Rating: 
Summary: A potential fresh start to Darkover, but needs ripening
Review: So much happening, yet not enough of any one event to satisfy the reader. Subplots are inconsistently paced (the Ashara Alton subplot desparately needed development, and the death of Margaret's mentor took far too long); characters are inconsistently portrayed (especially the relationship between Regis and Danilo--at one point in her career, MZB wasn't afraid to make it clear they were lovers, but now it's extremely vague); and the ending screams "Sequel in the works!" The redeeming feature of the novel is that it's set after the Sharra Rebellion, in a period of which we haven't seen much (besides "The World Wreckers," which takes place before "Exile's Song"). I'm guardedly optimistic that "Exile's Song" will herald a new series of novels that will follow this storyline; I'm also hopeful that MZB will take a little more time with the next couple of novels and pace them more evenly
Rating: 
Summary: A Fantastic Book!!!!!
Review: Actually this is the first of the Darkovan books I had read. It was just sitting there so I decided on reading it. I think that if I'd starting reading the first of the Darkover books, Darkover Landfall then I wouldn't have read all the rest of the books. Marguerida Alton travels to the planet known to Terrans as Cottman IV with her mentor Ivor Davidson to collect folk music. They are really in for a surprise! All the new people they meet is awesome! But tragedy comes, Ivor dies. That's when the real adventure comes! Knowing nothing of her history Marguerida is surprised and frustrated. She is bowed to and everyone calls her "domna" which means highly honored lady. Marguerida decides to ignore it as best she can. Instead of finding why this is she finds an uncle, goes with her friend and guide Rafaella n'ha Liriel to collect folk music. She has a bout of threshold sickness and has to be taken to a castle where she falls in love with Mikhail Lanart Hastur! Her newly awakened laran is powerful and she gets a shadow matrix from the overworld. Her Uncle Gabriel moves her to Armida and that creates a number of problems. Her father comes to meet her! Read this and then find out the details and what else happens in Marguerida's new and exciting life!
Rating:
Summary: A return to the great Darkover books
Review: After the lackluster Rediscovery this book restored my confidence in MZB as a writer. As soon as I finished this book I wanted the next one in this trilogy within a series.
Rating:
Summary: The Future unfurled
Review: All though I do agree with the above author about the unconsistant genealogies in her series(I have encountered some of that in Mists of Avalon), focusing on that one fault ruins the impact and the refrencing of this book. the characters are there, before your eyes, acting out a life that you have always longed for while trying to avoid. Anyone who has had destiny put them in a maddening and unsuspected situation can relate to the main characters Margaret Alton and Mikhial Hastur/Lanart. I own this book and I can help but to read it over and over again because MZB shares JK Rowlings talent of holding little things in the book taht even the most careful of readers can't notice untill the fourth reading. This tale of our future is incredible and anyone even considering reading it should go ahead because it is anything but a waste of time.
Rating: 
Summary: A good history lesson of Darkover
Review: For those who have heard of Marion Zimmer Bradley's tales of the planet of the bloody sun, this would be a good book to start with. It gives a synopsis of sorts of a great many of the previous books in the series, and while it's no substitute for those books, you'll at least have an idea of what's gone on in all those previous books. The plot, I have to admit, is something straight out of the pulp fiction school, and sounds like something Bradley has done before - but that doesn't detract from the excellent quality of the writing, something that's been sorely lacking in the more recent Darkover novels. Still, this novel made me want to go back and reread even those. Who knows - maybe I'll change my mind about them after reading this one.
Rating: 
Summary: milking a series, a plotline, a plot...
Review: Having read every previous novel including Sword of Aldones (which, by the way, seems to me better than its replacement Sharra's Exile, I liked Dio's role in it), I heard tell of Exile's Song and thought "wow! Great! More Darkover after all!". I was disappointed. The only interesting element in this is the presence of the shadow matrix. Everything else was just rehashing the Ashara Is Revealed As An Amoral Manipulator plotline from "Sharra's Exile". Plus, I was really annoyed with the threshold sickness thing. How many times do we have to have this described? Although it's true that the characters don't know about threshold sickness, it would be nice to fans to give some variety to the disease. This nasty form was well done in "heritage" already. Let's have something new, for once: how about a terran who comes to darkover and is (gasp) NOT telepathic?
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable but needs work
Review: I believe that this book was good but the most exciting stuff came 1/3 of the way until the end. The information concerning her mentor was important but did not need to take up almost a third of the book. It would have been a better book to have it start with the Death of Professor Iverson and have her muddle her way through discovering all that she needed to know. But, it also seems that there is another story out there waiting to been told, more of Ashara Alton and the mysterious age of chaos that only talks about the end of that time in other novels. MZB needs to develop this more from the point of view of the maiden that comes to rescue a realm (ie, the current state of darkover) as opposed to letting Ms Alton swoon and sway with confusion for the entire plot. Its great that MZB wants to set the stage for future writings, but I think this book looks at trying to connect the entire Darkover past with what lays ahead...too much information, simplify MZB...please
Rating:
Summary: Loved it.
Review: I eagerly await each Darkover novel and am rarely
dissapointed. Although this particular book seemed like two shorter stories combined into one, still I was ecstatic to read it. There were sufficient things left unresolved by the end, that I checked to see if there was a sequel coming out soon. There are two books forthcoming. This was a wonderful read, but total resolution is not to be found yet.
Rating:
Summary: Demon of little minds, or just plain sloppiness?
Review: I first discovered Darkover more than ten years ago and happily plunged in. After several books, I had to come up for air as internal inconsistencies mounted within the series. Characters' relative ages and degrees of kinship changed, as did distances and directions across the terrain. Every few years, I try again. IMHO, this book encapsulated MZB's strengths and weaknesses in a single volume. Marguerida Alton is a vivid and likeable character, but the plot (or half-plot; I suspect the original manuscript was split into this book and _Shadow Matrix_, which I've not yet read) was essentially _The Bloody Sun_ starring her instead of Jeff Kerwin. Still, she's trotted out the same concept several times (_The Spell Sword_ et al.) while still managing to keep things reasonably fresh. Another reviewer wondered about Jeff's reappearance as Damon Ridenow. MZB herself apparently forgot about her rewrite of _The Bloody Sun_, in which he first appears. In the original version, Jeff's dad was Arnad Ridenow, as the infodump in this version sets forth. However, the rewrite switched paternity to Lew Alton's uncle Lewis-Arnad Lanart-Alton, who was at that time the Heir to Alton. Jeff himself is (IIRC) some twenty years older than Lew's *father* in TBS, and yet Jeff and Lew show up here as nearly the same age. This sort of thing drives me mad, especially when the inconsistent genealogies and chronologies weren't even needed to move along the plot of this book. If anything, the persistent infodumps slowed things down. Without the inconsistencies and incompletion, I might've given this book an 8 or 9. As matters stand, a 6 is the best I can do.
Rating:
Summary: Short of my expectations. A bit shallow but interesting....
Review: I had been really looking forward to the sequel of Sharra's Exile, and further novels written in the tradition of Heritage of Hastur. However I find the characterization, Marguerida's internal conflicts, search for identity and her confusion and irritation with her sudden telepathic powers a bit drawn out and stereotyped. It does not have the intensity of Heritage of Hastur or Sharra's Exile.
| 
