Book Review - Darkover Landfall

Though written a decade after Marion Zimmer Bradley’s first Darkover novel, Darkover Landfall is – as the title suggests – the earliest in the chronology. This book lays out the basis for what is to come, and like Anne McCaffrey’s Pern series, it too mixes sci-fi with fantasy as a crashed space ship spawns a culture which does not remember them.

Names crop up that you’ll see again later in Darkover, such as MacAran, and the different factions within the crew somewhat obviously sow the seeds for later Darkovan traits, most notably the strong Celtic – or even more specifically, Scottish – influence. There are a few predictable bits of romance, but also unexpected (as long as you resist reading the blurb on the back or above this review! ;)) twists, which was the main source of my enjoyment from this book.

There isn’t much in the way of feminism, a lack which is always a shame in a MZB book, but the plot doesn’t suffer as much as some other books given that light-weight approach. Though MZB says not to read the book in order, at least in the case of this volume, I would recommend new readers pick it up first - its very short, but still a fine piece of hybrid sci-fi/fantasy.