Thunderlord by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Deborah J. Ross
Cover art by Mathew Stawicki
Published by DAW books
Reviewed by Leigh Kimmel
This novel is billed as a sequel to Stormqueen!, the first novel set during the Ages of Chaos that Marion Zimmer Bradley ever wrote. That meant I read this volume expecting a novel similar in scope and tone to the original. Instead I found a light romantic adventure comedy which felt much more like Ms. Ross's work than Mrs. Bradley's.
As soon as I started calling it lightweight, I knew that this determination could appear to be dismissive to many readers. So I immediately started to think about why I should consider it to be lightweight in comparison to the original it's supposed to be a sequel to.
Part of it may be the simple fact that there isn't nearly the depth of world-building that marked Stormqueen. That novel was the first Darkover novel I ever encountered, stumbling upon it as I scoured the shelves of our tiny public library for anything that could be considered science fiction or fantasy. As soon as I started reading, I was swept into a richly imagined world where psionic powers provided a touch of high tech to what was otherwise a feudal society. Instead of being magic that happened because of a helpful fairy godmother or talking fox or ancient talisman, psionic powers were a special talent of some family lines, which could be bred for and were, often with serious negative consequences.
As I read the author's note in Stormqueen, I immediately wanted to read the other novels that MZB mentioned, the ones set in a later era when Darkovan mental powers are in decline and Terrans have come to this forgotten colony with their mechanical technologies, which they view as superior to the mental powers that they view as the superstitions of a feudal world. However, it would be some years before I had access to a library large enough that I was able to find other Darkover books. However, Stormqueen haunted my memory -- even coloring my expectations when I watched the movie adaptation of Stephen King's Firestarter. As a result, when I heard that this novel was a sequel to Stormqueen, I came to it with certain expectations, which may well have made it easier for me to dismiss this novel as a lightweight because it didn't get a story in which there were new discoveries around every corner.
Part of this may be the constraints under which a posthumous collaborator must necessarily operate. The original author will feel free to open new vistas and introduce new customs, new history, new backstory. By contrast, the posthumous collaborator is all too aware of working within someone else's world, and thus being obliged to remain true to the original author's vision, which can quickly lead to a hesitation to introduce anything truly original.
However, I don't think that real or perceived constraints on Ms. Ross's part are the only reason why this novel reads as "light" to me, or even necessarily the primary reason. In fact, I have a nagging feeling that, even if Ms. Ross had written this novel in an original universe of her own devising, it would still have come across as a much lighter work than Stormqueen.
Part of the problem may be the way in which misunderstanding is at the heart of the story in Thunderlord. By contrast, in Stormqueen we had a deep-seated feud between Aldaran and Scathfell, which could only be satisfied with blood, such that neither feudal lord would consider a compromise. At most they could reach a sort of stalemate, in which it was clear that further conflict would only result in both of them reducing their realms to wrack and ruin.
In this novel, we start with a proposal from Scathfell to the elderly lord of Rockraven, for the hand of his elder daughter in honorable di catenas marriage. Both sisters travel together on the journey, and in a travel shelter they encounter the heir to Aldaran, in disguise because of the bad blood between the families. They are subsequently attacked by bandits, who kidnap Kyria, the elder daughter. While Eldric Aldaran heads out to seek her, Gwynn of Scathfell's guards conduct the younger sister, Alayna, to Castle Scathfell. After a brief period of mourning for Kyria, who is missing and presumed dead, Alayna comes to love Gwynn, the difference in their ages notwithstanding, and Gwynn asks Lord Rockraven for her hand in marriage, in lieu of the (presumably) murdered Kyria.
It seems to be a happy marriage, until Alayna miscarries, and it turns out she has a congenital defect of her reproductive system. A future pregnancy could and probably will kill her. So one of the psi workers of the Tower heal her, but in the process render her unable to have any further children.
Meanwhile, Edric has rescued Kyria, but in a way that leads both of them to believe that she will no longer have any value as the bride of a lord, not Gwynn of Scathfell and not any of the others. She and Edric fallen in love, and they've had children together -- but Edric wants to make her his wife formally, her children his heirs.
And thus they reawaken the old feud. Once again armies are on the march, ready to kill and destroy. Except just when it looks like they will end up laying both their lands to waste in obsession with the old feud between their two realms, they come to discover that Kyria has twin sons, and from that comes the agreement to give one of those sons to Lord and Lady Scathfell, to formally adopt as their nedestro heir. Furthermore, both sons will be fostered alternately in each castle, and will go to the Tower to train together.
And thus Love Conquers All, much like the ending of The Heirs of Hammerfell, the first Darkover book after a lengthy hiatus (and the first to be written with the assistance of an uncredited collaborator, frequently believed to be Mercedes Lackey). Of course in this novel it's storge, the familial love between two sisters and toward the younger generation, rather than the romantic love between the children of two feuding families. And I think there is the reason I feel it is such a lightweight -- it's using so many tropes from romantic comedy: mistaken identity, parting and reunion, etc. to achieve a happily ever after ending. So it reads as a much lighter book, in both senses of the word, of being more cheerful and of being of lesser importance. While Stormqueen was a tragedy of men's reckless pride, Thunderlord is a comedy of reconciliation.
It's one of those cases where it's not a bad novel, and quite honestly, it can be an enjoyable read. But it really would have been better marketed if it hadn't been tied so closely to Stormqueen, setting up expectation of getting the same kind of novel.
Buy Thunderlord from Amazon.com
Review posted December 12, 2020
