Reviews

The Other Side of the Mirror by Patricia Floss, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Linda Frankel, Paula Crunk

vaderbird's review

3.0

5 star - Perfect
4 star - i would recommend
3 star - good
2 star - struggled to complete
1 star - could not finish

bookcrazylady45's review

3.0

Anthology with only five stories, two included in other books. A great backstory for Marius, another for Rohana and a man who saves a catman from hunters. All three were excellent stories.

kikiandarrowsfishshelf's review

3.0

Some of these stories add another level to many characters but particularly to Rohana. “Bride Price” by Bradley herself gives insight into the character of Dom Gabriel as well as why Rohana stays with him. I don’t normally really like Jaelle but she came off as quite likable in “Everything but Freedom”.
The title story is written by Patricia Floss and plays around with ideas that appear in Two to Conquer.

coffeeandink's review

Exceptionally good Darkover fanfiction anthology -- mostly novellas, IIRC, and several of them by MZB herself. One unfortunately focusing on Dyan Ardais, whom I loathe, and for whom MZB has an inexplicable sympathy. (Or explicable by facts of her second husband's biography which I wish I didn't know.) The best is probably the fan-written "The Other Side of the Mirror," which focuses on Marius Alton, Lew Alton's younger brother and Kennard Alton's younger legitimate son, who was generally neglected by his family and his author both; MZB said somewhere that she liked this story so much she adopted it as her Marius backstory for the period between [b:The Heritage of Hastur|472778|The Heritage of Hastur (Darkover Series)|Marion Zimmer Bradley|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175044337s/472778.jpg|461050] and [b:Sharra's Exile|567197|Sharra's Exile (Darkover Series)|Marion Zimmer Bradley|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175868136s/567197.jpg|2700833]. I probably appreciate the Rohanna stories more now than when I was a teenager, though -- the plight of an intelligent woman trapped in an unbreakable marriage in a patriarchal society is heartbreaking, even if she does have substantial advantages of rank and power. I do think the pseudo-medieval social mores of Darkover are probably a lot more influenced by MZB's experience in the stifling 50s than the actual Middle Ages, as really many of the women should be able to politic themselves into more power.