The Alton Gift by Deborah J Ross & Marion Zimmer Bradley

Mortification Scale: 4 Tomato Faces

• 1 TF for being SciFi/Fantasy
• 2nd for really embarrassing cover
• 3rd for really embarrassing cover
• 4th for being a "posthumous" novel - ick!

Mitigating Features:

• It's a good read
• I'm a Darkover addict
  

Synopsis:

First, let me say that I am NOT a fan of the "posthumous" novel. Supposedly MZB and Deborah Ross sat down and plotted out the continuation of the Darkover series, and so this is the authorized version. However, to me, it still smacks of fanfiction. When I read an MZB book, I am in the story. Deborah instead narrates events. MZB's world was rich with multiple languages and fantastic proverbs. Who didn't long to use, "you don't chain a dragon to light your cookfire" in casual conversation. Deborah's story lacks that richness of detail and instead is a flatter relation of events. The only reason that I finished this book is that I do still care about Darkover and all of our old friends and places, and even a watered down version of that world is better than nothing.

In The Alton Gift, Mikhail is the Regent with Marguerida as his first lady/right hand. Javanne has died after her family discovered that the reason for her extreme bitchiness for so many years was caused by the Terrans infecting her with a brain tumor. Hmm. I have a hard time imagining that MZB approved that plot line. One of the things we all loved about her writing was that her characters were human with likes/dislikes, positives and negatives. Lew Alton has gone off to live with the cristoforo monks up in Nevarsin and Domenic is in love with two girls concurrently. An ex-Terran develops laran (why are we surprised) and then is kidnapped by Francisco Ridenow.

In all, there is much sound and fury signifying little. There is a little advancement in the overall story line, Rory is gay for one, but the ending is a little empty. I had to reread some of the original MZB Darkover novels after this just to verify that they really were as wonderful as I remembered. I would not recommend this to anyone except a die-hard fan.