The Sword of Aldones
core novel 1962 Darkover
Record
| First published | 1962 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.67 (1,079 ratings, collected 2026-09-14) |
| Page count | 164 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780099181002 |
Synopsis
Lew Alton returns to his home world of Darkover after years on Terran-controlled worlds to find the ruling Comyn Council divided over whether to admit the rival Alton house's estranged branch, whose seat holds a dangerous psychic artifact called the Sharra Matrix. Lew's own claim to leadership is complicated by his mixed Terran-Darkovan blood and by rivals who resent his return. When the Matrix is stolen and its destructive power unleashed, chaos erupts across the ruling families, and Lew must navigate court intrigue, old grudges, and supernatural threats while trying to prevent Sharra from being used as a weapon against the Comyn and the fragile order they maintain over Darkover's telepathic society.
Where it sits
- Universe: Darkover
- Series: Darkover core; position 2 of 22 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Marion Zimmer Bradley
Awards (verified)
- Hugo Award (Best Novel), 1963: nominated
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 2 of 22: previous The Planet Savers (1958) · next The Bloody Sun (1964)
Sources
- Wikipedia: Darkover series
- sfadb: Marion Zimmer Bradley
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sword_of_Aldones
- The Hugo Awards: 1963 Hugo Awards
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