Sword and Sorceress III by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Ms Bradley was editing the final Sword and Sorceress manuscript up until the week of her death in September of 1999. She also maintained a large family of writers at her home in Berkeley. Mercedes Lackey was just one of many authors who first appeared in the anthologies.

Although she particularly encouraged young female authors, she was not averse to including male authors in her anthologies. As a result, the novel remained unpublished, and Bradley demanded the cessation of all Darkover fan fiction.īradley was also the editor of the long-running Sword and Sorceress anthology series, which encouraged submissions of fantasy stories featuring original and non-traditional heroines from young and upcoming authors. Bradley wrote many Darkover novels by herself, but in her later years collaborated with other authors for publication her literary collaborators have continued the series since her death.īradley took an active role in science-fiction and fantasy fandom, promoting interaction with professional authors and publishers and making several important contributions to the subculture.įor many years, Bradley actively encouraged Darkover fan fiction and reprinted some of it in commercial Darkover anthologies, continuing to encourage submissions from unpublished authors, but this ended after a dispute with a fan over an unpublished Darkover novel of Bradley's that had similarities to some of the fan's stories. The Darkover milieu may be considered as either fantasy with science fiction overtones or as science fiction with fantasy overtones, as Darkover is a lost earth colony where psi powers developed to an unusual degree. Her 1958 story The Planet Savers introduced the planet of Darkover, which became the setting of a popular series by Bradley and other authors. Though relatively tame by today's standards, they were considered pornographic when published, and for a long time she refused to disclose the titles she wrote under these pseudonyms. For example, I Am a Lesbian was published in 1962.

When she was a child, Bradley stated that she enjoyed reading adventure fantasy authors such as Henry Kuttner, Edmond Hamilton, and Leigh Brackett, especially when they wrote about 'the glint of strange suns on worlds that never were and never would be.' Her first novel and much of her subsequent work show their influence strongly.Įarly in her career, writing as Morgan Ives, Miriam Gardner, John Dexter, and Lee Chapman, Marion Zimmer Bradley produced several works outside the speculative fiction genre, including some gay and lesbian pulp fiction novels. Marion Eleanor Zimmer Bradley was an American author of fantasy novels such as The Mists of Avalon and the Darkover series, often with a feminist outlook.īradley's first published novel-length work was Falcons of Narabedla, first published in the May 1957 issue of Other Worlds.

Sword and Sorceress III by Marion Zimmer Bradley