Customer Reviews

Lord Prestimion (Prestimion Trilogy)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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..

Lord Prestimion saves the world with a deus ex machina in the previous book, "Sorcerers of Majipoor". Oops. It didn't work. Now he has to spend another 400 pages trying to clean up the mess.

Well written, I suppose, but after six books of Majipoor it's time for Silverberg to do something new.

I have read all of the Majipoor books, which are wonderful but this book is good but the ending seemed "too easy". The book before Lord Prestimion was great. Basically this book deals with the aftermath of a war and the consequences and tries to bring closure.

If you have read the other books in the series, give this one a try. Could have been better but still pretty good.

For all its shortcomings, I still found this an enjoyable read. After thinking about why I found Lord Prestimion not as satisfying as the previous novels, I feel my frustration originates from Mr Silverberg's giving us a flawed character in Prestimion. Here is a man who fought a war and then chose to remove the memory of that war from every mind on the planet. His rationale? Well, Majipoor has never had a war before. This is Prestimion's first poor value judgement from the last novel.

Now, in this new book, Prestimion has doubts and angst and while chewing his nails to the quick, he allows the notorious Procurator Dantirya Sambail to escape from the royal dungeons. And so now we have the plot for this novel- saving the planet from the insanity the inhabitants are experiencing as a result of having their minds tampered with, and fighting the evil Procurator whom Prestimion didn't have the balls to put to death. (Poor value judgement number two.)

It's very frustrating to care about a character one cannot admire- and wants to wallop a good one in his derriere.

That said, the other characters are marvelous. Prestimion's close friends are a delight, Dekkeret is given good characterization, Maundigan-Klimd is fascinatng, and the main "character" - Majipoor- is as marvelous as ever. Not much excitement, except for the misery- for both the inhabitants and the reader- of detailed descriptions of incidents of insanity, but if you've come to love this world and its characters, you won't feel you've wasted your money.

I love this book! The events that take place on Majipoor are at least on a scale with Tolkien's Middle Earth (almost). In this wonderfully told story of intrigue and strife, Lord Prestimion certainly proves himself worthy to be Coronal. After all the struggles and heartache, he at last sits on the throne and takes charge (as if he didn't all along). I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Septach Melayn again. I adore that guy!! I was once again captivated by Majipoor. I'm re-reading The Majipoor Chronicles, just to explore that huge jewel all over again. After all, I believe Majipoor is a world that you can visit again and again and learn something new every time. Obviously, Mr. Silverberg has "caught the bug", so to speak. I know Majipoor and all its people, lands, seas, and animals will live on for ages to come.

Robert Silverberg is usually one of my favorite authors and the original Majipoor chronicles was one of the first and best trilogies that I have ever read. Thats why this latest chapter continuing the rather disappointing Sorcerers of Majipoor was also, well disappointing I guess. Silverbergs main strength has always been that his stories have always been character driven as opposed to action driven including Lord Valentines Castle, but the characters of this novel are remarkably dull. Prestimion the main character seems well intentioned, but frankly I wouldn't trust him to be dogcatcher let alone co-ruler of a planet of billions. Some of the supporting characters are marginally interesting, but we really never learn what makes them tick. And frankly the vast sequences discribing the "wonders" of Majipoor got to be quite distracting as they have nothing to do with the story, are never expanded upon, and make this book unnecesarily long. I will probably check out the concluding volume of this trilogy to see if a great master like Silverberg can clear up this mess. He is certainly capable, but I wish he hadn't gone for the easy money and left a great trilogy alone and written other great books like he has and hopefully will!

The book goes on and on with little excitement, suspense, or character development. Suspicions turn out to be meaningless as potential plot twists vanish without a trace (or an explanation); the characters are simple, straightforward, and ultimately--boring.

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This is Silverberg's sixth Majipoor book, and it's a bit thin.
I've read and liked the previous five -- this is Jack Vance "Big
Planet" country: big, colorful landscapes, strange flora & fauna,
teeming cities, richly-caparisoned nobility, exotic aliens, bits of
higher-tech in a metal-poor, basically nineteenth-century
civilisation. Good thick light escape-reading, which is just what I
was in the mood for. I noticed the Vancian rodomontade more this
time, because there's very little plot here, maybe a novella's worth:
Prestimion is crowned as Coronal after winning a disastrous civil
war (in Sorcerors of Majipoor). He's decided to heal the scars of war
by -- removing (by sorcery, offstage) all memories of the war.
Naturally, this has unforeseen consequences, not the least of which
is one of the rebel leaders trying to start a new civil war. And he
meets a girl and makes her his Queen. Well, that's about it until
Prestimion #3.

Mind you, this is by no means a bad book, but, thinking back, I found
Sorcerers to be the weakest Majipoor book up until now, so I suspect
the well is running dry. Unless you're a diehard Majipoor fan, I'd
wait for the paperback or a library copy. And I believe I'll let
someone else be the guinea-pig for Prestimion #3.

Cheers -- Pete Tillman