Domains of Darkover

Rating:
Summary: The weakest of the anthologies I've read so far
Review: However, there are three stories (all from the Ages of Chaos, oddly enough) that stood out as true gems, and I give the whole book one star for each of them:

First, there is "Clingfire," which takes two minor characters from the novel Stormqueen! (Coryn, Keeper of Hali Tower; and his lover Arielle, far below his station), fleshes them out, and puts one of the early, male Keepers in what seems to be the classic dilemma of the later female teneresti: is doing work that you love more important than spending your life with the person you love most?

Next, there is "Just a Touch..." which is nearly as powerful as the story it reminded me of ("The Alton Gift", which appears in _The Keeper's Price_), but with a much more uplifting ending. This was my favorite in the anthology, and in and of itself makes the collection worth seeking out.

The third story that deserves special mention is "The Plague." The theme is typical for a Darkover story (in a stressful situation, a woman of supposedly limited skills discovers her laran is far stronger than she thought), but the circumstances are unique, and the author captures the understanding I would expect Darkovan culture to have of bacteria ("tinylives") very well, and doesn't start sounding like she's giving a 20th-century Terran explanation (I hate that!)

For these three stories, the anthology is worth trying to get your hands on, but none of the rest particularly stand out (except for "Mists" and "Man-eater" which both annoyed me and stood out as BAD). However, there are much more enjoyable and better-organized anthologies of Darkover short stories, IMHO.

Rating:
Summary: The weakest of the anthologies I've read so far
Review: However, there are three stories (all from the Ages of Chaos, oddly enough) that stood out as true gems, and I give the whole book one star for each of them:

First, there is "Clingfire," which takes two minor characters from the novel Stormqueen! (Coryn, Keeper of Hali Tower; and his lover Arielle, far below his station), fleshes them out, and puts one of the early, male Keepers in what seems to be the classic dilemma of the later female teneresti: is doing work that you love more important than spending your life with the person you love most?

Next, there is "Just a Touch..." which is nearly as powerful as the story it reminded me of ("The Alton Gift", which appears in _The Keeper's Price_), but with a much more uplifting ending. This was my favorite in the anthology, and in and of itself makes the collection worth seeking out.

The third story that deserves special mention is "The Plague." The theme is typical for a Darkover story (in a stressful situation, a woman of supposedly limited skills discovers her laran is far stronger than she thought), but the circumstances are unique, and the author captures the understanding I would expect Darkovan culture to have of bacteria ("tinylives") very well, and doesn't start sounding like she's giving a 20th-century Terran explanation (I hate that!)

For these three stories, the anthology is worth trying to get your hands on, but none of the rest particularly stand out (except for "Mists" and "Man-eater" which both annoyed me and stood out as BAD). However, there are much more enjoyable and better-organized anthologies of Darkover short stories, IMHO.

Rating:
Summary: Some good stories, some not-so-good stories.
Review: There are some excellent stories in this anthology, notably "An Object Lesson" by Mercedes Lackey, in which she once again brings back the character Tayksa the ex-assassin, a character she has written several stories about in previous anthologies. (This was an excellent story, even if it WAS merely a set-up for an abysmally clever pun.) But there were also some stories that I didn't think much of, particularly "The Gift From Ardais", by Barbara Denz, which started out well, was well-written, and ended in a needlessly depressing way, serving no point that I could discern. Less bad, but still not much to my liking, was "To Serve Kihar", by Judith Sampson, which seemed to me to have an implausibly upbeat ending, not justified by the story to that point. Now, I'd rather see unjustified optimism than unjustified cynicism, but it still isn't really a good story if I don't feel the ending is justified by the story leading up to it.

Rating:
Summary: Some good stories, some not-so-good stories.
Review: There are some excellent stories in this anthology, notably "An Object Lesson" by Mercedes Lackey, in which she once again brings back the character Tayksa the ex-assassin, a character she has written several stories about in previous anthologies. (This was an excellent story, even if it WAS merely a set-up for an abysmally clever pun.) But there were also some stories that I didn't think much of, particularly "The Gift From Ardais", by Barbara Denz, which started out well, was well-written, and ended in a needlessly depressing way, serving no point that I could discern. Less bad, but still not much to my liking, was "To Serve Kihar", by Judith Sampson, which seemed to me to have an implausibly upbeat ending, not justified by the story to that point. Now, I'd rather see unjustified optimism than unjustified cynicism, but it still isn't really a good story if I don't feel the ending is justified by the story leading up to it.