Marion Zimmer Bradley
Personal Information
Description
Marion Zimmer was born on a farm in Albany, New York, during the Great Depression. As a child, she enjoyed reading adventure fantasy stories. She began writing them herself in 1949 and sold her first story to Vortex in 1952. She also married Robert Alden Bradley in 1949. Early in her career, she used pseudonyms for stories she wrote outside the speculative fiction genre, including some gay and lesbian pulp fiction novels such as I Am a Lesbian (1962). In 1964 she divorced her first husband and married numismatist Walter H. Breen. In 1965 she received her B.A. degree from Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas. She then moved to Berkeley, California, to pursue graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1966, she co-founded the Society for Creative Anachronism. In 1967 she moved to Staten Island, New York. She separated from her second husband in 1979 but remained married and continued a business relationship, until 1990 when he was arrested on child molestation charges and they divorced. After suffering declining health for years, she died in Berkeley in 1999. In 2000, she was awarded the World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement.
Books
The Alton gift
The long-awaited continuation to the popular science fiction saga is the story of Darkover's ruling class, the comyn, and their struggles to reclaim their realm from the devastating effects of the Terran Federation.
The Shadow Matrix
After spending her youth in the Terran Empire, Margaret Alton returns to Darkover, the planet of her birth. There she discovers she has the Alton Gift--forced rapport and compulsion--one of the strongest and most dangerous of the inherited "Laran" gifts of the telepathic Comyn--the ruling families of Darkover. And even as she struggles to control her newfound powers, Margaret finds herself falling in love with the Regent to the royal Elhalyn Domain, a man she has been forbidden to marry, for their alliance would irrevocably alter the power balance of their planet!
The Fall of Neskaya
The Fall of Neskaya, Book One of the Clingfire Trilogy, marks the legendary author's final return to Darkover before her death. Set in the tumultuous era of The Hundred Kingdoms, a terrible time of strife and war, this unique fantasy world is divided into a mutlitude of small belligerent domains vying for power and land. One ambitious and corrupt tyrant will stop at nothing to control Darkover-even wield the terrifying weapons of the matrix.
Heartlight
Former spy Colin MacLaren, who fought black magic in World War II, takes on black magic in present-day America. By the author of Gravelight.
In the Rift
Kate Beacham had had a bad day. After almost being assaulted in an alley by three masked bigots, she arrived home to find her beloved stallion lying dead in her driveway with a note reading YoU'Re nExt. Too tough a cookie to crumble, Kate got out her shotgun and loaded it. Then she saw the book on her nightstand -- a guide book to a place she had never heard of: Glenraven.When she opened it, words magically appeared: Get out of the house, quick. Still holding the shotgun, she obeyed; and saw riders on horseback gallop from a hole in midair, pursued by a nightmarish flying thing like a cross between a dragon and a shark. Good thing she had the shotgun, or there would have been no hope for Kate, the riders, and both their worlds.Once before a woman from our world had saved the realm of Glenraven. Now another must do it again -- or her own world will be forfeit, too....
Lady of Avalon
New York Times bestselling author Marion Zimmer Bradley brings the mesmerizing world of myth, romance and history to life in the spellbinding novel of epic grandeur!Before the legend of King Arthur and Camelot, there was Avalon, a beautiful island of golden vales and silver mists. A land where the lives of three powerful priestesses shape the destiny of Roman Britian as they fight to regain the magic and traditions of a once gallant past...
The gratitude of kings
A centuries-old female wizard who must disguise herself as a male to survive the intrigue and black magic of the court.
Exile’s Song
Margaret Alton is the daughter of Lew Alton, Darkover's Senator to the Terran Federation, but her father is extremely secretive about the obscure planet of her birth. So when her university job sends her to Darkover, she has only fleeting, haunting memories of a tumultuous childhood. But once under the light of the Red Sun, as her veiled and mysterious heritage becomes manifest, she finds herself trapped by a destiny more terrifying than any nightmare! Sequel to "The Heritage of Hastur".
Witchlight
The heroine awakens unable to remember who she is, but she has the terrifying feeling something terrible happened in her empty past. Why do objects shatter when she passes, is she possessed? The novel follows Winter Musgrave's quest to discover her identity with the help of magic. By the author of Ghostlight.
The Forest House
The Forest House—prequel to The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley's beloved and enduring classic—is a mesmerizing epic of one woman's mythic role at a turning point in history.In a Britain struggling to survive Roman invasion, Eilan is the daughter of a Druidic warleader, gifted with visions and marked by fate to become a priestess of the Forest House.But fate also led Eilan to Gaius, a soldier of mixed blood, son of the Romans sent to subdue the native British. For Gaius, Eilan felt forbidden love, and her terrible secret will haunt her even as she is anointed as the new High Priestess. With mighty enemies poised to destroy the magic the Forest House shelters, Eilan must trust in the power of the great Goddess to lead her through the treacherous labyrinth of her destiny.
The Fall of Atlantis
"A wounded Atlantean prince, a deadly battle between Dark & Light and two sisters Deoris and Domaris whose lives are changed utterly by the magic involved. On one side stand the Priests of the White Robe, guardians of powerful natural forces which could threaten the world if misused. Ranged against them are the Black Robes, sorcerers who secretly practice their dark arts in the labyrinthine caves beneath the very Temple of Light itself"--