Lord Prestimion
Robert Silverberg
HarperPrism, 415 pages
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Lord Prestimion is the second installment in what the publisher describes as "The Prestimion
Trilogy at the heart of the Majipoor Cycle". (Does that mean there will be another set of volumes dealing
with Majipoor's earlier history? I hope so.)
Prestimion, hero of the first book in the series, Sorcerers of Majipoor, has just been crowned Coronal.
The savage civil war that brought him to the throne is over--though apart from himself and his two closest friends
and advisors, there's no one in the world who knows this. After his victory, Prestimion ordered his sorcerers to
cast a spell of oblivion across the world, erasing the war from human memory. Nothing less, he believed, could
heal Majipoor after so much strife and violence.
Now Prestimion is where he was always meant to be, embarking on the beginning of what will surely be a glorious
reign. But he's haunted by guilt for his part in the war, and by grief for the many friends and companions who
died. He also has a problem. He has arrested Dantirya Sambail, one of the most devious and formidable of his wartime
enemies, reasoning that a man so evil can't be left free. But how can Dantirya Sambail be brought to justice, since
no one now remembers his treachery?
Before Prestimion can decide, Dantirya Sambail escapes. Prestimion and his advisers set off in search of him. As
they travel through Majipoor, they discover that a terrible plague of madness is spreading across the world. Prestimion
begins to suspect that his spell of oblivion is to blame, aided by some sorcery of Dantirya Sambail's. Dantirya
Sambail and the rebel army he's recruiting must be found and destroyed, before the madness overwhelms the world.
But Dantirya Sambail seems to have vanished into thin air.
Like Sorcerers of Majipoor, Lord Prestimion is a complex epic, with a large cast of characters, a strong
central storyline, and a multitude of subplots. Yet it's not as integrated a work as its predecessor (one of the
most impressive books I read last year). The beginning is fascinating, in its exploration of the ambiguous aftermath
of Prestimion's decision to tamper with the world's memory (too often, fantasy books fail to address the human
consequences of the great magics they describe) The ending brings the story to a self-contained, if somewhat abrupt,
conclusion. But the middle, structured around the search for Dantirya Sambail, sacrifices tension for atmosphere.
Significant things happen: Prestimion begins to understand the scope of the madness epidemic, falls in love and
marries, discovers the man who may become his successor. Yet the numerous narrative digressions--most of them centering
on bizarre and colorful Majipoori places and creatures and events, and bearing only peripherally on the plot--give
this portion of the book a dreamy, disconnected quality, more like a series of mood pieces than an urgent quest.
There's a reason for these digressions: Majipoor, as much as Prestimion himself, is the novel's protagonist, and
Prestimion's mystical bond with this amazing world, his care of it and his love for it, is the novel's major theme.
Majipoor is revealed over and over, in all its wonder: from a region of golden sand where even the rivers run
yellow, to an oppressive jungle where the rain never stops, to the savage terrain where the final battle is fought--a
land in which everything is deadly, from the poisonous crustaceans to the trees whose leaves are edged with razor-sharp
crystals. It's a tour de force of imagination, a marvel of inventive detail--in many ways, the most gripping portion
of the book, with a deeper and more completed feel than the somewhat perfunctory action sequences that draw the
main storyline to a close. It's hard not to suspect, at times, that Silverberg is less interested in most of his
human characters than in the giant planet they inhabit. I can't help wondering what the novel might have been like
if it had been less constrained by the plot conventions of heroic fantasy.
Ultimately, despite its many strong elements, Lord Prestimion never combines into a unified whole. Even
so, I'd recommend it: for the continuation of a subtle story, for the complex and sympathetic character of Prestimion--and
for Majipoor, brought so lovingly and unforgettably to life.
Copyright © 1999 Victoria Strauss
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