"Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Darkover 00 - Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bradley Marion Zimmer)

*SHARRA'S EXILE
*THE WORLD WRECKERS
*RETURN TO DARKOVER
THE DARKOVER ANTHOLOGIES:
These volumes of stories edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley strive to "fill in the blanks" of Darkovan history, and elaborate on the eras, tales and characters which have captured readers' imaginations.
THE KEEPER'S PRICE
SWORD OF CHAOS
FREE AMAZONS OF DARKOVER
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MIRROR
RED SUN OF DARKOVER
FOUR MOONS OF DARKOVER
DOMAINS OF DARKOVER
RENUNCIATES OF DARKOVER
LERONI OF DARKOVER
TOWERS OF DARKOVER
MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY'S DARKOVER
*SNOWS OF DARKOVER
(*forthcoming in DAW Books editions in 1994)

Contents
Introduction
Free Amazons
To Keep the Oath
Amazon Fragment
House Rules
Knives
Hilary
Firetrap
The Keeper's Price
The Lesson of the Inn
Hilary's Homecoming
Hilary's Wedding
Rohana
Everything But Freedom
Dyan Ardais
Oathbreaker
The Hawkmaster's Son
A Man of Impulse
The Shadow

Introduction
One of the strangest things in my life as a writer has been the success of the Darkover BooksЧnot simply as books, but the way in which the self-contained universe of Darkover has become not only self-sustaining, but has encouraged other writers to write their own stories, first about Darkover, and then, increasingly, in their own self-created universes. I was the very first, although since then, many writers, especially womenЧI need only name Mercedes Lackey and Jacqueline LichtenbergЧhave encouraged others to write in their own universes. I think there are many reasons for this; some more feminist than others.
Women are not and were not encouraged to create universes of their own; especially in the days when I entered fandom. In other writings I have spoken of those days in the forties and fifties when women were not only not encouraged to write, but were not encouraged even to read very muchЧand then nothing but Nancy Drew, Sue Barton, and various saccharine romances, meant to convey the idea that a woman's only duty and pleasure was to secure a manЧby fair means or foul didn't much matter; she'd be accused of the foul ones anyhow. No one born in these post-Star Trek days can imagine quite how segregated all writing and, indeed, all mental activity was. And by and large, girls cooperated in this segregation, insisting that educators were right; the only degree worth having was Mrs., and a girl who wanted to work should obviously be prepared to neglect her God-given responsibilities to home and childrenЧand to accept all kinds of abuse for so doing.
Yet there have obviously been women in science fiction and fantasy from the beginning. The very field of

Introduction
science fiction was created by a woman, Mary Shelley, author of FRANKENSTEIN. The "Gothic novels" which preceded today's fantasy were created by one "Mrs. Radcliffe" and her imitators. The difference was simple; a woman had to be, as I was, and as most of my better known predecessors from Charlotte Bronte on were, obsessed, prepared to ignore the brainwashing given in schools to all females. One woman at a mid-seventies' woman's meeting I attended said that no woman could possibly escape her brainwashing. I stood up and called her a liar to her face; I was living proof, and so was everybody else in the room, that some of us had managed to escape itЧor none of us would have been there.
But, in a sense, she was right. The vast majority of girls in my school seemed brainwashed to meЧand I have heard similar stories from everybody else, from Leigh Brackett and Catherine L. Moore to Joanna Russ and Diana L. Paxson. The many woman who wrote, from Ms. Bronte to me, from Leigh Brackett to C.L. Moore, were obsessed. They were prepared to ignore anything and everything, from their stern Victorian fathers to their brainwashed mothers, in order to write.
Everyone familiar with women writers knows the famous answer of William Wordsworth to Charlotte Bronte when that lady sought his support for her writing; but anyone who, like so many of today's teenagers, thinks the past "Irrelevant" should remember that Wordsworth told Charlotte to finish the dishes first. This, unfortunately, is an answer which we have heard ad nauseam, all of us, starting with Andre Norton and ending with the little girls who write for my anthologies, one of whom is about thirteen.
I was the very first writer to encourage other writers to write in my universe. Not everybody approved; Lester Del Rey told me that he, for one, would never consent to read one single word of Darkover fiction written by anyone else. All I can say to that is that it is a free country and he is entitled to his opinion. It's his loss. Most of the Darkover stories were about as good as any slush anywhere, which means not very good, at least at first; but after reading a lot of it, I came to the conclu-