Two to Conquer, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
A scoundrel makes good. Twice.
(Review posted 4 Jul 2006 22:30:14)

See some of our other book notes for general comments about the Darkover novels. This is another bit of escapism (in the good sense), with more insights into Darkover society and history, more interesting characters, and (in this particular book) lots of male character development.

Specifically, we get to see how a particularly misogynist jerk got to be that way and how he gets his comeuppance and reforms (although it's all much more nuanced than that), and we get to see it twice from slightly different perspectives because it also happens to his almost-identical double that his father magically (okay, psionically) summons out of imprisonment on Earth for complex political reasons.

The psychology is simultaneously deep and shallow, in that the reasons that people are messed up inside are interesting and convincing, and the thoroughness with which they become good people when the messes are cleaned up is perhaps unrealistically complete. But lots of SF and fantasy, and fiction in general, is this way, for more or less obvious reasons; both because it's comforting to read, and because we need positive examples, even if we don't expect real life to measure up to them.