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Marion Zimmer Bradley
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Exile's Song: A Novel of Darkover Paperback – Jan. 1 1997

by Marion Zimmer Bradley (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 272 ratings
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Haunted by childhood memories of a strange silver man and a woman in flames, Margaret Alton returns to Darkover, the planet of her birth, where her memories lead her into a trap set centuries before her birth. Reprint.
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  1. Book 7 of 11
    Darkover
  2. Print length
    496 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    Daw Books
  5. Publication date
    Jan. 1 1997
  6. Dimensions
    11.43 x 3.81 x 17.78 cm
  7. ISBN-10
    0886777348
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0886777340
  9. See all details
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Daw Books; Reprint edition (Jan. 1 1997)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 496 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0886777348
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0886777340
  • Item weight ‏ : ‎ 249 g
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 11.43 x 3.81 x 17.78 cm
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 272 ratings

About the author

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Marion Zimmer Bradley

Marion Zimmer Bradley

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Marion Zimmer was born in Albany, NY, on June 3, 1930, and married Robert Alden Bradley in 1949. Mrs. Bradley received her B.A. in 1964 from Hardin Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, then did graduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1965-67.

She was a science fiction/fantasy fan from her middle teens, but wrote only for school magazines and fanzines until 1952, when she sold her first professional short story to VORTEX SCIENCE FICTION. She wrote everything from science fiction to Gothics, but is probably best known for her Darkover novels.

In addition to her novels, Mrs. Bradley edited many magazines, amateur and professional, including Marion Zimmer Bradley's FANTASY Magazine, which she started in 1988. She also edited an annual anthology called SWORD AND SORCERESS for DAW Books.

Over the years she turned more to fantasy; THE HOUSE BETWEEN THE WORLDS was "fantasy undiluted." She wrote a best-selling novel of the women in the Arthurian legends--Morgan Le Fay, the Lady of the Lake, and others--entitled MISTS OF AVALON, and she also wrote THE FIREBRAND, a novel about the women of the Trojan War. Her historical fantasy novels, THE FOREST HOUSE and LADY OF AVALON are prequels to MISTS OF AVALON.

She died in Berkeley, California on September 25, 1999, four days after suffering a major heart attack. She was survived by her brother, Leslie Zimmer; her sons, David Bradley and Mark Greyland; her daughter, Moira Greyland; and her grandchildren.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
272 global ratings

Top reviews from Canada

Marc St Louis
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
Reviewed in Canada on December 24, 2018
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Very well written. Captivating and exciting. An excellent example of a Darkover story and recommended to anyone. Looking forward to reading the next one
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Amazon Customer kathryn rhodenizer
5.0 out of 5 stars Loving the Darkover Series
Reviewed in Canada on April 23, 2014
I love this Darkover Series! I recently found this series and I love it. With her characters living on Darkover and not until many generations later the residents find out they are descendants of earth. The original settlers' ship crashed and they had make do with what they had and the different factions separated and evolved or should I say devolved to a certain state. It is a wonderful series. I'm working on collecting the whole series.
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KAS2609@aol.com
4.0 out of 5 stars a great first book read
Reviewed in Canada on December 30, 2000
this is the first book of the darkover series i have read and i found it to be great. i read it in a day or so and true the plot does beg to be enhanced but i found the idea of this strong willed heiress who takes nothing in this male dominated societ intriguing. too many of the other people who read this got hung up on geneology and such things from the other book and simply couldn't enjoy the book. the only thing that troubled me was references to other,earlier books but i know that was to be expected. also people say that the "confrintation" in the middle of the book led to an aimless anticlimax which is completely untrue. you see the heroine struggle to find balance and try not to kill anyone with her "gifts" and the end made me run out for the next book. i admit that this is not a book for hardcore darkover fans but a very good book for someone new to the series.
One person found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars The Future unfurled
Reviewed in Canada on April 5, 2002
All though I do agree with the above author about the unconsistant genealogies in her series(I have encountered some of that in Mists of Avalon), focusing on that one fault ruins the impact and the refrencing of this book. the characters are there, before your eyes, acting out a life that you have always longed for while trying to avoid. Anyone who has had destiny put them in a maddening and unsuspected situation can relate to the main characters Margaret Alton and Mikhial Hastur/Lanart. I own this book and I can help but to read it over and over again because MZB shares JK Rowlings talent of holding little things in the book taht even the most careful of readers can't notice untill the fourth reading. This tale of our future is incredible and anyone even considering reading it should go ahead because it is anything but a waste of time.
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Keri
5.0 out of 5 stars A return to the great Darkover books
Reviewed in Canada on January 27, 2001
After the lackluster Rediscovery this book restored my confidence in MZB as a writer. As soon as I finished this book I wanted the next one in this trilogy within a series.
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William Sugarman
4.0 out of 5 stars A good history lesson of Darkover
Reviewed in Canada on March 13, 1998
For those who have heard of Marion Zimmer Bradley's tales of the planet of the bloody sun, this would be a good book to start with. It gives a synopsis of sorts of a great many of the previous books in the series, and while it's no substitute for those books, you'll at least have an idea of what's gone on in all those previous books.
The plot, I have to admit, is something straight out of the pulp fiction school, and sounds like something Bradley has done before - but that doesn't detract from the excellent quality of the writing, something that's been sorely lacking in the more recent Darkover novels. Still, this novel made me want to go back and reread even those. Who knows - maybe I'll change my mind about them after reading this one.
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T. Young
3.0 out of 5 stars Okay..but not as 'good as it gets'....
Reviewed in Canada on June 13, 2000
Marion Zimmer Bradley is a wonderful author, but I'm sorry to say that she doesn't show the story development that she usually has. Her character development is still great, but not good enough for 4 or 5 stars.
The story of Margaret Alton is quite interesting. She goes to the planet of her birth and learns that she is a telepath with the "Alton Gift," among other gifts. The back-of-the-book-synopsis says that there's a 'trap that was set for her centuries before her birth,' and that was what interested me in the book. But the 'trap' is the gift. She learns that she has these things about half-way through the book, and then you are looking forward to this 'trap,' but that is the trap.
The characters are neat, but as for the story, it is weaker than it could have been. Nice try Ms Bradley...I'm still looking forward to other Darkover Novels (I've heard that this one isn't the best one of the bunch...)
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Top reviews from other countries

Ewa B.
5.0 out of 5 stars Best of the series
Reviewed in the United States on April 17, 2024
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Keep returning to it
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Gail Lever
5.0 out of 5 stars A great story from Darkover
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 4, 2022
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This is a story of Margaret Alton, Daughter of Lew Alton, one of my favourite characters in Darkover (along with Regis Hastur ) returning to Darkover after she left when she was a young child. I could understand that Margaret would be a very independent woman, as she was brought up on Terranan planets, I was frequently annoyed with her, she seemed to get angry so easily. Further reading explained why she was like she was, although I don't think she would ever be an "easy " person to get along with, rather prickly. Such a good read, I loved it although Dom Gabriel and Javanne his wife are rather pantomine villains.
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Johann Mitchell
5.0 out of 5 stars The Start of a Story
Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2014
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The Darkover books were written specifically so that you could pick them up and read them in any order. That said, the books are based on the history of a specific fictional planet, so there actually is a time sequence, and characters may show up as main characters in one book and as a peripheral character in another book.

This is a good beginning of the story of Marguerida Alton, who was born on Darkover, but taken away when she was quite young. In the back story, she grew up on another planet, and lead a fairly normal life, until the university she attends sent her to Darkover to collect folk songs.

That's where the book starts.

She finds Darkover both familiar and strange. That's not surprising. What is surprising is that everyone she meets there treats her as nobility. Even more surprising, she turns out to be an heiress, and she's not so sure she actually likes that, because her inheritance comes with responsibilities and restrictions.

This a great book and the start of a great series that features very real people in stressful situations. It's one of my favorites, but so is anything Marion wrote about Darkover.
6 people found this helpful
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Kian2002
5.0 out of 5 stars Well written and a good addition to the Darkover series
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 22, 2010
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One of the best of the post Marion Zimmer Bradley books in the Darkover series, and a fantastic telling of Comyn and their powers.
One person found this helpful
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Queen Talk Talk
4.0 out of 5 stars Placeholder book?
Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2022
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New characters are introduced as we catch up with some older ones. The plot is tame - mostly just politics.
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