Lord Prestimion [Import] [Paperback]

Robert Silverberg (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: HarperPrism, NY (1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0002257092
• ISBN-13: 978-0002257091
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars For Majipoor hardcore only, July 5, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Lord Prestimion (Prestimion Trilogy) (Mass Market Paperback)

Actually, until I read this book I would have considered myself among the Majipoor hardcore. I've read and enjoyed all of the Majipoor books immensely.

This book however, was a major disappointment. It's really an extended travelogue of the major continent. Character development is given short-shrift, plot is one-dimensional, motivations are not explained, etc, etc. The publisher could have cut the book in half without losing any relevant content.

A book has to be really dreadful for me to start start skipping sections. It usually starts with me skipping a sentence or two, then a paragraph or two, then entire pages if the book is terrifically bad. With Lord Prestimion I was skipping the pages like there's no tomorrow.

On the other hand, if you enjoy reading about the strange and bizarre lands/plants/animals or Majipoor, this is your book. For me, the scenery should be the background to the story. Here, it's the whole story.

I would give this book a one-star review, except I have to reserve that dubious distinction for Robert Jordan's "Path of Daggers". At least there's no spanking, although there is a marriage proposal even though the two characters have only spent a whole hour face-to-face.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Just a travelogue..., November 18, 2000

By 

C. S. Junker "soul_survivor" (Burien, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lord Prestimion (Prestimion Trilogy) (Mass Market Paperback)

This sequel to "Sorcerers of Majipoor" has to rank as one of Silverberg's weakest efforts. "Sorcerers" was a simple enough story but it was reasonably compelling; however, in "Lord Prestimion" not much happens. The Coronal and his lieutenants traipse about the globe for several hundred pages unitl it's time to wrap things up. Even Silverberg's luminous prose can't make up for the fact that there isn't much of a story to be told.

Fundamentally, Majipoor makes no sense. The larger a planet, the less unified it would be and the more unstable the politics. On Majipoor, we are asked to believe, not only is there one language and culture but the same political system has existed without change for thousands of years. With a sufficiently vigorous plot, one can overlook this and suspend one's disbelief, but there's not enough going on here to distract you from the man behind the curtain (so to speak).

Jack Vance's Big Planet, by contrast, depicts a giant-size world as it probably would be --- a thousand contentious cultures, no central political control of any kind, technology limited only by the lack of metals. Surely Silverberg is familiar with this venerable work (in many ways, one of Vance's best); but Majipoor is fantasy, not SF. Still, we know Silverberg can do much better.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars YAWN... Very boring.. the worst of the series thus far., September 7, 2004

By 

C. T. Hunter "chips_books" (Gainesville, FL United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lord Prestimion (Prestimion Trilogy) (Mass Market Paperback)

Well, even though this book was quite long, not much actually happened in it. The storyline at the end of this one hasn't really changed much at all since the last book. Basically this whole novel was centered around the Procurator of Nimoya's escape from Prestimion and the Coronal's efforts to locate him.. The spreading madness on Majipoor was emphasized but nothing was ever done about it be Prestimion.. Most of the book was taken up by descriptions of the landscape and fauna of the places that Prestimion journeyed through.. Nothing really exciting or surprising happened at all. Yawn.. Wouldn't reccomend this one. I guess I'll go ahead and read the last of the series since I've already come this far, but I don't really have high hopes for it..