The Spell Sword by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Here is another totally-my-thing, 70s fantasy. The Spell Sword is like a sword and sorcery tale with a strong romantic element. Andrew Carr meets his love interest, Callista, through a fortune teller on a far away planet. Callista’s home planet is Darkover, eponymous with the world and series where this novel takes place. Epic.

In fact, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover series comprises of over 29 books which don’t need to be read in any particular order. For those of you who don’t know, Bradley also wrote The Mists of Avalon and the other volumes of that series. She's a boss.

The Spell Sword isn’t perfect, in especial regard to the technicalities of story telling. However it's immersive and fills the role of a great fantasy story. It just doesn’t make you think too much and if you try to think about the story too much, you’ll indubitably question it’s plausibility. All the while we could be instead questioning the plausibility of our own life stories, and respond by picking up another fantasy novel.