The Alton Gift

Marion Zimmer Bradley · Deborah J. Ross

Apr 2021 · RB Media · Narrated by Max Bellmore

About this audiobook

The long-awaited continuation to Marion Zimmer Bradley's popular science fiction Darkover saga

After generations of struggle to protect the unique native culture of Darkover from the ambitions of the ruthless Terran Federation, the Terrans have finally been forced to abandon Darkover due to interstellar civil war.

As Lew Alton—returned home to the world of his birth after decades spent in exile as the Darkovan representative to the Terran Senate—wrestles with the dark shadows from his past, his daughter Marguerida's psychic Gifts warn her of impending danger. But danger to whom? Her husband Mikhail, as powerful head of the Hastur Doman is her most obvious worry, for many would stand to gain from his demise.

Meanwhile, unknown to Marguerida, her son, Domenic, searches for his place in a world of shifting loyalties, torn by love for two very different women, and troubled by his destiny as the heir to Hastur.

But while Darkover's powerful rulers face their personal demons, desperate refugees flood the streets of Thendara, Darkover's capital city, for in the mountains an ancient menace is once again on the rise—a power against which neither sword nor the psychic sorcery of Darkover can prevail.

About the author

Marion Zimmer Bradley is a science-fiction and fantasy writer, novelist, and editor. She was born in Albany, New York on June 3, 1930. Bradley attended the New York State College for Teachers from 1946 to 1948. She earned a B.A. from Hardin Simmons University in 1964. Bradley did graduate work at the University of California at Berkeley from 1965 to 1967. Bradley sold her first story to Fantastic Amazing Stories as part of an amateur fiction contest. She sold her first professional story to Vortex Science Fiction in 1952. Her novels include The Sword of Aldones and The Planet Savers. Both novels were set on Darkover, the setting for more than 20 subsequent Bradley novels. Bradley also wrote The Mists of Avalon, a reworking of the King Arthur legend with more emphasis on the female characters. She used the same approach with The Firebrand, which was based on The Iliad. In addition to writing more than 85 books, Bradley was the editor of an annual anthology for DAW Books, as well as the editor of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine. Bradley died in 1999.