Paola Di
asked
Deborah J. Ross:
Will there be any more Darkover novels after Arilinn (which I loved!)?
Deborah J. Ross
First of all, thank you so much for letting me know you enjoyed ARILINN. Music to an author's ears!
To answer your question, I regret to say that the MZB Literary Works Trust, which owns the copyright to Darkover, has decided to stop publishing new works, including anthologies and novels. ARILINN will be the last Darkover novel. I'll be negotiating with the Trust to post out-takes from the stories I worked on in my newsletter. (Sorry, I can't post a sign up link here, but search for my website or blog and you'll find a link.)
Here's the announcement from the MZB Literary Works Trust: en MZB died in September 1999, she had two trusts. One trust was the equivalent of her will and was wound up within a couple of years, leaving the Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust (obviously Marion and her lawyer never anticipated having to fit that name into a computer form). The purpose of that Trust was to hold MZB's copyrights and pay out royalties owed to collaborators and past anthology contributors. It was never intended to become a publisher in its own right.
That changed when the company publishing the Sword and Sorceress anthologies went bankrupt. The trust got the rights back and continued the series. As long as we were doing it, we added more Darkover anthologies. We also reprinted most of MZB's backlist. This experience turned out to be useful when Penguin unexpectedly decided not to publish the last two Darkover novels it had under contract. The trust published THE LARAN GAMBIT and ARILINN. Someone recently asked if there were any more Darkover novels after ARILINN. There are not; we have now published everything MZB ever talked about writing. After we hit the button to publish the trade paperback of ARILINN on November 11th, [2025], we are finally done.
We also discovered in April that our remaining staff have reached the age when we are subject to sudden and unexpected hospitalization, and none of us wants to try to run a publishing company from a rehab facility.
To answer your question, I regret to say that the MZB Literary Works Trust, which owns the copyright to Darkover, has decided to stop publishing new works, including anthologies and novels. ARILINN will be the last Darkover novel. I'll be negotiating with the Trust to post out-takes from the stories I worked on in my newsletter. (Sorry, I can't post a sign up link here, but search for my website or blog and you'll find a link.)
Here's the announcement from the MZB Literary Works Trust: en MZB died in September 1999, she had two trusts. One trust was the equivalent of her will and was wound up within a couple of years, leaving the Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust (obviously Marion and her lawyer never anticipated having to fit that name into a computer form). The purpose of that Trust was to hold MZB's copyrights and pay out royalties owed to collaborators and past anthology contributors. It was never intended to become a publisher in its own right.
That changed when the company publishing the Sword and Sorceress anthologies went bankrupt. The trust got the rights back and continued the series. As long as we were doing it, we added more Darkover anthologies. We also reprinted most of MZB's backlist. This experience turned out to be useful when Penguin unexpectedly decided not to publish the last two Darkover novels it had under contract. The trust published THE LARAN GAMBIT and ARILINN. Someone recently asked if there were any more Darkover novels after ARILINN. There are not; we have now published everything MZB ever talked about writing. After we hit the button to publish the trade paperback of ARILINN on November 11th, [2025], we are finally done.
We also discovered in April that our remaining staff have reached the age when we are subject to sudden and unexpected hospitalization, and none of us wants to try to run a publishing company from a rehab facility.
More Answered Questions
Jenn Cunningham
asked
Deborah J. Ross:
I was re-reading some of the Darkover anthologies this past week and one of them had the answer, the story where she goes off-world with one of the more rebellious Renunciate novitiates. Her daughter Shaya (named no doubt in honor of Jaelle) was lost with the rest of the Forbidden Tower folk in the massacre. I would have to double check, but The Bloody Sun with Jeff Kirwin Jr. (Damon Aillard-Alton? Alton-Aillard?)
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