The Spell Sword
core novel 1974 Darkover
Record
| First published | 1974 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.74 (2,209 ratings, collected 2026-09-14) |
| Page count | 158 |
| First-edition ISBN | 083982503X |
Synopsis
A Terran surveyor crash-lands in the wilds of Darkover and encounters Coryn, a psychic Keeper who communicates with him through visions reaching across an alternate dimension rather than ordinary speech. Their strange rapport is interrupted when she is kidnapped by catmen, hostile nonhuman creatures who inhabit the deep wilderness beyond settled Darkovan territory. To rescue her, the shaken outsider must join forces with Coryn's brother, a local matrix technician trained in the psychic disciplines of the Towers, forcing the two very different men to trust each other despite mutual suspicion between Terran science and Darkovan laran as they track the Keeper into dangerous country neither of them fully understands.
Where it sits
- Universe: Darkover
- Series: Darkover core; position 8 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 8 of 22: previous Darkover Landfall (1972) · next The Heritage of Hastur (1975)
Sources
- Wikipedia: Darkover series
- sfadb: Marion Zimmer Bradley
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spell_Sword
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