The King Of Dreams

Rating:
Summary: none
Review: Far and away, THE KING OF DREAMS, is Silverberg's most complex, brilliant, and fascinating 'Majipoor' novel to date. And once again (Silverberg) staggers the readers imagination as the wonder, intrigue, and magic that is Majipoor abound... Gary S. Potter Author/Poet.

Rating:
Summary: Just where to put this book?
Review: I am a long time fan of all the Majipoor novels and as such I had been anxoiusly waiting for this one. Now I read it, and although I enjoyed it I just do not know what to think about it, especially because of Prestimion. Throughout the story his very valid concerns about the state of government and the attack on his closest family members seem to be no more than mere tantrums of an oldish king - although in truth they are very far from that, not to mention that Prestimion is not that old at all... (and Dekkeret is not that young...)

Finally I felt the conclusion too sudden and too rash. A war was fight and won, major characters died, a fourth power of the realm was established - which is one of the biggest changes in Majipoor's history - without clear answers on Prestimion's concerns as if he was a minor character in the story without real importance.

Rating:
Summary: Overrated
Review: I couldn't figure out why Silverberg's Majipoor was included among the series that were lauded in the Legends Anthology that Tor put out a few years ago. While the others were all unmistakably fantasy series, Majipoor is clearly science fiction. On top of that, despite being an old timer, Silverberg himself is no legend, except in his own mind. Seeing him with the likes of King and Jordan was laughable. Then I looked more closely and realized he was the editor. AHhhhhhhh.

The same sort of this shines here. A once decent, if not remarkable, series is being plumbed again, in the hope that it will produce another gusher. Sadly, the well is dry. This promises to be the conclusion, and I can only hope that it is, but the ending was amateurish at best, and I can't really say I will miss the world.

Rating:
Summary: Unsatisfying Conclusion to the Cycle
Review: I've seen too often now where writers decide that their favorite world of their creation was not adequately explored in their original trilogy, so they decide to embark on second and third installments of their now-epic sagas. (Yes, Stephen Donaldson and Katherine Kurtz--I'm looking at you.) That's the kind of thing we find here.

Silverberg produced a respectable trilogy back in the day when he fired up with "Lord Valentine's Castle". (Technically, this is a science fiction series, but it can also be read just as well from a fantasy standpoint.) There, he introduced the world of Majipoor and its governmental structure of the Pontifex, Coronal, Lady of the Isles, and the King of Dreams, along with the myriad races that have come to call the planet home. It was pretty good stuff. I doubt many people would call Silverberg a master of characterization, but he's great at big ideas and setting up seemingly simple, almost archetypical, plots that take a few interesting twists and turns along the way. So with the original set of books, you got a solid and entertaining tale of one man's journey back to himself. Arguably, it's a minor classic of the genre.

Then, much later, Silverberg bumped out the curious and pointless "Mountains of Majipoor" as a fourth volume (with its slim page count and irrelevant arc, it's pretty much just Majipoor Helper), and not satisfied with that, evidently decided to go for broke and churned out a second trilogy, set in an earlier time. The first book of the new trilogy was interesting enough, the second was somewhat less so, and the creative juices have pretty much dried up by the third.

Not a lot remains to be said, but the author persists in saying it, and at times it feels like we're very slowly traveling across the vast surface of Majipoor with the heroes, slogging wearily along with every footstep they take. From the original series, we already know that we'll see the introduction of the Fourth Power, the King of Dreams, so all of the sturm und drang leading up to that seems like a lot of empty noise. Meanwhile, minor characters take up undue stage time for no substantial payoff later. And the villains are grotesquely villainous without any hope of redemption. Silverberg does take some time to delineate Mandralisca, but basically only to conclude "Boy, he sure likes evil."

Ultimately, the books plods to its climax and then drops in its tracks right at the very denouement. It's as if the author ran out of sheets of paper, or realized he'd hit his contractual page count. We're hoping for a big emotional and dramatic payoff, but instead we get "Everyone is hit by a two-ton truck. The End."

Very frustrating. Everything after "Chronicles of Majipoor" really is only recommended for the purists who want to fill out their collections. Otherwise, there's just not anything compelling about the later material.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating world, painfully slow start
Review: Prestimion is getting older, but he cannot go to his senior throne with the world safe. His long-time enemies are again looking to rebellion, this time attempting to split the planetary government of Majipoor. Can Prestimion, together with younger associate and now Coronal Dekkeret, overcome these enemies one more time--especially when they control the power to bring nightmares even to members of Prestimion's family?

Robert Silverberg is a wonderful writer and his Majipoor world is beautifully created. Silverberg also obviously loves his characters. Even the evil Mandralisca is sympathetically drawn.

I had two major problems with this novel. First, it spent too much time dealing with character introspection rather than moving the story forward. In limited amounts, this is great. We learn about the characters and empathize with their goals. In excess, we wallow in their wallowing as the plot stalls. Silverberg walked painfully close to this line. Second, the resolution of the novel included the creation of a new power in Majipoor. Prestimion had earlier objected to this, with an apparently legitimate concern for the potential for tyranny. This concern was not dealt with adequately and the assumption that a hereditary power could be created based on the moral virtue of a founding member is clearly inadequate.

THE KING OF DREAMS is an enjoyable read. Silverberg loves his world and his characters and you can't help loving them to.

Rating:
Summary: A fantastic finale to this great fantasy trilogy
Review: Thanks to the weak rule of the previous Coronals and Pontifexes that went before him, Prestimion had many internal battles and a war to fight before his kingdom Marjipor found peace. For the next two decades as the Coronal, he kept things calm, but when the Pontifex dies, an old enemy surfaces challenging Prestimion's ascension as the new Pontifex.

Count Mandralisca has aligned himself with the Five Lords of Zimrod in order to gain independence for his nation. He controls machines that invade the minds of people, which force them to go mad and do terrible things to themselves or others. He has managed to have Prestimion's brother kill himself and send dreams infecting the ruler's wife and daughter. When the Pontifex and his new Coronal learn what Mandralisca plans, they hope to stop him and his allies without costing the lives of thousands of innocent people.

Book three of the Prestimion trilogy concludes the powerful epic fantasy where magic and the mundane peacefully co-exist side by side. Robert Silverberg provides his usual interesting novel that paints a make believe world so real readers will believe he visited the place. Marjipoor may be his greatest creation in an illustrious career and hopefully Mr. Silverberg will return his audience there sometime soon.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Hope this isn't the end...
Review: The King of Dreams closes out Silverberg's Prestimion trilogy nicely, introducing us to the eponymous fourth power in the Majipoor hierarchy. As a major fan of Robert Silverberg's writing--and of Majipoor in particular--I looked forward to this book eagerly. And even though I enjoyed it, I think I enjoyed it more for just another glimpse at Majipoor--surely one of the best and most fully realized worlds in all of fantasy literature--than for anything else. As with all the books, we get a travelogue across this gigantic planet, with all sorts of new places and things and customs and peoples. But I have to say that the, other than the villian Mandralisca (who is deftly drawn), I found myself (as I did with the other two books that preceeded this) not much sympathizing with most of the characters, especially Prestimion. I liked Dekkeret and would have liked to see more about Dinitak (the King of Dreams), but Prestimion comes through most clearly, like an unwanted presence at a seance. That would have been OK, but the book builds up slowly and ponderously to a conclusion that takes, literally a paragraph or two to explain. Very anticlimactic. Still, a good quick read and a visit to a place I very much like to go to. (As someone once said, "Even a bad visit to France is a visit to France.")

That said, the most chilling part of this whole book is the note inside on the dust jacket. "The concluding book in the Majipoor Cycle." Huh? Please tell me that Silverberg's not going out on this note. We need to know more. How about a "Majipoor Chronicles II" or a look at Stiamot or something far in the future when the Metamorph Queen is the Fifth Power on the planet. Please, don't let it end!

Rating:
Summary: Hope this isn't the end...
Review: The King of Dreams closes out Silverberg's Prestimion trilogy nicely, introducing us to the eponymous fourth power in the Majipoor hierarchy. As a major fan of Robert Silverberg's writing--and of Majipoor in particular--I looked forward to this book eagerly. And even though I enjoyed it, I think I enjoyed it more for just another glimpse at Majipoor--surely one of the best and most fully realized worlds in all of fantasy literature--than for anything else. As with all the books, we get a travelogue across this gigantic planet, with all sorts of new places and things and customs and peoples. But I have to say that the, other than the villian Mandralisca (who is deftly drawn), I found myself (as I did with the other two books that preceeded this) not much sympathizing with most of the characters, especially Prestimion. I liked Dekkeret and would have liked to see more about Dinitak (the King of Dreams), but Prestimion comes through most clearly, like an unwanted presence at a seance. That would have been OK, but the book builds up slowly and ponderously to a conclusion that takes, literally a paragraph or two to explain. Very anticlimactic. Still, a good quick read and a visit to a place I very much like to go to. (As someone once said, "Even a bad visit to France is a visit to France.")

That said, the most chilling part of this whole book is the note inside on the dust jacket. "The concluding book in the Majipoor Cycle." Huh? Please tell me that Silverberg's not going out on this note. We need to know more. How about a "Majipoor Chronicles II" or a look at Stiamot or something far in the future when the Metamorph Queen is the Fifth Power on the planet. Please, don't let it end!

Rating:
Summary: Not the best way to finish off the Majipoor saga.
Review: This book, like most of the other Majipoor books, was disappointing at best. Although I do enjoy the detailed world that Silverberg has created, I just have a hard time really getting excited about a story line that even the characters in the book don't seem too concerned over! Way too much time is spent on insignificant little sideplots and wearisome detailed descriptions of everything from the food thats eaten to the color of the leaves of a tree. I want more action, more conflict, and more excitment! I know part of that is just Silverberg's style, but most of these Majipoor books just havn't done it for me.

This book in particular really should have been much better. The basic plot had great potential, with Mandralisca using the Barjazid helmet to mess with peoples minds and the possibility of a inter-continental war. Also, the way the book ended was weak. You take 400-something pages to gradually (very gradually) build up to a climax and then have it end in a completely predictable and insanely quick way. Nothing in this entire book was a surprise (except maybe that Septach Melyn appears to be gay??) and although some of it was quite interesting, it didn't really do much to add to the overall story or to keep the reader interested.

I think Silverberg was just tired of writing about Majipoor and just decided to F-it and cap it off with this second rate work.

Rating:
Summary: This is one of the better Majipoor Novels
Review: This is one of the better Majipoor Novels, and far better than the single star utterly predictable first novel in this trilogy,but thats not saying very much. I always feel that Silverberg's heart isnt in this vast but rather anodyne and predictable imaginary world, which sadly comes across as patently manufactured.

I notice that Silverberg said in rather disparaging fashion recently, that he has never read LOTR . He should do, a few lessons from someone whose literary skill in this area far exceeds his own wouldnt go amiss. On the other hand Silverberg is undoubtedly a great SF writer, his short story skills in the genre are peerless, though in the novel medium I would say he has been below par for the last five years, lets hope we have seen the last of Majipoor.