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I read this years ago, maybe the year it was published (1980). The thing is I didn't recall much about the book...at all. I was in a period of upheaval about then (not an unusual situation in my past as it happens) so I sort of "lost" the book I suppose.So, that said I have been meaning for some time to go back and pick it up. It was a rewarding experience. The plot if described may sound like a version of one you've seen before. That could be misleading however as the twist on it is at least so...
"Conquest over self was the finest of victories."(467) It pains me that this book is languishing in undeserved obscurity. Lord Valentine's Castle follows the journey of Valentine, devoid of any semblance of identity and perhaps irretrievably deprived of indescribably defining memories, living a wanderer’s life, joining a band of jugglers, learning the trade in the only way it was meant to be learned, by heart and soul, and comes to the realization that he has fallen from the highest possible
"You may not pass!" the ugly, stupid guards thundered."Huh. Yikes. I really need to get by you, guys," Valentine said.The guards considered this briefly. "Well, you may not!" they again thundered, just as stupidly and uglily.Valentine had a momentary crisis of faith. He doubted himself. How could he ascend to his rightful throne on Castle Mount (thirty miles tall, home to the Fifty Cities, but plausible because the planet of Majipoor is enormous but very low-density, you see, so the gravity is j...
I know this is supposed to be one of the classics of modern SiFi but I just could not get into the book. The story seemed to drag and never pick up for me. Not recommended
Lord Valentines Castle, Robert Silverberg’s brilliant 1980 publication that won the Locus Award and was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel is a superb mix of fantasy and science fiction.Beginning with a seemingly obvious theatrical irony, Silverberg invites his reader along for a very entertaining visit to his world creation – Majipoor.Aside from an engaging and well-written conflict involving the amnesiac Valentine regaining his past, Silverberg’s Majipoor is the real protagonist –the
Another book I've read several times. The whole series is good, but this book is my favorite in the series (and it is the first). Valentine wakes up as a circus performer traveling through an interesting world (set in an alternate world, not earth) but stricken with amnesia. Overtime he comes to realize that he is actually the ruler of this kingdom, but he has been driven from power by villians and has to find his way back.
Two questions, the answers to which I find unfathomable, dominate my thinking about this terrible book:1) How can Robert Silverberg, an interesting and occasionally excellent writer of countless science fiction and fantasy novels, sometime prose artist of vivid skill and imagination and creator of memorable, generally avaricious or morally dubious characters, write and publish such a childish, asinine piece of vacuous drivel as this book?2) How in the name of Bilbo Baggins and Gully Foyle did it...
"Valentine, a wanderer who knows nothing except his name, finds himself on the fringes of a great city, and joins a troupe of jugglers and acrobats; gradually, he remembers that he is the Coronal Valentine, executive ruler of the vast world of Majipoor, and all its peoples, human and otherwise..."This book may be 35 years old, but the political issues that it deals with still resonate strongly today. Majipoor is a very multicultural world, supporting many different races, including a persecuted
3.5 stars, audio versionORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.Valentine has been wandering the planet of Majipoor for a couple of years, but has almost no memory of where he’s been or what his life was like before. When he discovers that he has a talent for juggling and joins a troop of entertainers, he becomes more connected to his world and aware that something is wrong with him. After experiencing some “sendings” in dreams and hearing about the dreams of others, he begins to realize that he...
A grand and imaginative adventure on an alien planet. Our prototypical hero has been transplanted from his rightful throne, and he must rise from rags to power through the sheer will contained in his magical dream-enhancing powers and his innate juggling ability. He will gather a band of weird followers, and inspire all those around him with his glorious destiny. If this sounds corny, it is. Silverberg has produced some questionable literary material in his time, but this is good, relatively cle...
A peculiar book, since no matter how bored or frustrated I was with the infuriating characters and slogging pace, I still wanted to finish it. And I did, to my disappointment Trite and more or less predictable, the book is really no more than a tour of Majipoor Silverberg's made-up planet of far-away pseudo-magic and leftover bits of science. There is some cleverness and creativity, but creating an unproven fantasy ecosystem is nothing new. Majipoor brings a few tasty tidbits to the table, but a...
4.0 to 4.5 stars. I really debated whether to give this book 4 or 5 stars. The world of Majipoor created by Robert Silverberg is very well thought out. It is both complex enough to provide an endless supply of stories and yet defined enough in this first book to give you an excellent understanding of how it is governed and the composition of the world. I am a big fan of world-building so my favorite books usually have that as a component (Scott Lynch's Gentlemen Bastards, China Mieville's New Cr...
This is a wonderful pulp scifi novel done in a very literate style. I think I was just in the right mood for its innocent epic hero quest storyline, but let me tell you, so many books long to attempt even a tenth of what this book accomplishes. It covers so many emotions and so many of what Joseph Campbell refers to in Hero of a Thousand Faces, and it does so in a manner that effortlessly goes back and forth between chilling and lightheartedness that it left me aghast. The book centers on a lost...
i first read this when i was less than half my current age, re-read it many times over the next ten years, and still remember it fondly. i was immersed in the setting of majipoor, loved the vaguely implied science fiction framework around a fantasy tale, liked the feel of the character interactions, felt like i would recognize the strange flavors of the foods silverberg described. i bought a few extra copies to give to others, when i discovered that they needed to read it, too. i don't have any
Valentine finds himself outside the city of Pidruid one afternoon, completely bereft of memory, as the city makes ready for the arrival of Lord Valentine - one of the four great Powers of the mega-world of Majipoor. what's a man to do in such a situation? why, join a traveling band of jugglers, of course. travel a lot, meets lots of new people and see lots of new things, have a bunch of trippy dreams, and eventually reclaim a fabulous destiny. that's what i'd do too.i reread this due to a group
Meh. This book reads like an over-simplified version of David Eddings' Belgariad, which is no compliment. Silverberg has absolutely no concrete concept of quantity. He writes of an "agrarian society" which contains "a small village of perhaps eleven million people." Lord Valentine marches 2,000 miles with an army of 50,000 in less than a month. (And it wasn't until that army reached 30,000 or so that Lord Valentine decided he couldn't handle all its attendant administrivia and made his best frie...
Robert Silverberg is one of the greats of sci-fi literature, he is, to my mind, criminally underrated today, several Hugo and Nebula wins notwithstanding. I always start my Silverberg reviews along this line. If you have read any of those, this kind of intro must be getting old. So enough of that then!“And then, after walking all day through a golden haze of humid warmth that gathered about him like fine wet fleece, Valentine came to a great ridge of outcropping white stone overlooking the city
Robert Silverberg was a huge sensation in the 80s and his most famous works - outside of some exceptional short stories - were the Majipoor Chronicles, of which Lord Valentine's Castle is the first complete novel. These works may have dated but at the time they were part of a 70s-80s zeitgeist, which blended sci-fi and fantasy. Think of Jack Vance's Lyonesse and Dying Earth, and Gene Wolfe's Books of The Old Sun and New Sun series. Silverberg was the easiest of these writers to read and his foll...
This may have been the first Silverberg story I read. Almost certainly the first novel, and I think it's the best work of his that I've read (and a clear step above others in the series). I still have the paperback I bought around the time this first came out - despite the fact that I foolishly left it out, and some SOB apparently showed off by ripping it partly in half. I don't know what s/he learned. I learned never to leave books around people who can read, but are too foolish to want to. (No...
This review is for all three primary books in the Lord Valentine series. Reading the Valentine trilogy was a trip down nostalgia lane. I read the series in early high school and remembered it being one of my favorites. And honestly, i wasn’t disappointed.Book one, Lord Valentine’s Castle is easily the best. It has such a delightful vibrant aura to it. The tone is just right for discovering a strange new world with new species. It’s also one of the earliest blends of fantasy with science fiction,...