I'm an admirer of Darkover. This remote, chilly world under a blood-red sun … is a marvellous creation—and though the same characters, or their parents or children, wind in and out of the books and though there is a prevalent stock theme (the collision of Darkovan and Terran, the latter discovering strange affinities) yet the various books of the cycle aren't formulaic or mere lead-ons from one to the others; all exist solidly and independently, some for better, some for worse. (p. 92)

[Darkover Landfall and The Spell Sword are], in the chronology of Darkover, the first two novels—though, since Bradley dips into the Darkovan mythos when and where she pleases, not the first two to be written by any means. The cover calls them "science fantasy", with suggestions of Sword & Sorcery, and for a long time I confess I was put off entering Darkover by the aura...