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A review by mikimeiko
Exile's Song by Marion Zimmer Bradley
3.0
Having read this straight after Heir and Exile, I felt the hand of co-writer Adrienne Martine-Barnes quite strongly (and much more favourably that I did in the past): all the issue I had with the other two books (the constant and endless repetitions, the very fast and unexplicable rise of passions, the compressed timelines) almost disappeared, accompanied by an attention to the common folk and to how things actually work on Darkover that is not present in other books.
Margaret Alton is an interesting and quite likeable protagonist, with depth and contradictions, and her story is fascinating enough though I feel like more work could have gone in the planning/editing phase to make the story less erratic. This feels like two books in one, and I think that if they moved the big Tower of Shadows battle to the end, maybe splitting it between two confrontations - one were it is now and one after Lew's return - the narrative would have felt more cohesive.
One of the things that I liked most in my teenage years, the relationship between Margaret and Lew, this time felt distinctly "Bradleyan" and I wish the authors would have crafted it with a little more subtlety.
Margaret Alton is an interesting and quite likeable protagonist, with depth and contradictions, and her story is fascinating enough though I feel like more work could have gone in the planning/editing phase to make the story less erratic. This feels like two books in one, and I think that if they moved the big Tower of Shadows battle to the end, maybe splitting it between two confrontations - one were it is now and one after Lew's return - the narrative would have felt more cohesive.
One of the things that I liked most in my teenage years, the relationship between Margaret and Lew, this time felt distinctly "Bradleyan" and I wish the authors would have crafted it with a little more subtlety.