The Other Side of the Mirror
| Zine | |
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| Title: | The Other Side of the Mirror |
| Publisher: | |
| Editor: | |
| Author(s): | Patricia Floss |
| Cover Artist(s): | |
| Illustrator(s): | |
| Date(s): | July 1980 |
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| Fandom: | Darkover |
| Language: | English |
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| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Other Side of the Mirror is a gen Darkover 38-page novel by Patricia Floss.
This story is continued by Floss in The Dragon and the Sparrow.
Becoming "Real"
In 1987, this story was professionally published for profit by DAW Books, with an editorial note from Marion Zimmer Bradley declaring it the "official" version of events between Bradley's books The Heritage of Hastur and Sharra's Exile.
In her introduction to the second Darkover anthology, Bradley wrote that she "regarded Patty's story as so much "official" Darkover that when I came to write Sharra's Exile I found that I was taking it for granted that the events in "Mirror" had actually happened between Heritage of Hastur and Sharra's Exile."[1]
In other words, this is a fanfic that was declared canon by the original creator.
Sample Interior
Reactions and Reviews
The 1980 Zine
The 1987 Anthology Story
[2010]:The title story by Patricia Floss is one that Marion Zimmer Bradley not only admired, but she “decided that Pat’s version was henceforth to be considered the ‘official’ version of events on Darkover between the end of Heritage of Hastur and the beginning of [Sharra’s] Exile." Indeed, back in the second Darkover anthology, MZB expressed regret there was no room for the 30,000 word story--it would have taken up too much of the book. In this fourth anthology she found a way to justify including it by making this a collection of primarily novella-length stories. Besides the title story this included the novella “Blood Hunt” by Linda Frankel and Paula Crunk, as well as three related stories by MZB herself dealing with the Ardais family, Rohana and Dyan.
[...]
I also did like the title story, centering on Marius Montray-Lanart, Lew Alton’s younger brother--it does feel very canonical--like something MZB could have written. Although that might be part of the problem I’m having with these anthologies. Since they were first published and I first read them, I discovered real fan fiction. And the best of it is subversive, going into territory the original author would never have touched, representing the road not taken. In comparison the published fan fiction of the authorized Darkover anthologies are tame. [2]
[2011]: I particularly liked the first [story in the book] that Bradley decided was gospel, even though fan-written. [3]
[2012]: The best [story in the professionally published anthology] is probably the fan-written "The Other Side of the Mirror," which focuses on Marius Alton, Lew Alton's younger brother and Kennard Alton's younger legitimate son, who was generally neglected by his family and his author both; MZB said somewhere that she liked this story so much she adopted it as her Marius backstory for the period between The Heritage of Hastur and Sharra's Exile. [4]
[2018]: This collection, the second of four between two Darkover novels and while MZB was, presumably, working out co-author and ghostwriting arrangements with other authors to continue her work on this and other series due to her health problems, consists of only 5 stories, three long work and 2 much shorter pieces. They go chronologically backward in time (in the series timeline), and the main reason for the collection, evidently, was to get "The Other Side of the Mirror" before a wider reading public (it had been previously published in the Darkover fanzine). The title story is the best of the lot; it tells the story of Marius Alton during the years of Lew Alton's exile with the Sharra matrix offworld, the beginning of Marius's friendship with Rafe Scott, and eventually his decision to help the Terran Empire. Bradley gave the story her official imprimatur as "the" official chronicle of this part of the Sharra story, and it really is a fine work with only a few instances of problems with style (the writer, of course, was an amateur). [5]