This book was left a generally good taste in my mouth but I could not connect with any of the characters the side character where NPCs and valentines main struggle was ‘ah man I don’t think I’m go enough to be king’ at this point whatever side char was near by would assure valentine that nah he was actually just the best dude ever and would be a ripper king and also if your cock is ever getting dry they where here for him salivating and ready to suck. Robert displays a raging hard on for flora that I havnt seen in his other works I liked the outrageously old cunt hooked up to those machines underground and his enthusiastic physician makes me giggle still

Yep, another reread. Great classic.

Yet another reread 10/2021

I really liked this book. The world building is spectacular. The character building is vibrant and in depth. While the story is straight forward it makes for a good vehicle for exploring this world. I would have given this book 5 stars except for a section, "The Book of the Labyrinth," seemed almost disconnected from the rest of the writing. The characters fell flat and seemed one-dimensional. Many that had been meticulously built up were allowed to languish in disuse. It was all I could do to keep reading in this section. However there was a final chapter?(Novella?) left and it redeemed the story.

Hey, I just realized that I finished this book, my new favorite book on Valentine's Day. I needed this book. It was fun and positive - the perfect antidote to the bleakness of Game of Thrones. Lord Valentine is fun and positive but not superficial or formulaic. It will take me some days of dream work to process all the layers of this book. Another unexpected layer is that I only discovered Silverberg through his nonfiction book The Mound Builders. Layers upon layers.

So, forty years does more for some stories than others. Silverberg's Lord Valentine's Castle was initially a blast from the past. Delicious and detailed descriptions, a well thought out world (politics, technology, magic etc), and an eclectic band of misfits gathering around a chosen one to restore him to his rightful place as Coronal.
The social message in the story is sadly still resonant today. A world invaded by another civilisation and the Indigenous people killed or contained in a small poor region of the planet, their history dismissed, ruins and artefacts stolen or assigned to the invaders.
Our own world has changed, scifi and fantasy along with it, and I'll admit, what I like to read now tends less to description and more to dialogue, social scifi and fantasy. So I found myself skipping over some of the beautiful descriptions, the lists of cities and people and other details that built the amazing world of Majipoor and searching for the dialogue and the character arcs. No startling changes for the main, apart from Valentine himself, and the book's climax seemed a little hurried.
A solid read.

Ahoy there me mateys! A little while back, I was introduced to Robert Silverberg’s work with his novella the emperor and the maula.. Like I said then, I had absurdly never heard of him. Now if ye be unaware of the author:

I learned from sandy @ fantasyliterature that Mr. Silverberg has written no fewer than “78 sci-fi novels, almost 450 short stories and novellas, around 70 books of nonfiction, and around 185 novels of, um, “adult fiction,” in addition to having edited over 130 anthologies.” Talk about prolific! He is currently 82 years old. Goodreads says that he has won 5 Hugos and 5 Nebulas. Also he is a 2004 Grand Master from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Sheesh!

At the time I reached out to the crew for recommendations of what else to read out of his many, many works. Me matey, calmgrove, said “I’ve really enjoyed his Majippoor novels, all set on a giant planet. The first, “Lord Valentine’s Castle”, is very accessible, but to be honest if you don’t want to read the rest if the loosely linked series you won’t feel too denied!”

I liked the idea that it was a series that 1) if I liked it I could read more; and 2) it was a self-contained story. Plus a local library had it for free on audiobook. Decision made!

It turned out to be an okay read. I didn’t love it but I am glad I read it. I actually loved the world-building, the characters, and the wonderful set-up. The titular character, Valentine, was extremely fun. When ye start the book, Valentine is entering an enormous city in time for a festival. What ye learn is that Valentine has no memories at all. They start at the moment the reader meets him – on the hill on day of his arrival in the big city. Where did he come from? Why is he there? He doesn’t know what to do with himself so he joins a juggling troupe! Fantastic.

There were two major problems for me and unfortunately both are pet peeves. The first was that it is a travelogue. I love that ye get to see new places and people but here each are touched on only briefly. I don’t tend to like books where the characters wander around and nothing really exciting happens. In this book, the focus is on Valentine’s struggle to remember his past and then his reluctance to believe it. That reluctance is me second problem. Valentine waffles and hems and haws about his identity even when it has already been proven to the reader and even other characters in the book.

I do not like wishy-washy characters or angst. I did understand why Valentine wouldn’t want to take up his old position. I understood why he might want a choice in his life’s path. Who wouldn’t? But I would have liked, after a brief inter-personal struggle, to have seen him embrace his past and then decide how to tackle his future. Instead, the situation is resolved in almost a laughable way with very little action or suspense. Also there are convenient people who happen to come along and offer help at just the right moment. Sigh.

Dreams are also a major part of this book. They have real-world consequences and send messages to the people. There are dream readers and dream rulers. Dreams are tied into the ruling of the government. According to Wikipedia “The planet is ruled by an unusual tetrarchy: an adoptive Coronal rules in a highly visible and symbolic manner from his palace atop Castle Mount; the previous Coronal retires to become the Pontifex, the head of the bureaucracy in an underground Labyrinth; the Coronal’s mother becomes the Lady of the Isle of Sleep, promoting the morals of Majipoor by sending dreams to its inhabitants; while a hereditary King of Dreams on the distant continent of Suvrael punishes wrongdoers by visiting them with nightmares.” Again cool concept but I was more than a bit confused how they impacted Valentine’s journey.

I did happen to love Lisamon Hultin, a giant warrior woman mercenary. She was so fun! And there was an excellent part dealing with the sea and sea serpents. I, of course, adored that section. And truly, I was rooting for Valentine the whole time. While the plot didn’t excite me, I was glad to have this introduction to Majipoor world. I am not adverse to readin’ the second book as it seems to be a collection of individual stories set in a larger framework. Arrr!

Check out this interesting article on the Tor.com website about the novel.

Also check out me other reviews at https://thecaptainsquartersblog.wordpress.com/

A true classic mixing sci-fi and fantasy to perfection - 4.5 stars

Written in 1980 just when the 5 original Amber novels was completed by Zelazny, this novel burrows some of the same themes of a lost prince of a royal family with magical powers.

But Silverberg makes his tale, into a coming of age tale where Valentine gradually regains his memories, while at the same time understanding the lives of the people, humans and aliens alike, making him a more perceptive leader in the end.

Even though it is a quest to throw down an usurper, it’s surprisingly peaceful, preaching non-violence and forgiveness, in a very zen like manner, which suits the story well.

Wow. Some things stand up to repeat reading, even twenty or thirty years later. Others don't. This didn't. I found it an effort to get through it. My biggest complaint is how much of it is "tell not show" - Silverberg keeps telling us how VAST and MAGNIFICENT and HUGE everything is, but, you know, it doesn't seem to take long to get around. I could probably find my way around Middle Earth, following the route of Frodo and co., because Tolkien gives us almost day-by-day, step-by-step descriptions, despite never bogging us down with them. This has page after page after page of descriptions of the wonders of Majipoor, but we never really get a sense of how it all works or how it all fits together. The maps are very telling - just round shapes with a few dots of landmarks on them. I liked Valentine; I liked the jugglers, and the last couple of chapters were quite compelling, but boy was it a slog to get there. And it has not dated well. The hero designated to be the king of an absolute monarchy by divine destiny is SO old-school. To be fair, there are some interesting critiques of colonialism and the displacement of indigenous people, but these are over-ruled by said "hero-destined-to-be-king." I shan't be reading this again. Now I should find out if my first edition hard cover is worth anything!