Traitors Sun (Paperback)

This book is just so sophisticated in its character development! I love the way MZB looks at interpersonal relationships. What makes a person turn bitter, negative and destructive -- and how can she escape from that? What makes another person become dominant and powerful? How can a woman who is under the domination of a male chauvinist society nevertheless manage to have a meaningful life? How do children evolve in their thinking as they become teenagers and separate from their parents? What happens when a large number of strong personalities are confined together in a huge castle for years? These are the kinds of issues that are dealt with in this book.

I particularly like the way this elaborate character development is combined with the sci fi/fantasy aspects. How does a primitive world of telepaths retain its cultural integrity in the face of a much larger and more powerful galactic technoculture? How does telepathy influence human relationships? What kind of adjustments does a society of telepaths have to make to avoid going crazy? I love how this series and particuarly this book deal with all that.

And, of course, there is the wonderful, continuing romance of Mikhail and Marguerida, which has matured so heartwarmingly along with them. It's so rare to see a novel that takes a romance into adulthood. Most romance novels end with marriage. This novel accepts the challenge of addressing a romance that continues. OK, maybe this is the most fantastical element of the book, but I liked it anyway.

I recommend this book most heartily.

In the '60s, most science fiction was still envisioned as juvenile fiction, pulps written for young readers. So "The Planet Savers", "World Wreckers", "Star Of Danger", and "Winds of Darkover" were interesting, but mostly unrefined novels with a very strong flavor of the pulp sci-fi novel.

As time went on, Ms. Bradley evolved as a writer, and what was considered publishable in the science fiction genre also evolved, so the next few novels were somewhat different. "Heritage of Hasteur", Sharra's Exile", and "The Bloody Sun" were much better than her earliest novels, and at least "Heritage" and "Sharra" are still two of her best. But she continued to evolve, and the stories that interested her changed, so people who love her stories from one period don't always enjoy the stories from another period. That's one of the beauties of Darkover, however; it's big enough, and complex enough, that all kinds of stories can be written about it.

There are some constants, however: on the down side, Ms. Bradley always has been a trifle sloppy in her copyediting. In this book, that shows up not only in the usual periodic typos that slip through, but in the scene toward the end of the book, in which a character who'd been sent home with a serious injury before the funeral train reached its destination (Hermes) gives a eulogy at the funeral.

On the positive side, her characters have always been her strong suit, and this book is no exception. What's more, they actually change and grow, not just within a book, but from book to book as the same characters are seen at different stages of their lives.

Interestingly, for most of her career, it was obvious that a big part of what fascinated Ms. Bradley about Darkover was the opportunity it provided for comparing and contrasting a highly technological Federation with an archaic, almost medieval culture. Generally, she found an interesting balance between the two, with Darkovan culture being found lacking in its treatment of women and education, and Federation culture being found wanting in terms of respect for individuality and honor. By this book, it seemed that she'd solved the question of which she found preferable in her own mind; there was no longer anything to recommend the Federation at all, so that Darkover, for all that it still had its failings, won by default.

The only real flaw to this book, other than the nit-picking copyediting problems mentioned previously, is that it was left openended enough that she'd obviously intended to tell us more later.But having died, it seems unlikely that she'll ever show us the end to the storyline begun here. Unfortunate, but unavoidable. When you spend almost 40 years writing 21 Darkover novels, sooner or later, you won't get to write the next one.

The book is centered around Domenic Hastur, son of Mikhail (heir to the throne). Because Domenic is not an adult, the book is more interesting to teen readers than others have been. Don't be fooled by his youth, however: Domenic's character still contains the complexity of most Darkovian characters.

While Traitor's Sun is a wonderful story in and of itself, it also fits into the rest of the storyline quite nicely, both relying on past books and creating new plotlines for future ones.

I would reccomend Trator's Sun to anyone who has read even one book (especially post 'rediscovery') in the Darkover series. If you have not read any Darkover books, however, I would suggest that you first read 'rediscovery'. While not the best Darkover book, it provides, in my opinon, a better introduction to Darkover.

Don't let that stop you, however. Trator's Sun is possibly the best Darkover book I have yet read. I still haven't put it down... and I have read it three times already!