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katieinca's review against another edition
2.0
This has been the oldest thing on my To Read list here for a long time (13 years!). Apparently it won awards. What was up with you, 1981? The style is odd - it sometimes felt more like a retelling of an old fable or myth than a novel. “X happened, and then y, and then they all went to z”, not a ton of dialog, and an eventual triumph that we march towards inevitably. It spends a lot of time describing the world at the expense of developing anything else, especially characters. The chapters are short and when I was reading I’d often want to read just one more, but once I put it down I was never in a hurry to pick it up again. It was okay, but I won’t be continuing with the series.
billymac1962's review against another edition
2.0
I'm finding this very uninteresting. And I hit a spoiler in my review searches!
(I suspected anyways)
At the 50-page mark I am ungripped. This is the first Silverberg that I didn't care for, and loved the others so I will definitely read him again.
(I suspected anyways)
At the 50-page mark I am ungripped. This is the first Silverberg that I didn't care for, and loved the others so I will definitely read him again.
onetrueceyton's review against another edition
4.0
The opening sequence is a favorite of mine and the complete journey an epic of self discovery. This has to be my third or fourth read thru.
mr_dobalina's review against another edition
2.0
I liked this book a whole lot more in 1984 when I first read it than I did in 2018...
suzemo's review against another edition
3.0
I've had this book recommended to me a number of times, and I was prepared to love it... but I didn't.
The world-building in this book was phenomenal. I thought it was fantastic, stunning, etc. A giant planet known as Majipoor was settled, well, whenever humans fell from the sky and took the joint over. There's a giant continent called Padruid where the story takes place. There is a mix of left-over-from-long-ago science and magic, different species, a fully fleshed out culture, government, society and religion.
It's brilliant.
And then there are the characters. I found the plot to be tedious. It's a long damned book. Worth it if you are really into world building (I loved it), but the plodding actions of the weak characters felt so tedious. The main character bored me to no end.
I (as anyone with 2 braincells to rub together) figured out immediately that the character, who wakes up with amnesia, wandering around, was the actual leader of the world, who has been replaced by evil villains. He happens to have a strong talent for juggling, so he hooks up with a mixed-race juggling troupe. He travels around, slowly discovering that he's the leader of this planet's government, and then decides he doesn't want to be? but does? And goes to his goddess-like priestess mother for help take the joint over, and then takes the joint over. The end. With plenty of trusty sidekicks, because he's naturally awesome.
I was very, very bored with the action and just wanted it over with. But I really did enjoy the world, so it wasn't a total loss.
(It, btw, feels weird to like a book I didn't like, but I do).
The world-building in this book was phenomenal. I thought it was fantastic, stunning, etc. A giant planet known as Majipoor was settled, well, whenever humans fell from the sky and took the joint over. There's a giant continent called Padruid where the story takes place. There is a mix of left-over-from-long-ago science and magic, different species, a fully fleshed out culture, government, society and religion.
It's brilliant.
And then there are the characters. I found the plot to be tedious. It's a long damned book. Worth it if you are really into world building (I loved it), but the plodding actions of the weak characters felt so tedious. The main character bored me to no end.
I (as anyone with 2 braincells to rub together) figured out immediately that the character, who wakes up with amnesia, wandering around, was the actual leader of the world, who has been replaced by evil villains. He happens to have a strong talent for juggling, so he hooks up with a mixed-race juggling troupe. He travels around, slowly discovering that he's the leader of this planet's government, and then decides he doesn't want to be? but does? And goes to his goddess-like priestess mother for help take the joint over, and then takes the joint over. The end. With plenty of trusty sidekicks, because he's naturally awesome.
I was very, very bored with the action and just wanted it over with. But I really did enjoy the world, so it wasn't a total loss.
(It, btw, feels weird to like a book I didn't like, but I do).
louloureadsbooks's review against another edition
2.0
DNF this time round (first read over 20 years ago). I just don't think I can anymore, so I'm not. The End.
loonyboi's review against another edition
3.0
Good. A little slow, and a bit on the long side. But definitely a cool fantasy/sci-fi world (I would expect nothing less from Silverberg).
shane_tiernan's review against another edition
3.0
I've had this books sitting on my shelf for no less than 20 years. Eventually saw it available on audiobook and decided it was finally time to find out what this classic was all about.
The first quarter of the book was pretty boring. Way too much minutiae about juggling. I almost gave up. Glad I didn't. It got better.
I get the feeling that back in the day (when I was kid and before) authors mixed fantasy and sci-fi a lot more readily than they do nowadays. It was strange because the book read like a regular fantasy book 90% of the time, but then he would talk about aliens, or other planets, and hovercraft. It kind of jolted me out of the story.
The first quarter of the book was pretty boring. Way too much minutiae about juggling. I almost gave up. Glad I didn't. It got better.
I get the feeling that back in the day (when I was kid and before) authors mixed fantasy and sci-fi a lot more readily than they do nowadays. It was strange because the book read like a regular fantasy book 90% of the time, but then he would talk about aliens, or other planets, and hovercraft. It kind of jolted me out of the story.