The Planet Savers
core novel 1958 Darkover
Record
| First published | 1958 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.72 (2,062 ratings, collected 2026-09-14) |
| Page count | 91 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780441670208 |
Synopsis
Marion Zimmer Bradley's science fantasy novel opens the proper Darkover series, introducing the planet as a world settled by lost human colonists who live alongside the telepathic Comyn caste and the nonhuman trailmen of the high mountains. When a fever sweeping the Terran spaceport threatens catastrophe, the only hope of a cure lies in trailmen territory, land closed to outsiders. The physician assigned to find a way in is Jay Allison, a controlled, buttoned-down researcher who shares his body with a suppressed second personality, the reckless wilderness guide Jason. The two selves despise each other, yet only Jason's knowledge of the trailmen and their hidden paths can get an expedition through the forbidden peaks before the outbreak spreads beyond control, forcing an uneasy truce between Jay and Jason.
Where it sits
- Universe: Darkover
- Series: Darkover core; position 1 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 1 of 22: next The Sword of Aldones (1962)
Sources
- Wikipedia: Darkover series
- sfadb: Marion Zimmer Bradley
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Planet_Savers
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