|
 Marion Zimmer Bradley
Introduction
I personally strongly dislike biographies as many people use them to obtain
what they call a "deep understanding" of the novels written by a given
author. I think this sort of psycho-analysis is boring and irrelevant. In fact
I want to describe Darkover as if this planet were real. Therefore, I
don't really care about Marion Zimmer Bradley's thoughts.
Of course, I think providing basic information about Marion Zimmer Bradley's
life can be useful for fans, but don't ask me to copy here a complete
biography. I have extracted some important dates in Marion's life from short
biographies available in a French book (sorry for the French reference
...), Stan Barets' Science Fictionnaire, and in Les voix de
l'espace foreword, written by Elisabeth Vonarburg (also in French).
Some important dates
- Marion Eleanor Zimmer was born the 3rd of June, 1930, in the East of the
USA.
- She began to write quite early and created a science fiction fanzine when
she was seventeen.
- She married Robert Bradley in 1947 (she divorced him in 1964).
- Her first published science fiction short stories appeared in 1953. They
are Keyhole and Women Only, published in Vortex science
fiction.
- The first Darkovan novel appeared
in 1958,
published in Amazing Science Fiction Stories: it is The planet savers.
- Marion published in 1983 her most famous work, The Mists of
Avalon, a wonderful rewrite of the Arthurian myth.
Marion now
For many people (including me), it is a pity that Marion spends now most of
her time working as an editor. She has published many anthologies of
science-fiction and fantasy short stories (12 Darkover anthologies and 10
"Sword and Sorceress" anthologies). This work is useful
has it allows the discovery of new authors, but as Marion explains it herself
in the introduction of the anthology called Domains of Darkover, their
contribution to Darkover history is not official except for
few of them.
The main reason that had reduced Marion's writing activities is her health. In
the past years, she had several strokes.
She works now on the Marion Zimmer Bradley's FANTASY Magazine, which
has a web page at the following URL:
http://www.mzbfm.com/
Anyway, she finds enough time to write Darkover novels, such as the recent
Exile's Song, published in May 1996 and The Shadow Matrix, published in
September 1997. The last Darkover novel to date is Traitor's Sun, published
in December 1998. It is the temporary end of the Margaret Alton's
subcycle. The last three novels were written with Adrienne Martine-Barnes (who
is not officially credited in Exile's Song). According to various rumors
(including very serious ones), a new Darkover novel is under work.
source file (Last modification: Wed Apr 21 17:21:45 1999)
|
