A Heat Wave in the Hellers: and Other Tales of Darkover

In 1985 Deborah J. Ross sold her first Darkover short story to Marion Zimmer Bradleys Free Amazons of Darkover. Midwife relates the adventures of a young woman who inadvertently becomes the surrogate mother of a banshee chick -- a smelly sightless carnivorous bird. Bradley featured Rosss short stories -- dramatic bittersweet romantic and humorous -- in subsequent anthologies and often cited Rosss turnabout-twist story The Death of Brendon Ensolare as one of her favorites. Eventually the two collaborated on novel-length works set in the world of the Bloody Sun. Following Bradleys death in 1999 Ross has continued the series as well as editing six more Darkover anthologies. For the first time here are all of Rosss Darkover short stories some of them previously unpublished now collected in one volume....A pair of City Guards cadets invent an imaginary recruit in order to avoid their chores and then must face the consequences... In the Ages of Chaos a young wizard must rely on his uncertain powers to survive a haunted Tower... When the new lord of a captured castle is found murdered the all-too-obvious suspect is an Aldaran assassin... Only the legendary Keeper could save her circle under the onslaught of forbidden weapons but the results would cripple generations of women to come...and in the title story written as a birthday gift Ross sends Marion Zimmer Bradley herself to Darkover to solve a crisis in A Heat Wave in the Hellers...