Clingfire (Marion Zimmer Bradley) Books in Order

Clingfire is a Darkover sequence set far before the better-known later stories of Terran contact and court politics. Deborah J. Ross builds on Marion Zimmer Bradley's world by returning to the Ages of Chaos, when psychic power is both an everyday fact of life and a weapon capable of destroying whole communities.

This is Darkover at war with itself.

The books begin with The Fall of Neskaya, where the Tower system is under pressure from conflict, ambition, and the growing dependence on matrix weapons. Zandru's Forge follows King Carolin Hastur and Keeper Varzil Ridenow as they try to find a way out of endless warfare. In A Flame in Hali, the danger becomes more immediate as old injuries, political rivalry, and vengeance threaten every attempt at peace.

The central tension is not simply whether the heroes can win. It is whether they can stop using the same tools that have made the world so dangerous. Laran and matrix work offer extraordinary reach, but that reach makes every moral compromise larger. Characters must decide what they owe their houses, their friends, and people they may never meet.

Power without restraint is the real enemy.

Readers who like historical fantasy, Tower lore, fraught friendships, and conflicts with no easy clean answer should start with The Fall of Neskaya. This page places the trilogy within the wider Darkover history and helps clarify how Ross's books extend the setting Bradley created.