Majipoor Chronicles: The classic saga continues (Majipoor cycle) [Paperback]

The vast populous world of Majipoor with its strange political hierarchies and myriad alien races is one of the more impressive creations of planetary romance; Robert Silverberg brings to its exoticism his sensitive and evocative prose and his sense of story as an end in itself. The Majippor Chronicles is a collection of linked shorts, in which the boy Hissune, a minor character in Lord Valentine's Castle, rummages in archives of recorded memories and acquires an education in the ways of this particular world. A self-willed woman becomes a recluse and befriends a crippled lizard-man; a great navigator discovers the price of crossing a great ocean; a murderer is pursued by dreams and his own demons; a defrauded young woman discovers the rich ironies possible in a complicated civilisation; two brothers receive an ambiguous prophecy that we know will come true. Individually, these are powerful moody stories, full of memorable people whom we come to know intensely even in a few pages, but together they help amplify our sense of the vast reach of Majipoor in history and geography--and the education of Hissune becomes more than a framing narrative, it becomes another tale of Majipoor in its own right. --Roz Kaveney

‘There are two things that abide: absolute awe at Silverberg’s capacity for creating images… he makes you see, believe, be there witnessing… and the overarching compassion that colours every word and all the souls in his enormous world’
Los Angeles Times

‘A grand tale by one of the great storytellers of the century’
Roger Zelazny
On Lord Valentine’s Castle:

‘Silverberg’s invention is prodigious… like a competent juggler, he maintains his rhythm and suspense to the end’
Times Literary Supplement

‘Spectacularly readable’
The Times

Majipoor Chronicles takes us further into Majipoor with a collection of stories covering thousands of years of the world’s history.

The bestselling fantasy saga that began with Lord Valentine’s Castle and continued with Valentine Pontifex continues in Majipoor Chronicles as the young street urchin Hissune gets his due for helping Lord Valentine regain his throne.

As a reward, he is sent into the depths of the Labyrinth where he relives the lives of Majipoor’s most famous and notorious inhabitants.

Each story has a universal truth to it that is haunting. In these fabulous tales the incredibly rich setting of Robert Silverberg’s world of Majipoor is used to the full, sending the reader to new and wonderful places. The scope and detailed history Silverberg has created for this world is breathtaking.

The young street urchin Hissune was rewarded for his help in the restoration of Lord Valentine as Coronel of Majipoor with a job in the Hall of Records of the Labyrinth. Loathing the mounds of tax reports he's told to sift and classify, Hissune explores the Labyrinth, especially the forbidden places … especially the Register of Souls. Preparing for the summons to return to Castle Mount, Hissune bluffs his way into that most secret library of the lives of Majipoor's rich, famous and notorious inhabitants.

There in the Register of Souls, Hissune discovers more than he bargained for as he voyages among memories of power-struggle and battle, love and death on the turbulent Great Sea of Majipoor. It would seem that Lord Valentine has forgotten him. Hissune, however, now has damaging knowledge of his Coronel, and his loyalty to the Starburst Crown will be tested hard…

'There are two things that abide: absolute awe at Silverberg's capacity for creating images … and the compassion that colours every word and all the souls in his enormous world'
WASHINGTON POST

'Silverberg's invention is prodigious … he maintains his rhythm and suspense to the end'
TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

Robert Silverberg was born in New York City. He has been a full-time writer since graduating from Columbia. He has been nominated for more literary awards than any other science fiction or fantasy writer alive or dead. He and his wife Karen Haber live in San Francisco.