A Pliocene companion: Being a reader's guide to The many-colored land, The golden torc, The nonborn king, The adversary [Hardcover]

Julian May (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1984

This is a book for the many thousands of readers who have become entranced with Julian May's fantasy-science fiction quartet, The Saga of Pliocene Exile.

That saga has become an international best-seller and has drawn much comment: "A richly inventive series... drama or opera in the largest sense" {Science Fiction Review}. "Julian May has made a new and fresh masterwork in the genre and has irrevocably placed herself among the great of fantasy and science fiction" {Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine). "Of all the authors since The Lord of the Rings appeared, May has most closely matched J. R. R Tolkien's achievement" {San Francisco Chronicle). Over the course of the four volumes of The Many-Colored Land, The Golden Tore, The Nonborn King, and The Adversary, the story has become so rich, complex, and so peopled with characters from different parts of the Pliocene world, that a guide and commentary is called for. The Pliocene Companion offers a descriptive listing of all the characters in'the work, a chronology, the author's original maps, and three delightful interviews with May herself. Beyond that, it gives the reader a chance to explore further the surroundings of a world six million years in the past. The glossary gives information on metapsychology, on the futuristic science of the Galactic Milieu, and on the exotic world of the Tanu and Firvulag. In all, A Pliocene Companion is a must for followers of the Saga.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 219 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin (1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395365163
• ISBN-13: 978-0395365168
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,042,426 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Only To Complete Your Collection..., January 30, 2002

By 

Rodney Meek (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Pliocene Companion (Mass Market Paperback)

This hard-to-find book is a companion to the four-book Pliocene Exile Saga by Julian May. (The saga itself was followed by two related series, the Great Intervention and the Galactic Milieu.) I remember way back when these first came out, I was but an ignorant lad and I too readily dismissed them as foolish tripe of the most juvenile sort. I mean, one-way time travel back to the past of Earth's Pliocene era? Where strange aliens ruled? And people ran about, zapping each other with mind powers? Yeah, it sounds hokey, but it's actually really good and quite addictive stuff.

In any case, this volume is a reference guide to the saga. It has some nice maps and it reprints three interviews with the author, which are rather informative. It also includes a bibliography of sources that inspired her, references to real poems that were quoted in the saga, and a discussion of why cats are great.

The core material, however, isn't so compelling. By deliberate design, May doesn't give away too much about any characters in these listings, so they tend to be very skeletal. A typical entry will read something like "Joe Bloggs was a powerful redactor who lived in Goriah and fought in the Great Tourney. For details, read his adventures in 'The Golden Torc'." Um...okay. By comparison, most guides of this sort for other series will spill their guts about every tangential detail.

Also, keep in mind that the guide only covers the Pliocene saga and it treats characters from the other two series only insofar as they had relevance to this first set of novels. So, if you want the lowdown on Rogatien Remillard, for instance, you're out of luck.

This is a good book to have if you wish to complete your collection, but is otherwise fairly superfluous.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An essential book for Julian May fans, November 8, 2002

By 

N. J. Lewer (Auckland New Zealand) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Pliocene Companion (Mass Market Paperback)

It has to be asked - is it necessary to add this book to your shelf? Do you really need another 'Readers Guide' type book?

Well, if you're a fan of Julian May's sprawing 'Galactic Milieu' series, (a page-turning & adventurous retelling of 'Paradise Lost' long before Phillip Pullman thought to do it) and a member of the Julian May discussion group like I am, then the answer is a resounding "you bet!"

Alright, so it only covers the 'Exiles' part of the series (this book really needs an update) but the glossary is quite useful even if some of the entries are short, and the three interviews with the author are worth the price of the book by istself.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Super Reader, August 29, 2007

By 

Blue Tyson "- Research Finished" (Legion clubhouse) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Pliocene companion: Being a reader's guide to The many-colored land, The golden torc, The nonborn king, The adversary (Hardcover)

For a fan of this series by Julian May, and I have read them many times, this is excellent. Lots of tidbits you may have missed when reading, too.

This includes the information on the various different types of operant powers, the society of the Pliocene, as well as of the milieu and the technology that Marc Remillard manages to bring back.