Marion Z[immer] Bradley - The Heritage of Hastur - 8/10

[Evaine]

The Heritage of Hastur /Darkover

I was really pleased to pick this up again. MZB doesn't come up second hand all that often, and this is usually a clue that her stuff is good.
This is one of the best of her Darkover series. The books can pretty much stand alone, and don't have to be read in order. In any case, she ranges over centuries of planetary history.
Hastur is one of the ruling families on Darkover, and at this point in its history, it is a basically feudal world playing host to a Terran Empire space port, with all sorts of cultural problems arising from that, including the acceptance, or otherwise, of half-Terran children into Darkovan noble society. Darkover is the only planet in the Empire where psi powers have been developed rather than material technology, and most of the characters have varying telepathic abilities.
There are two main characters. Regis Hastur is a fifteen year old beginning to resent the lifeplan his rank maps out for him - he wants to travel off world, and this probably won't be possible for him.
Lew Alton is the half-Terran heir to the Alton Domain, and resents his position, always resented for his parentage by the Darkovans, and not fitting in with the Terrans either. Then he finds a way that he might be able to reconcile his position, to work for the best of both worlds by bringing ancient Darkovan psionic technology back into use.
The stories of these two intertwine, also involving Danilo, a friend of Regis's, who turns out to have a very rare telepathic ability which Lew Alton's new friends want to use. They want to show the Terrans that psi powers can be something that can usefully be traded for Terran technology, and to do this they have found a very powerful matrix to amplify their own individual powers.
MZB had written another story earlier, Sharra's Exile, telling of the matrix and what happened to it later when Regis was adult, so this is a prequel in a way.
It is not giving anything away, by the way, to reveal that Lord Dyan is a predatory paedophile and an altogether nasty piece of work - but he's not the main villain, who is even worse than that.
I sat up till midnight last night finishing the book, even though I'd read it before, and I'm looking forward to re-reading some more MZB soon.

[Ghost]

Evaine, You didn't give the book a rating (from 1 to 10).

[Evaine]

Damn, I'm always forgetting that!

I give it an 8.

[KiltanneN]

Evaine

GREAT review Thx!

I too have enjoyed MZB's world of Darkover more than almost any other & here's a little known fact:
It was this series of books more than any other single thing that made me want to build the IBDoF...

kilt

[Evaine]

Thank you, kiltannan!
I'm just starting The Worldwreckers now, which has Regis and Danilo aged about 24. MZB wrote it 4 years before Heritage of Hastur, so it's quite interesting to compare.