Although strong female central characters are perhaps even more unusual in science fiction as they are in mainstream fiction, both Jaelle (Jaelle n'ha Mellora) and Magda (Magdalena Lome, in Darkovan "Margali") are spunky, self-sufficient, warm, engaging, resourceful, and active. They share the dual DarkoveranTerran nature of many Bradley heroines—part Terran and part Darkovan, as well as the same job in Terran Intelligence helping build understanding between the two societies. Both are in a sense displaced—Magda to Darkover, and Jaelle , kidnaped as a child to the Dry Towns and rescued by the Guild House, from her Alton heritage. After their initial meeting, when Magda invokes the Renunciate oath which later sends her to the Guild House, both women seek a way of accommodating their emerging identities to the circumscribed worlds in which they find themselves, working for the Terrans and even marrying, each in her...