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Bradley, M.Z.
THE BLOODY SUN [dkvr; rev.1979]
1979 revision of 1964 book
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GRADING:
Ace
1980
2nd
Paperback
Michael Whelan
$2.50
VG to VG+
ex-ChUSFA: stamp on first inside page, page 85. MORE INFO

Spine, sides reinforced with 2" non-yellowing library tape; extra stamp on top & bottom page blocks.

The Bloody Sun - the 1979 revision of a "Darkover" novel originally written in 1964. While I don't believe that all of Bradley's revisions of early "Darkover" books were successful, this one works very well. Bradley was at the top of her form in the mid/late Seventies, with the "Darkover" series at its most popular - The Forbidden Tower from 1977 had been a Hugo nominee for "best novel."

To Jeff Kerwin the distant planet he remembered only as a childhood dream was home. But when years of planning finally brought him back to Darkover, he found that there was no peace for him here - not for someone with both the red hair of a Com'yn lord and the bastard strains of Terrani in his blood; not for someone who carried a Darkovan matrix jewel without knowing where it came from; not for someone who managed to win the trust of the sacred Keepers and the secrets of the Tower - only to be accused of betraying them to his Terran masters...

[Quoting excerpts from an introduction to a hardcover reprint of this book]: (Jim Baen) "asked if I had ever wanted to rewrite any of the early books, the way I would have done them without length restrictions and with the additional freedom in matters social and sexual. Before we left the lunch table... I had agreed to rewrite The Bloody Sun for him. / ... in essence, a totally different book. The emphasis is different; not on the exile who returns to his own people, but upon a man who becomes a pivotal focus of the changes occurring in his society. / I did not try to return to my original concept where Jeff was forced to face his own sexual taboos; I had handled that one already... But I did add characters, events, and new ideas. I personally think, now, that it makes an adequate bridge between Forbidden Tower and The Heritage of Hastur."

For the 1979 first Revised edition, Ace commissioned a new, 34 page story featuring Free Amazon Kindra n'ha Mhari: "To Keep the Oath" (which is included in reprints of that edition, but not in British reprints or omnibus appearances of the revised novel.) If you hadn't guessed, the wonderful cover by Michael Whelan is a self-portrait.