Background
Bradley was born in Albany, New York, United States on June 3, 1930.
(The Ages of Chaos includes Stormqueen! and Hawkmistress!,...)
The Ages of Chaos includes Stormqueen! and Hawkmistress!, two acclaimed novels by Marion Zimmer Bradley and part of the expansive, genre-bending Darkover series. Set during the lawless Ages of Chaos, when the ruling families of the Seven Domains of Darkover ruthlessly inbred their psychic offspring to gain powerful and fearsome talents, two young women are born with "wild" psychic gifts. These storiesStormqueen! and Hawkmistress!, one tragic and one triumphantcombine to give the reader a vivid and poignant picture of a devastating time period in the history of this fantastic world. Stormqueen! During the lawless Ages of Chaos, when the ruling families of Darkover ruthlessly inbred their laran-gifted offspring to gain powerful talents, a baby was born to the lord of Aldaran. This child, born on a dark and thunder-filled night, was possessed of a terrifying and uncontrolled talent: Dorilys, heiress to her fathers domain, could unwittingly call forth lightning, even while still a fretful child. Fearful for his daughters life and the safety of his domain, Lord Aldaran sent to a tower for help. But even the powers of a trained monitor and a Hastur lord might not be enough to save this painfully afflicted and deadly young woman. Hawkmistress! Romilly was an independent tomboy from a noble family, contrary to the social demands of Darkovan women. That was bad enough, but when Romillys father arranged her marriage to a nobleman she found repulsive, she rebelled. Disguising herself as a boy, she fled into the deep forests. Living off the land was not nearly as difficult for Romilly as for most people, for she possessed a rare and highly-treasured gifttelepathic communication with hawk and horse. But Romilly soon discovered her newfound freedom was far from complete. Pulled into the maelstrom of a civil war, could Romilly find her true role in life without sacrificing her ideals? From the Paperback edition.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00J8V3SRO/?tag=2022091-20
(The Heritage of Hastur: Nominated for a Hugo Award, and d...)
The Heritage of Hastur: Nominated for a Hugo Award, and described as Bradleys best Darkover novel by Lous, THE HERITAGE OF HASTUR is a brilliant epic of the pivotal events in the love-hate relationship between the Terran worlds and the semi-alien off-spring of the forgotten colonists who peopled Darkover. This is the complex and compelling tale of the early life of Regis Hastur, Darkovers greatest monarch. But HERITAGE also spins the terrifying and heartbreaking story of those who sought to control the deadly Sharra Matrix and tells how Lew Alton met and lost his greatest love, Marjorie Scott. This is the unforgettable showdown between these Darkovan lords who would bargain away their world for the glories of Terran science and those who would preserve the special matrix powers that are at once the prize and burden of Darkover. Sharras Exile: The most dangerous magical implement on all of Darkover was the infamous, legendary Sharra Matrix. Embodying the image of a chained woman wreathed in flames, it was the last remaining weapon of the Ages of Chaosan era of uncontrolled laran warfare which had almost destroyed all life on Darkover. The Sharra Matrix had been exiled offworld to one of the far-flung planets of the Terran Empire, in the protective custody of one who had suffered gravely from its use: Comyn Lord Lew Alton. But when Lew was called back to Darkover to contend for his rights, he had no choice but to bring this dangerous matrix back with him, and once the Sharra Matrix was black, her flaming image spread far and wide, setting motion events which would change the lands, the seven Domains, and the entire future forever.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0031AI0TO/?tag=2022091-20
(Blending archaeological fact and legend, the myths of the...)
Blending archaeological fact and legend, the myths of the gods and the feats of heroes, Marion Zimmer Bradley breathes new life into the classic tale of the Trojan War-reinventing larger-than-life figures as living people engaged in a desperate struggle that dooms both the victors and the vanquished, their fate seen through the eyes of Kassandra-priestess, princess, and passionate woman with the spirit of a warrior.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001TLZEDM/?tag=2022091-20
(Return to the genre-bending world of Darkover, to a trilo...)
Return to the genre-bending world of Darkover, to a trilogy that follows the thrilling story of two Free Amazon women In the three novels which comprise THE SAGA OF THE RENUNCIATES, Marion Zimmer Bradley tells the masterful tale of two valiant women who face and try to break the invisible chains of custom, convention, habit and expectation with which society binds women, and women bind themselves. Magdalen Lorne is a Terran woman born and reared on Darkover. She thinks herself the perfect Terran undercover Intelligence agent, and disguises herself as a Free Amazon to enable her to fulfill a mission to free a Terran man from kidnappers. But when she herself is captured by a band of real Renunciates, she discovers they have a harsh punishment for any pretenders: she must swear the Oath of the Free Amazons, relinquish her former life, and become a Renunciate in reality. Jaelle has been raised in the harsh patriarchal environment of the Dry Towns. Her mother Mellora is a Comyn woman who has been kidnapped in order to breed laran-gifted offspring for her barbarian "husband." But when a desperate, pregnant Mellora dies in childbirth following a daring escape aided by a band of Renunciates, the still young Jaelle is adopted into the Guild, and becomes the Free Amazon Jaelle n'ha Mellora, a woman who has never known kindness from a man. Together Magda, now known as Margali n'ha Tsabet, and her Guild-sister Jaelle will follow a twisting course neither could have predicted. A course which will lead them to question every aspect of themselves and of their two so-different societies. And one which will eventually set them on a life-threatening journey not only to the frozen ends of the physical world, but to the perilous limits of the spiritual overworld as well.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00J8V5ZP2/?tag=2022091-20
Bradley was born in Albany, New York, United States on June 3, 1930.
Marion knew from an early age that she wanted to be a writer. Fascinated by the science-fiction writing of the era, she started her own amateur science-fiction magazine before she was even out of high school. However, Bradley was too practical to think that a young woman could make writing her life's work; after graduating from high school she enrolled at New York State College with the intention of becoming a teacher. It was not until 1964 that the industrious Bradley completed her education, graduating from Abilene, Texas's Hardin-Simmons University with a triple bachelor's degree in English, Spanish, and psychology. She then attended graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley for another three years.
In 1949 Bradley sold her first story to a sci-fi publication. Three years later she began what she considers her "professional" writing career, with the sale of yet another story to the magazine Vortex Science Fiction. Throughout the remainder of the 1950s she managed to juggle the demands of motherhood - at the time moms were expected to stay at home - with her desire to write. Bradley would not publish her first full-length book until 1961, when the sci-fi novel The Door through Space was released. This novel seemed to open a floodgate for Bradley; in 1962 alone her byline would appear on five different volumes: three novels under her own name and two other works under various pseudonyms. While readers might marvel at how Bradley could be so prolific, at least one of the novels published in 1962 - The Planet Savers - had actually made its first appearance serialized in the pages of Amazing Science Fiction Stories three years earlier. Now in book form, The Planet Savers would become the first of Bradley's "Darkover" novels.
The 20 novels that comprise the bulk of the "Darkover" series are among Bradley's most popular works of fiction. The series is named after a lost colony wherein social habits and technology develop independently of the earthlings who established it because it was overlooked for many generations. In addition to developing psychic abilities, Darkoverians have divided along gender lines: a patriarchal society exists apart from a woman-centered society of "Free Amazons. " In Bradley's futuristic world, nothing is gained without sacrifice. Clearly, to survive within such a world Bradley's protagonists - particularly the female characters her readers most closely identify with - must be strong, intelligent, and determined. Among the most popular Darkover novels are 1965's Star of Danger, 1976's The Shattered Chain, and Heirs of Hammerfell, a more recent work published in 1989. The Shattered Chain is agreed upon by most critics as among the best of the series. It is the story of a quest, a traditional story form in which the main character must surmount a series of obstacles on her way to achieving her goals. In Bradley's version, Lady Rohana, a member of the privileged ruling class, attempts to free a friend from a tribe of men who chain women up to demonstrate their power over them. To accomplish her task, Rohana gains the help of the Free Amazons, but only at the cost of reassessing her own life and values.
The Darkover novels occupied much of Bradley's time during the 1960s and 1970s, although she also managed to find the time to publish a collection of short fiction, The Dark Intruder and Other Stories, as well as several volumes of literary criticism.
The demands of parenthood on her limited time may have multiplied, but they did little to staunch Bradley's enthusiasm for writing - or her published output. Perhaps these demands are at the root of her efforts to find, through the dilemmas of her fictional female protagonists, that ideal balance between a woman's duty to self and her obligations to others. She published over 30 books between 1965 and 1980, and in 1984 undertook a long-term project: editing a series of short-story collections for New York-based DAW publishers under the Sword and Sorceress title.
Hailed by several critics as Bradley's most notable novel, The Mists of Avalon was published in 1983 and remained on the New York Times best-seller list for 16 weeks. Taking place in Arthurian Britain, called Britannia, the novel features such well-known female characters as Morgan Le Fay and the Lady of the Lake, given heightened strength of will under Bradley's pen as they perform their parts in the tragic legend of King Arthur. Although published afterward, the novels The Forest House and Lady of Avalon serve as precursors to The Mists of Avalon, detailing the chain of events leading up to the events surrounding Bradley's version of the King Arthur legend. The Forest House tells of the relationship between the priestess Eilan and Gaius Marcellius, an officer in the Roman occupation army with whom she conceives a son, Gawan. Lady of Avalon finds Britannia now firmly ruled by the Romans, with Christian priests working to gain strides with the population against the ancient Druidic religions. In The Mists of Avalon - a lengthy volume of over 850 pages - the Arthurian legends are retold from the perspective of the enchantress Morgaine, a follower of the ways of wicca and a priestess of the ancient Goddess religion. Despite her powers, Morgaine is unable to defend the ancient goddesses against the inexorable crush of Christianity, and her failure embitters her. She must watch as womankind reverts from a respected sex to a berated one, condemned as the source of original sin by the patriarchal Christian teachings.
Women of another quasi-mythic period of history fall under Bradley's scrutiny in The Firebrand, which she published in 1987. Taking the written history surrounding the Trojan War as her starting point, Bradley weaves a tale of heroism as Kassandra, daughter of the King of Troy and an Amazon, attempts to save her kingdom from patriarchal Dorian invaders. In this novel, as in much of her work, Bradley constructs an alternative to the male-dominated "reality" passed down through traditional written histories. She admitted in an interview with Lisa See of Publishers Weekly that the transition from the bronze to the iron age did indeed cause the destruction of such Cretan cities as Mycenae, the home of the legendary ruler Agamemnon. But Bradley believes that in viewing this period of history objectively - "as though no one had ever written about [it] before" - another history is revealed. This interest in viewing the past through a different perspective - a perspective that might ultimately reveal hidden truths - is at the heart of Bradley's intent as a writer.
In response to her many fans, Bradley began the Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine in 1988. She remained active as an editor, working on her magazine as well as editing the annual Sword and Sorcery anthology for DAW. Still, imaginative fictions such as 1995's Ghostlight and its sequel, Witchlight, continued to issue from Bradley's pen on occasion, to the pleasure of her many fans. Interestingly, from her home in Berkeley, California, Bradley also managed to extend the Darkover saga beyond her own novels by inviting others to create their own vision of her mythic world. Under her editorship, anthologies such as Domains of Darkover and Towers of Darkover allowed other writers to navigate Bradley's fantastic worlds, taking new paths, creating characters with fresh viewpoints, and entertaining readers with alternative renditions of Bradley's sci-fi saga.
(Blending archaeological fact and legend, the myths of the...)
(Return to the genre-bending world of Darkover, to a trilo...)
(The Heritage of Hastur: Nominated for a Hugo Award, and d...)
(The Forest House?prequel to The Mists of Avalon, Marion Z...)
(The Ages of Chaos includes Stormqueen! and Hawkmistress!,...)
(These two classic Darkover novels tell the epic tale of f...)
Quotations:
“Remain true to yourself, child. If you know your own heart, you will always have one friend who does not lie. ”
“I know all about endings. It is beginnings that elude me. ”
“The road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination. ”
“There is no such thing as a true tale. Truth has many faces and the truth is like to the old road to Avalon; it depends on your own will, and your own thoughts, whither the road will take you. ”
“Love is the only prayer I know. ”
Quotes from others about the person
"For every gain, there is a risk; choice involves a testing of will and courage. .. . on Darkover any attempt at change of progress carries with it the need for pain-filled choice. " - Susan M. Shwartz, 'The Feminine Eye: Science Fiction and the Women Who Write It'
Bradley was married to Robert Alden Bradley in 1949 and gave a birth to a son, David Robert Bradley. She divorced her first husband in 1964, and married for a second time shortly thereafter. She and her second husband, Walter Henry Breen, would raise three children (Bradley's son from her first marriage, plus a son, Mark Greyland, and daughter, Moira Greyland, of their own) before divorcing in 1990.