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The Laran Gambit
(2022)(A book in the Darkover series)
A novel by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Deborah J Ross
Terran child psychologist Bryn Haslund has her hands full, treating the traumatized young victims of the interplanetary Star Alliance. Shes tried to stay out of politics, leaving that to her charismatic statesman father, Ernst. Despite her best efforts to remain neutral, she gets caught in the crackdown of a protest-turned-riot. Then Ernst delivers a robotic speech in support of the Alliances tyrannical leader and goes missing.
With the Alliances secret police hot on her heels, Bryn finally locates her father in the research labs on Alpha, only to find that a mind-control device has been implanted in his brain. Searching for a way to disable the device, she discovers the records of a remote, almost-forgotten planet where telepathic powers have been developed to an extraordinary degree Darkover, a Lost Colony world circling a dim red star far out on the galactic rim. In the desperate hope that natural telepathy can disable the mechanical device and free her fathers mind, she hustles him onboard a smugglers ship. When they try to land on Darkover, however, powerful winds knock their shuttle off-course, and it crashes in a rugged, glaciated mountain range. As the shuttle spins out of control, Bryn cries out for help
and someone answers her telepathic plea.
Darkover poses its own dangers, from ice avalanches to bandits to gigantic carnivorous birds. Moreover, the planet has a complicated, often contentious history with Terra. When the Terrans rediscovered Darkover after millennia of isolation, the aristocratic Comyn struggled to maintain their unique culture, often at a terrible price. Using their extraordinary psychic abilities called laran, they forced the Terrans to honor Darkovers independence. The vicious interstellar wars waged by the Star Alliance eventually forced the Terrans to withdraw. Two generations later, smugglers, pirates, and rebels still use Darkover as a hidden base, threatening to drag the Comyn into their own battles. So far, Darkovers leaders have managed to avoid becoming a battleground for a larger conflict. Now Bryn and her father threaten to break that precarious isolation.
To make matters worse, the mind-control device seems to be tightening its hold over Ernst, the Darkovans have their own agenda, and Bryns newly awakened psychic powers just might turn out to be lethal.
Can Bryn convince Darkovers telepaths to help, when they are deeply suspicious of Terrans and would rather remain forgotten? What are these strange new powers shes developing? And can she restore Ernsts mind before the Alliance enforcers track them down?
Genre: Fantasy
With the Alliances secret police hot on her heels, Bryn finally locates her father in the research labs on Alpha, only to find that a mind-control device has been implanted in his brain. Searching for a way to disable the device, she discovers the records of a remote, almost-forgotten planet where telepathic powers have been developed to an extraordinary degree Darkover, a Lost Colony world circling a dim red star far out on the galactic rim. In the desperate hope that natural telepathy can disable the mechanical device and free her fathers mind, she hustles him onboard a smugglers ship. When they try to land on Darkover, however, powerful winds knock their shuttle off-course, and it crashes in a rugged, glaciated mountain range. As the shuttle spins out of control, Bryn cries out for help
and someone answers her telepathic plea.
Darkover poses its own dangers, from ice avalanches to bandits to gigantic carnivorous birds. Moreover, the planet has a complicated, often contentious history with Terra. When the Terrans rediscovered Darkover after millennia of isolation, the aristocratic Comyn struggled to maintain their unique culture, often at a terrible price. Using their extraordinary psychic abilities called laran, they forced the Terrans to honor Darkovers independence. The vicious interstellar wars waged by the Star Alliance eventually forced the Terrans to withdraw. Two generations later, smugglers, pirates, and rebels still use Darkover as a hidden base, threatening to drag the Comyn into their own battles. So far, Darkovers leaders have managed to avoid becoming a battleground for a larger conflict. Now Bryn and her father threaten to break that precarious isolation.
To make matters worse, the mind-control device seems to be tightening its hold over Ernst, the Darkovans have their own agenda, and Bryns newly awakened psychic powers just might turn out to be lethal.
Can Bryn convince Darkovers telepaths to help, when they are deeply suspicious of Terrans and would rather remain forgotten? What are these strange new powers shes developing? And can she restore Ernsts mind before the Alliance enforcers track them down?
Genre: Fantasy
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Used availability for Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Laran Gambit