The Heirs of Hammerfell
core novel 1989 Darkover
Record
| First published | 1989 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.70 (2,305 ratings, collected 2026-09-14) |
| Page count | 300 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780886773953 |
Synopsis
Twin brothers separated in infancy after a family tragedy, one raised in the wild mountain domain of Hammerfell and the other fostered at the royal court, are reunited as adults just as a bitter, generations-old feud between their two noble houses reaches a dangerous new peak. Neither man initially knows the other exists, and their eventual meeting upends assumptions both have carried since childhood about family, loyalty, and inheritance. As the brothers navigate competing claims of blood and upbringing, shifting political alliances between Hammerfell and the rival house of Storn, and an unexpected romance complicating matters further, they must decide together whether the long-standing conflict between their houses can finally be resolved or is fated to consume the next generation as well.
Where it sits
- Universe: Darkover
- Series: Darkover core; position 18 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 18 of 22: previous City of Sorcery (1984) · next Rediscovery (1993)
Sources
- Wikipedia: Darkover series
- sfadb: Marion Zimmer Bradley
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heirs_of_Hammerfell
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