ord Valentine's Castle (1980) introduced us to the gigantic world of Majipoor, where untold billions of citizens from a number of sentient races inhabit a patchwork culture reminiscent of India's multifarious aspects. Valentine, seemingly a simple peon, finds out he is really the Coronal, ruler of Majipoor. Silverberg embarked on a prequel, the current trilogy, with Sorcerors of Majipoor (1996).
Set long before Valentine's reign, this book introduced us to Prestimion, designated the heir to the Coronal crown, but faced with a usurper whom he must battle long and hard. Triumphant in the end, Prestimion nonetheless has sown seeds of tragedy as he magically compels the entire populace to forget the civil war just past. In Lord Prestimion (1999), Majipoor's new ruler has been on the throne only a few years when a plague of madness born of his desperate spell threatens his rule, coincident with the actions of a leftover rebel, Dantirya Sambail, and Sambail's aide, Mandralisca. Sambail and the madness are finally consigned to history, but Mandralisca escapes.
The present book opens almost 20 years after the prior one. Prestimion's reign, despite such a dire birth, has been peaceful and productive. Now wiser, a family man and somewhat less headstrong than when first crowned, Prestimion has groomed his successor, Dekkeret, whom we met as a young man in the earlier book. For soon, when the current ailing Pontifex dies, Prestimion must descend to the Labyrinth to become Pontifex.
Mandralisca, however, has been biding his time and now begins to foment another rebellion. His main weapon is not force of arms, but a nightmare-inducing device with which he can strike directly at those nearest and dearest to Prestimion from his far-off camp. (Vignettes of the suffering he causes are spliced into the main narrative.) Prestimion becomes Pontifex and Dekkeret Coronal during this onslaught, and the demands of their new roles engender some confusion and ill will. Several love stories are threaded throughout the larger themes: between Dekkeret and Fulkari, a woman reluctant to be the Coronal's wife despite her love; between Dekkeret's aide, Dinitak Barjazid, and a young swordswoman named Keltryn; and finally the ongoing marital ties involving Prestimion and Varaile.
The final confrontation with Madralisca involves not only personal danger for Dekkeret but also a willingness to think laterally about Majipoor's government and how future rebellions can be nipped in the bud. In the end, two surprising heroic personal sacrifices and the creation of a new institution allow harmony to be restored.
Shakespeare struts across the stars
The subcategory of science fiction known as "science fantasy" has known its share of gems down the years, from such authors as Leigh Brackett, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jack Vance. As the term implies, such stories mix technology and magic, spaceflight and swordplay, computers and princesses. Silverberg's Majipoor Cycle might very well be the ultimate artistic perfection of such a mode. Conceiving a huge globe, long settled, where metals are at a premium, where contact with any other world is almost nil, and where magic is but one thread in a rich culture, he insured himself a vast colorful canvas for his stories. The unique social system where four branches of government revolve intricately around each other, combined with Silverberg's fecundity with character, plot and background, further bolstered the series' allure.
All these factors turned the original trilogy into a hit. But in the second trilogy, Silverberg added another twist. To evoke a kind of historical ambiance that would differ from the "realtime" adventures of Valentine, he adopted a sort of larger-than-life storytelling voice. Prestimion's long saga always feels like the dramatization of some old legend. Sorcerors in particular, modeled almost explicitly on E.R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros (1922), reads like an archaic tale, full of glorious speeches, supreme villainy and high deeds. The next book humanized Prestimion and crew to a significant degree, as the Coronal mourned for his lost love Thismet and rued his decision to make the world amnesiac. And the last book carries this process further, to include Dekkeret as well. Nonetheless, most times this second Majipoor trilogy is positively Shakespearean in its play of fateful forces bigger than the characters who embody the urges. Despite many fine small touches, Prestimion and Dekkeret seldom attain the modern individuality of a Hamlet, remaining more like Othello or Macbeth: driven men almost wholly encapsulated by their obsessions.
This second trilogy also slights to some degree the variety of Majipoor. First, humans are the main actors throughout; any alien citizens are secondary and minimally used. Second, although we see a profusion of cities and landscapes, relics and ruins, none of them play a major role in the tale, serving as exotic but interchangeable backdrops for the histrionics.
Silverberg's main achievement in Prestimion's life story is a wintry one. The issues of maturity forcibly examined involve the regrets one has for crucial decisions gone wrong; the heavy weight of responsibility undertaken by gifted men; the forced necessity of moving through different, diminished stages of one's life (when Prestimion must surrender the role of Coronal and become Pontifex); and the rough course of love. Hardly the stuff of mindless adventuring under the moons of Mars. But from the man who gave us Dying Inside (1972) along with other grimly bracing works, such a treatment rings true.
