Sharra's Exile
core novel 1981 Darkover
Record
| First published | 1981 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.96 (2,770 ratings, collected 2026-09-14) |
| Page count | 365 |
| First-edition ISBN | 0879976594 |
Synopsis
Lew Alton returns to Darkover after three bitter years in Terran exile to reclaim leadership of his family's Alton domain, only to find the Comyn Council mired in dangerous political conflicts he had hoped to leave behind. A proposed marriage alliance threatens to destabilize the fragile balance among the ruling houses just as the ancient, immensely powerful matrix weapon called Sharra begins to stir again, drawing renewed and reckless interest from those who covet its destructive potential. Alongside the young heir Regis Hastur, Lew must navigate treacherous alliances, old grief over his own past losses, and supernatural forces barely held in check, all while Terran colonial pressure on Darkover's independence continues to mount in the background.
Where it sits
- Universe: Darkover
- Series: Darkover core; position 14 of 22 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Marion Zimmer Bradley
Notes
- From the series record (Darkover): Core Canon = the 22 novels published under Bradley's own credited authorship during her lifetime (1958-1999; some jointly credited with a co-author -- Mercedes Lackey on Rediscovery, Adrienne Martine-Barnes on Exile's Song/The Shadow Matrix/Traitor's Sun -- but always alongside Bradley herself). Per Bradley's own stated preference, publication order is used rather than the internal Darkovan chronology (Founding/Ages of Chaos/Hundred Kingdoms/Rediscovery/Modern eras), consistent with this project's deliberately-unrecorded-chronology pattern used elsewhere. Expanded Canon (the post-2000 continuation novels written entirely by Deborah J. Ross after Bradley's 1999 death -- the Clingfire Trilogy, The Alton Gift, Hastur Lord, The Children of Kings, Thunderlord!, The Laran Gambit, Arilinn) is deliberately deferred out of scope per the credited-authorship bright line (same approach as Pern's generational handoff), same treatment as InCryptid's and Solomon Kane's deferred Expanded backlogs; not populated as book records yet. The Door Through Space (1961) shares worldbuilding details but is explicitly not part of the Darkover setting per its own cover copy and is excluded. The Sword and Sorceress anthology series (which Bradley edited but did not herself write) is out of scope for the same reason Songs of the Dying Earth was excluded from Cugel's Saga.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within the series Darkover: position 14 of 22: previous Two to Conquer (1980) · next Hawkmistress! (1982)
Sources
- Wikipedia: Darkover series
- sfadb: Marion Zimmer Bradley
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharra%27s_Exile
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