The Heritage of Hastur

This is my first MZB novel, and I was reassured by a lot of the reviews I read that although this is book nine in the Darkover series, this was the one to start with. It did stand on its own, with a fairly self-contained story, and characters introduced as if it were a stand-alone novel. The world building is also quite exceptional and the plot complex and interesting. Yet I didn't feel that the sum of its parts added up to a satisfying whole. I chose this book because it is considered important in LGBTQ speculative fiction history in its portrayal of a gay main character in mainstream speculative literature. (I use "speculative" here because it's something of a cross between science fiction and fantasy). The book is good, but not as great as I was expecting, or hoping, it would be.

Come visit my blog for the full review...