is held against her will by a chieftain of the Dry Towns. Thus Bradley answered the criticisms that arose after the publication of Darkover Landfall. Critics of the earlier work called The Shattered Chain a feminist novel; Joanna Russ placed it on a list of feminist utopias. Racism Racism as a concept is unknown on Darkover, because there are no races. All Darkovans are fair-skinned and have blue or grey eyes, except a few: for example, Marguerida Alton, who is the granddaughter of a chieri, has golden eyes. Brown-eyed Terrans are casually said to have "animal eyes". This epithet is also applied to Lew Alton, who is Comyn, a member of the Alton clan, and a powerful telepath who possesses the Alton Gift. He has a Terran mother and his eyes are brown. Lew has a "problem with identity" that he never solves. In City of Sorcery, Cholanya Ares, a dark-skinned Terran woman (actually from Alpha Centauri), is asked more than once if her dark skin is the result of a disease. There is no overt racism; Darkovans are simply curious because they have never seen anyone like her before. Bradley handles this issue with sensitivity and at times, wry and ironic humor, having Cholayna's Darkovan friends (who are Renunciates) become outraged at the question. This theme overlaps with "Clash of Cultures" because some Darkovans express a dislike for Terrans without giving a reason other than they have "different ways". Clash of cultures Bradley says that the clash of cultures, Darkovan v. Terran, that she strengthened when rewriting The Sword of Aldones, was a "theme of all the early Darkover novels". According to Linda Leith, the opposition between the Terran and Darkovan civilizations is a theme of "nearly all" Darkover fiction. This opposition has the following pairs of contrary elements: These contrary elements, as indicated, place Terra to Darkover in a relation of the same type as maleness to femaleness. While there are "cross-overs in the fictions between the two columns", the general linking of Terra with the items in the first column and Darkover with the ones in the second enables the reader to "understand what lies behind some of Bradley's limitations as a writer". Neither society is presented as a utopia, Bradley seems confused about the value of each, and she "is unable to make up her mind whether it is desirable for Terran influence to triumph once