A review by octavia_cade
The Planet Savers by Marion Zimmer Bradley

adventurous fast-paced

2.0

I'd vaguely heard of Darkover before this, but have never read any of it. However, I'm visiting my dad for Xmas and this is on his shelves, so I gave it a go. It was alright. There was, it must be said, a deeply unconvincing romance that added absolutely nothing to the plot, and seemed to exist solely to insert a single female character into the text. I also expected, from the blurb, a much stronger emphasis on medicine, as I got the impression that this was a book about a plague. And it is, but much more of the focus here is travel and identity: a doctor's repressed personality is brought to the fore (and periodically buried again) as that repressed self is better able to endure the physical and emotional rigours of travel to ask for help from an isolated culture. Nice idea, basically adequate execution.

Included at the end of this particular edition is an unrelated short story, "The Waterfall." It's unreservedly dreadful, and book would be stronger without it.