trading with the tribes for blasters. Cyrillon is equally concerned by this and agrees to take Gareth to Shainsa. Gareth is guided into the desert region that appears to be the source of these rumours by Cyrillon's daugher Rahelle, who travels with her father disguised as a young boy apprentice.

When he discovers the landing site of a group of offworlders, Gareth attempts to persuade them not to trade blasters to the local tribespeople. They dismiss his concerns, but take him on as a labourer. He learns that they are arms smugglers intending to use Darkover as a base for rendez-vous with customers - mostly planets rebelling against the remains of the Federation, now known as The Nagy Star Alliance. He also discovers that the blasters are no more than cheap trade goods, obsolete and nearly depleted.

Meanwhile, Linnea has discovered that the reclusive Silvana, Keeper of Nevarsin Tower is in fact her long-lost daughter Kierestelli - who believes that Regis and Linnea abandoned her, and wants no personal contact with Linnea. While Linnea mourns losing her daughter a second time, Silvana, in emotional turmoil, returns to the chieri who raised her. There she learns that Regis had in fact returned many times to look for her after the threat to her was over, but that her foster-parent had "closed the Forest against him" for reasons that are not entirely clear. She also learns that the chieri are aware of Terran spaceships near Darkover, and fear that eventually Terran ships will return to wreak horrible destruction on the planet. They give her a special starstone, a heartstone, imbued with memories of the chieri, and tell her to use it to contact them when the need is greatest. Silvana then returns to Nevasin.

What especially pleased me about this section is that Silvana's visit shows us what happened to s'Keral and David Hamilton from The World Wreckers. They are both living in the Yellow Forest, though David is now quite old - and s'Keral is pregnant again. More, their first child Lian is also pregnant.

Back in the Desert, a party of warriors from Shainsa led by Hayat, the son of the Lord of Shainsa arrives at the smugglers' camp seeking blasters, and Gareth acts as the go-between in negotiations, which take several unfortunate turns. When a message reaches the smugglers from their client that they are being tracked by a former Federation warship, the smugglers decide to abandon camp, leaving behind the "trade goods" for the Shainsa warriors. The captain gives Gareth a warning: "Get clear of this base but stay away from any place that has a space port. I know there’s one up toward the big mountain range. When the sharks catch up with the Castor Sector ships, they’ll like as not decide the rebels have set up a base there. The way things are going, they’ll bomb first and ask questions later.”

After the smugglers leave, Hayat takes the blasters, but before heading back to Shainsa, he takes a Dry-Town religious amulet Gareth is wearing - actually a hiding Place for his starstone - saying that in working for the Terrans, he disgraced his faith. Hayat and his men ride off, leaving Gareth reeling from the effects of losing contact with his matrix. Even so, he knows that even if he does not survive to see Thendara again, the Domains must be warned of these dual threats from Shainsa and from space. Trying desperately to reach Linnea, he instead manages to send the warnings to Silvana in a dream - demonstrating that he, like Silvana, carries the Hastur gift of the living matrix. Silvana passes what she has perceived on to Linnea, who realises that the message comes from Gareth.

Rahelle takes Gareth back to Shainsa, where her father waits for them, but once there, Gareth decides to challenge Hayat for his amulet, and also to accuse him of bringing useless weapons to his father, in the hope that he can dissuade the Lord from going to war against the domains. He mortally wounds Hayat, thus proving his challenge, and takes back his starstone - which he then uses to save Hayat's life, as explosions in the skies speak of battle in near space.

Back in Thendara, Jeram, whom we met in The Alton Gift, has received a distress call from a rebel ship, the Grissom - the smugglers' customer. Damaged in a fight with a Star Alliance ship (which they destroyed), they need to set down to make repairs, and present themselves as allies. Domenic, acting Regent as Mikhail is still on holiday, offers them sanctuary as long as they respect Darkovan neutrality and Darkovan law - including the Compact. The Captain of the Grissom reluctantly agrees.

Not long after they land, a warship from The Star Alliance hails them, demanding the Grissom. When Domenic asserts Darkovan neutrality, the starship refuses to recognise it, and gives them an hour to reconsider before the city is destroyed along with the Grissom. As the Comyn Tower circle prepares to attempt to destroy the ship, Linnea contacts Silvana to say good-bye. Silvana, knowing that no human telepath circle can succeed, uses the heartstone to contact the chieri, who are able to disarm the battleship, rendering it incapable of attacking Darkover. The ship retreats from Darkovan space.

As the novel ends, all three children of kings - Domenic, Silvana and Gareth - are together in Thendara, celebrating Midsummer as kin. Gareth resigns his claim to the Elhalyn Domain and the kingship, to be a liason between Domains and DryTowns - and to be free to marry Rahelle.

The Alton Gift (pub. 2007), written by Deborah J. Ross from notes by Marion Zimmer Bradley, is the first book to deal with Darkover in the post-Terran era - and things are not good.

Darkover has clearly suffered in the three years since the departure of the Terrans. Only a generation has passed since the assault of the world wreckers, and the planet's ecology is still too fragile to sustain even the slightest of injuries. Forest fires have ravaged the hill areas, but without access to the fire-fighting chemicals of the Terrans, and with the numbers of Tower-trained leroni too depleted to fight fires in the old-fashioned way, with laran, whole villages have been destroyed, their inhabitants reduced to wandering the roads in search of work. The economy is faltering. And, harkening back to the very first Darkovan novel, a new strain of trailman's fever has appeared - and this time, the trailmen are dying of it too.

Not surprisingly, social unrest has reached levels previously unknown on Darkover. With the Comyn no longer able to uphold its part in the ancient feudal bargain, the social fabric of Darkovan culture is fraying. Added to this is the legacy of the self-imposed isolation that Regis Hastur adopted for himself and his kin after the wave of assassination attempts engineered by the world wreckers, which distanced the Comyn leaders from the people, and the effects of the Terran attempts to foment revolt through political satires spread by their agents among the Travellers.

Meanwhile, Lew Alton is having a crisis of conscience over his use of the Alton Gift to muddle the memories of the Terrans who survived the battle on the Old North Road. On the advice of Danilo Syrtis, he retires to the home of the cristoforo monks at Nevarsin where he hopes to find some peace of mind. Instead, he is directly confronted with his actions when the Keeper of Neskaya asks for his help in dealing with a Terran experiencing the awakening of latent laran as a result of being subjected to forced rapport. The Terran, Jeremiah Reed - now calling himself Joram - had remained on Darkover when the others were evacuated, and is, of course, one of those who attacked the funeral cortege. Lew restores his memories, helps him learn to control his laran, in the process both of them find a degree of healing and redemption - for Joram, a former biotechnician tasked with creating bioweapons, has his own demons to settle.

As the scene shifts from the Hellers to Thendara, Joram - and the knowledge that Lew and Marguerida have misused their power - falls into the hands of Mikhail Lanart-Hastur's enemy, Francisco Ridenow. With the Comyn Council in session, Francisco brings Joram to a council meeting, intending to use his story as a reason to challenge Mikhail's leadership. When Joram, despite being drugged, refuses to accuse Marguerida and Lew, Francisco declares blood feud against Mikhail. In the ensuing duel, Francisco is killed but not before he manages to wound Mikhail with a poisoned blade.

With Mikhail in a laran-induced coma to prolong his life in the hope that he will be able to fight off the effects of poison, Domenic convinces the Council to accept him as Acting Warden of Hastur and Regent in his father's place. Almost immediately he is faced with his first crisis - the trailmen's fever outbreak is spreading.

Under Domenic's leadership, The effort to save the people of Darkover from the plague brings together the diverse elements of society - Renunciate healers, Tower-trained leroni, matrix technicians from outside of the Towers, others of the Comyn, to nurse the already infected. Meanwhile, Joram, Marguerida, and some of those Darkovans who had once worked for the Terrans work to find a vaccine or treatment, drawing on Joram's knowledge and the records of the last outbreak of the fever.

In the end, it takes both Terran bioscience and Darkovan to create a vaccine from the blood of a plague survivor, but the process is difficult for the leroni involved, and it seems impossible to make enough in time to prevent the plague from killing off most of the population. Marguerida makes a desperate attempt, drawing on all the potential of her shadow matrix, to create enough vaccine to begin a treatment program - but in so doing, her consciousness is trapped in the Overworld, and none of the leroni are able to find her and bring her back to her body.

Domenic then makes his own desperate act, and joins the hands of his mother and father, both unreachable by any normal laran contact. While this allows Marguerida and Mikhail to find each other in the Overworld, it is Domenic who brings them back to the physical plane after they have healed each other with the power of Varzil's ring.

As the novel ends, the epidemic is under control, and the changes brought about by the need to find a cure are starting to ripple through the fabric of Darkovan society.

Darkover is changing, and so is the cast of characters that readers had grown used to over so many novels. Regis Hastur, who was introduced in the first Darkover novel Bradley wrote, died in The Traitor's Sun. The Alton Gift sees the passing of both Javanne Hastur and her husband Gabriel. Lew Alton suffers a heart attack, reminding readers that his days too are numbered. Marilla Lindir-Aillard succumbed to the plague. Yet as the old guard passes, Dominic Alton-Hastur is coming into his own as the heir to the Regency. And a new political landscape has been formed, with formerly unacknowledged nedestro heirs to the dwindling Domains - including Domenic's lover Illona Ardais (formerly Rider) - taking their places beside the remaining members of the older Comyn lines, and a Keeper's Council formed to advise the Comyn. Joram is teaching Terran science to a selected group of Darkovan students, with the goal of preparing for the eventual return of the Federation. The stage is set for the next stage of the Darkovan story.

What I call the Marja and Mikhail trilogy - Exile's Song (pub. 1996), The Shadow Matrix (pub. 1997) and Traitor's Sun (pub. 1998) - was originally credited to Marion Zimmer Bradley when first published, although Adrienne Martine-Barnes was mentioned as having worked on the books with Bradley. In later editions, however, and on the MZB Literary Trust website, Martine-Barnes is now listed as the author of all three books, suggesting that Bradley's contribution was limited, due no doubt to her ill health.

The first two novels - Exile's Song and The Shadow Matrix - are essentially parts one and two of the same story. They deal with the return of Margaret Alton - the daughter of Lew Alton and part-chieri Thyra Darriel - to Darkover, and her relationship with Mikhail Lanart-Hastur, son of Gabriel Lanart-Alton and Javanne Hastur, and Regis Hastur's adopted heir.

In Exile's Song, Margaret Alton (also known as Marja or Marguerida), comes home to Darkover. Estranged from her father since she left her home on the planet Thetis to attend University, Margaret is a musicologist. Together with her mentor, Ivor Davidson, she has come to survey Darkover's musical traditions. Sadly, just days after they arrive, Ivor dies suddenly of a heart attack, and Margaret is left to continue his research alone - if she can, on a planet as relentlessly patriarchal as Darkover.

From the moment she lands, Margaret finds parts of her long-suppressed childhood surfacing, often with unexpected consequences. She is also thrown headlong into the complex politics of Darkover, since she is the heiress to the powerful Alton Domain, which has been under the Wardenship of Gabriel Lanart-Alton since her father Lew's departure from Darkover - and Gabriel is loathe to relinquish his position and power.

Travelling in the Hellers with a Renunciate guide, Margaret is struck down with a severe case of threshold fever as her long-dormant laran awakens. Rafaella takes her to the nearby Ardais estate. While struggling with her new abilities, Margaret realises that as a child she was overshadowed by the long-dead Keeper Ashara; she confronts Ashara in a psychic battle in the Overworld, and destroys Ashara's tower there, breaking the ancient leronis' power over her - but in doing so, the patterns within the great matrix at the heart of Ashara's Tower are branded into the flesh of her hand. While recovering from her illness, Margaret meets - and is deeply attracted to - Mikhail, who currently serves as young Dyan Ardais' paxman.

When Margaret's kinsman Gabriel arrives and demands that she return to Armida, she is at first inclined to ignore him and leave Darkover, when her father urges her telepathically to go to Armida.

While fending off pressure from Gabriel and his wife Javanne to accept a proposal from one of their older sons, Margaret discovers just how powerful and dangerous her laran is - woken by one of Gabriel's grandchildren, she accidentally uses the Alton Voice and sends the child's spirit into the Overworld. She also discovers that she has the Alderan gift of seeing the future, when she sees danger ahead for another of the children - which so distresses the child's mother that she insists on leaving Armida with her husband and family in the face of a growing storm. The child is gravely wounded in a carriage accident.

In the midst of this turmoil, Lew arrives at Armida, having given up his Senate seat and returned to Darkover with his dying wife, Diotima Ridenow, and brings Margaret back with him to Thendara.

The novel ends with Regis Hastur announcing that he is reforming the Comyn Council, and appointing Mikhail Regent of Elhalyn, in the absence of any suitable heirs.

The Shadow Matrix begins shortly after the conclusion of Exile's Song. Marguerida - as Margaret Alton is now called - is at Arilinn, but her training is not going well. Unable to tolerate the high-level matrices for long periods of time, she is living in a guest-house. An adult of a decidedly independent and questioning nature, she is surrounded by other trainees who mistrust and fear her, and teachers who have no idea of how to deal with her. Thanks to Lew, she is able to go instead to Neskaya, where Istvana, the leronis who helped her during her threshold sickness, is Keeper.

Meanwhile, Mikhail has been sent to test the laran potential of the last of the Elhalyn line; he discovers their mother deranged and in the thrall of an unethical leronis, her children neglected and emotionally damaged. Temporarily enthralled himself, he finally confronts the leronis, freeing the children, although their mother dies. He returns to Thendara with the children, but must report to Regis that none of the boys are capable of assuming the Elhalyn kingship - the two oldest are damaged too severely from their experiences, and Emun, the youngest, is frail and without laran. The girls, however, have better chances for a future, as Valenta has considerable laran, and Miralys has already attracted the attentions of Dani Hastur, Regis' son.

Regis has been matchmaking for political gain - he has invited Lord Damon Aldaran and his daughter Gisela to Thendara, hoping that Mikhail can be persuaded to marry her, an alliance that would bring Aldaran back into the Comyn Domains. Mikhail suggests to Regis that one of his older brothers would be a better match.

Both Mikhail and Marguerida - who have been in frequent telepathic content throughout these events - have been hearing a strange voice calling to them, speaking of Hali and Midwinter, underlying the eerie portent of the time they both saw the Tower of Hali, undamaged, on their journey together from Armida to Thendara.

Marguerida comes to Thendara for Midwinter, and on the night of the Ball in Comyn Castle, the voice commands them to go to Hali immediately, while some unknown force holds the others motionless and unable to prevent their departure. Racing to Hali, they find the Tower seemingly undamaged again, and entering it, are drawn into the past, to the time of Varzil - and Ashara.

Varzil is dying, and he dares not allow his matrix - which is both powerful and enhanced - to fall into Ashara's hands. He has called Marguerida and Mikhail into the past because they are in some way similar to the people who would have been his allies and successors, had they lived. Instead, it is Mikhail who receives Varzil's matrix, in a ceremony in which he and Marguerida are married di catenas.

After the wedding, Varzil vanishes, after giving Mikhail a final message to they must return to the rhu fead, the repository of powerful artefacts at Hali, in forty days. After foiling the plan of a local lord to start a nuclear war with laran-refined uranium, they flee to Hali, plunging into the strange substance that fills the lake there in order to escape pursuit. When they emerge, they find Ashara there, but they enter the rhu fead and return to their own time, to learn that only hours have passed.

With their marriage an established fact - and with Marguerida a month into a pregnancy that did not exist the day before - most of the Comyn eventually accept their account of what happened. When Dani Hastur, Regis' son, declares his love for Miralys and his opposition to being his father's heir, Regis declares him the heir to Elhalyn, and appoints Mikhail his heir. Marguerida renounces her claim to the Alton Domain in favour of her kinsman Gabriel, and it is decided that Istvana of Neskaya will come to Thendara to reform a Keeper's circle there, and to train Marguerida and Mikhail. And using her new understanding of her powers, Marguerida is able to partially cure her step-mother Diotima, giving her parents a few more years together.

And thus the new generation - Mikhail and Marguerida, Dani and Miralys, and other young Comyn - is set in place to begin the next phase of Darkover's history.

These two books are significant in the story of Darkover because they signal the coming end (at least for now - who knows what might happen if the series continues to grow in other hands) of the period of contact between the Terrans and the people of Darkover. Looked at in order by internal chronology, the relationship has seen many changes between the events of Rediscovery and those of Exile's Song and The Shadow Matrix. On the Terran side, there was a tension for many years between a policy of allowing planets like Darkover to choose the nature and extent of their ties to the Terran Empire, and a desire to exploit whatever the planet might have to offer, for profit, or for the use of the Empire. On the Darkovan side, the predominant response to the presence of the Terrans - held to firmly by successive generations of Hasturs - has been a desire to minimise contact and preserve Darkovan culture, while at the same time selectively and cautiously incorporating certain technologies and perspectives that will benefit the people of Darkover - though there has always been a faction that sought to fully embrace Terran technology and culture.

As Exile's Song begins, the Terran Empire is in difficulty. Most of the easily habitable planets within the sphere of the Empire's galactic reach have been discovered and colonised. Population pressure continues to push for new colonies, but unclaimed real estate is becoming hard to find and expensive to develop. The Expansionist Party is pushing for austerity on the one hand, and opening up to new settlements and development the various protected worlds - such as Darkover. As Lew Alton explains in Exile's Song:

"There are a number of parties in the Federation at present, but the largest are the Expansionist Party and the Liberals. For the past several decades, the Liberals, who believe that planets should choose the sort of government they wish, have been the majority in both houses. Now this has changed. There are just barely enough votes in the Senate to prevent the Expansionists from changing policy so that the needs of the Federation take precedence over the wishes of any individual planet. If the Expansionists have their way, no world will be safe from the greed of the Terrans."

By the time of the events of The Shadow Matrix, the Terran Federation is clearly having problems. Marguerida learns from Ida Davidson, who has come to Darkover to retrieve her husband's body, that grant and positions are being cut at the University, and that travel in the Federation, especially to Protected worlds such as Darkover, has become difficult to arrange and uncomfortable to experience. Even more troubling, when she goes to the spaceport to meet Ida, she finds security has been tightened in response to an uprising on another Protected planet. When she discusses these things with Lew, he responds:

"The Federation is starting to crack, Marguerida. It is too large to govern, and those who imagine they can run it are deluded. What is needed is not a return to the greedy policies of the past, but instead a whole new form of government, instead of the muddle we have now, a patchwork of agreements that no longer serve. Only the vision is lacking. The Terranan have expanded their horizons without enlarging their imaginations."

Later, Rafe Scott - Marguerida's uncle, and a Captain in the Terran spaceforce, talks about the changes he is seeing in attitudes toward the Protected worlds:

"The Federation does not like having protected planets that it cannot order about, and there are rumors that all the Protectorates will be changed soon. It is a ploy to force places like Darkover to give up their status and become full members, and they can do it, too. ... Quite simple, really. Stop trade, ruin the economy for a generation, and then come in and take over."

Meanwhile, running through the books is a hint that there is growing discontent among the people of Darkover, most notably in the growing presence of the Travellers - itinerant entertainers whose offerings increasingly include satire.

They came to Thendara during the Midsummer and Midwinter Festivals, and the rest of the time they drove around the countryside, offering their entertainments in the smaller cities, and at places like Armida. His father did not approve of them, saying quite truthfully, that they were not respectable folk. But Mikhail found their little plays, which satirized lord and farmer with equal generosity, very amusing. He had wondered about them a few times, since they were a relatively recent development.

These glimpses into the larger state of things, embedded as they are in what is otherwise a highly personal and largely character-driven narrative, set up the dramatic changes to come in the next novel, TheTraitor's Sun.

City of Sorcery (pub. 1984), takes place seven years after the events in Thendara House, and there have been changes. Peter Haldane is now Legate, and Renunciates and women of the Terran Service working together have created The Bridge Society, a means for Terran and Darkovan to share knowledge and learn to work and live together. Jaelle and Magda are sworn freemates, living mostly at Armida, each having born a daughter by men of the Forbidden Tower - Dorilys nHa Jaelle, now five, and Shaya n'ha Margali, aged two. In addition, Magda and Camilla are lovers, though not sworn.

During a visit to Thendara, Magda is called to the Terran Zone by a request from Cholayna Ares - a survey plane has been lost in the area between the Hellers and The Wall Around the World, but somehow, the pilot, Lexie Anders, has appeared, her memory gone, regressed to childhood, at the gates of Terran HQ. Magda is able to use her laran to restore Lexie's memories - including a familiar image of robed women and crows calling - and the pilot reports having seen a previously unknown city hidden in the mountain vastness.

Driven by ambition to make a name for herself, Lexie hires Renunciate and mountain guide/trail organiser Rafaella - Jaelle's former partner - to take her into the Hellers in search of this mysterious city. Rafaella - who has been nursing resentment against Magda for taking Jaelle away from their partnership and the Guild - leaves a message for Jaelle, begging her to follow with extra supplies.

Jaelle shares this message with Magda and Camilla, both of whom have some thoughts on the hidden city. Like all Renunciates, they know that there is a secret society of Renunciates with laran called the Sisterhood; Magda has accidentally intruded on their meetings, and associates them with the imagery in Lexie's memories, while Camilla has heard tales of a hidden city of wise women who can grant the successful supplicant the answer to one question.

Driven by their various loyalties, responsibilities, and personal desires, five women - Jaelle, Magda, Camilla, Cholayna and Vanessa ryn Erin, a Terran Personnel Officer who is a member of the Bridge Society and an experienced mountaineer - set out after Lexie and Rafaella. The journey is fraught with difficulty and danger - bad weather, treacherous mountain trails, altitude sickness and savage cold, bandits and wild animals, and eventually a cult of women who oppose the Sisterhood and seek to use the travellers to gain power.

In some ways, City of Sorcery is a Pilgrim's Progress for the feminist, a journey toward a legendary place of wisdom and solace that can only be found by facing and overcoming trials and temptations. It is certainly no accident that almost all the characters in the novel are women, with even glimpses of men limited to street and group scenes.

In the end, not all the women who set out to find the hidden city survive; of those who do, some are invited onward to enter the city, others decline to go further, but all have had the depths of their own courage, self-knowledge, and sense of sisterhood tested, and found, not necessarily the path they most desire, but the path they freely and knowingly choose.

Sharra's Exile (pub. 1981) is an extensive revision of Bradley's second Darkover novel, Sword of Aldones (pub. 1962), and the immediate sequel to The Heritage of Hastur. In Sharra's Exile, the consequences of the Sharra rising on all the participants are examined, and a final resolution is finally found to the threat of another Sharra rising.

Lew and Kennard have been offworld for five years. Kennard is aging and in poor health. Lew has learned that using Sharra has distorted his very genetic structure -Terran regeneration techniques can not restore his hand, and when he meets and falls in love with Diotima Ridenow, a Darkovan Comynara travelling offworld, their child is born premature and fatally deformed, which strains the relationship past the breaking point.

Then comes news from Darkover - the Comyn Council is preparing to void Kennard's lordship of Alton and, ignoring both Lew as his declared heir and his younger son Marius, choose a new lord of Alton. But before Kennard can return to defend his claim, he suffers a fatal stroke - and his dying act is to use the Alton gift of forced rapport to compel Lew to go back to Darkover and secure Marius' rights.

With both Lew and Sharra on Darkovan soil again, Sharra wakes, and the former members of the Sharra circle are drawn to it. Kadarin steals the Sharra matrix from the Alton residence in Thendara; Marius is killed in the attack. Meanwhile, rumours about a child of Alton blood are circulating; the child - a girl named Marja - is found, and proves to be Lew's child by Thyra, conceived while he was drugged and under Kadarin's control.

Meanwhile, the question of Terran-Darkovan relations is still a key issue, with several factions - including the Ridenow Domain - pushing for closer ties and others urging less involvement. The isolationists have gained influence over the young and mentally unstable Prince, Derik Elhalyn, who has, behind the Council's back, made a treaty with the Aldarans, to be sealed with a marriage between Beltran of Aldaran, and Callina Aillard, underKeeper of the Comyn Tower in Thendara.

Lew, after consulting the two Keepers - Callina Aillard and the unbelievably ancient Ashara - learns that the only force that can stand against Sharra is the ancient Hastur relic, the Sword of Aldones. But the Sword is guarded in an ingenious fashion. It lies within the Comyn Chapel, the rhu faed, which is so shielded that only one of Comyn blood can enter - but the Sword itself is warded such that no one with the slightest hint of Comyn blood or laran power can touch it. Callina and Lew use a giant matrix screen to "call" to them a person who will be best suited to help them reach the Sword. This person is Kathie Marshall, a Terran nurse from the planet Vainwal, who was present when Diotima and Lew's child was born, and who is also a perfect double for Linnell Lindir-Aillard, Camilla's half-sister, Lew's foster sister, and the betrothed of Derik Elhalyn.

In an attempt to bring Lew back under Sharra's control, Kadarin and Thyra attend the Midsummer Festival in disguise, but Regis, who has discovered that he has an instinctive gift that can counter Sharra's influence, manages to keep Lew from succumbing. Sharra strikes out, killing Linnell; Prince Derik, weakened by a mysteriously spiked drink, dies in the psychic backlash.

Callina, Lew and Kathie succeed in retrieving the Sword of Aldones from the rhu faed, but Lew is seriously wounded when Kadarin and Thyra try - and fail - to take the Sword from them. A Terran helicopter, authorised by Regis, arrives in time to transport Lew, Callina, Kathie, and - under arrest - Kadarin and Thyra - to Terran Medical, where Regis heals Lew with the power of the Sword.

Using the powers of Sharra, Kadarin teleports himself, Thyra and Lew to the forecourt of Comyn Castle. Lew is almost drawn into Sharra, but Callina and Regis arrive, and challenge Sharra's power, weakening its hold over Lew. A psychic battle begins, Aldones against Sharra, with Lew torn between them, unable to lend his power to either side. Suddenly Dyan Ardais arrives, and, driven by his ambition, arrogance, and jealousy of Lew, joins Sharra and cuts the ties that draw Lew to its fires. The final battle is joined, with Kadarin, Thrya and Dyan sealed to Sharra, and Regis, with the support of Callina and Lew, wielding the Sword of Aldones. In the end, Sharra is broken, Kadarin and Thyra drawn bodily into the vortex of its passing, and both Callina and Dyan lie dead or dying on the cobblestones. Only Lew and Regis remain alive, and Regis' hair has turned white.

As the novel ends, the loss of so many of the Comyn and the collapse of the treaty with Aldaran forces Darkover into a closer relationship with the Terran Empire. Lew, reconciled with Diotima, goes back into space with his wife and daughter, to serve as Darkover's first representative in the Empire Senate. And Regis, once more, takes up the Hastur mantle as Lew goes out among the stars.

This is in many ways a novel of character and relationship rather than plot. All of the large cast of characters - including many who do not appear in the summary above, such as Lerrys and Geremy Ridenow, Merryl Aillard, Danilo Syrtis-Ardais, Dan Lawton, Jeff Kerwin (aka Damon Lanart-Aillard), Gabriel Lanart-Hastur and his wife Javanne, Danvan Hastur, Rafe Scott - are interrelated by blood, fosterage, love, hate, loyalty and power. And it is through these relationships that we see the changes occurring in Lew and Regis, and in the structure of Darkovan society.

Sharra's Exile has little new to tell us about Darkovan society, but much to say about how flesh and blood people interact within that society.