Lord Valentine's Castle
Reviewed date: 2010 Oct 25
Rating: 2
447 pages
Valentine: I don't know who I am or where I'm going.
Shanamir: Come to Pidruid with me.
Valentine: I'm going to Pidruid!
Zalzan Kavol: Human, I require your services as a juggler.
Valentine: Oh, I'll be a juggler then.
Carabella: Oh Valentine! You have so much natural talent at juggling. I'm in love with you.
Valentine: I wanna be the best juggler in all the world!
Tisana: You are the Lord Valentine.
Valentine: No! I don't wanna be a Lord. I'm just regular old Valentine, a juggler. I just wanna juggle.
King of Dreams: Lord Valentine, I will torment you in your dreams until you climb the Castle Mount.
Carabella: Lord Valentine, forgive me!
Valentine: I am Valentine the juggler and nothing more.
Autifon Deliamber: You are only a juggler now.
Valentine: I'm a juggler and a good one getting better, and a happy man.
The Lady of the Isle: You are Lord Valentine.
Valentine: Oh all right. I'm Lord Valentine. I'll go to Castle Mount and depose the usurper Dominin Barjazid.
The Lady of the Isle: You have my support.
The Pontifex: You have my support.
Citizens of Majipoor: You have our support.
Dominin Barjazid: You win, Lord Valentine.
King of Dreams: Ha ha! I'm a Metamorph.
Valentine: Now that I've regained my throne, I'll rule Majipoor and be a juggler.
The end.
And that's all there is to this book. Robert Silverberg stretches this thin plot for almost 450 pages, but that slow pace doesn't make the story any better.
C. Elgin "akitonmyers" at Amazon.com
Valentine is a self important pap that deserves a good beating.
Brian Sargent at Amazon.com
Caught in a sticky situation, the group only has to whip out their juggling balls and knives and after a mesmorizing juggling performance the hostile enemies are suddenly overjoyed and ready to do whatever the group commands. If this only happened once in the book it would only seem a little hokey, but more than once and it became annoying.
VikingRog@aol.com at Amazon.com
At times, the book read like a almanac (e.g., there was a population number given for [virtually] every city Valentine and his group passed through or near).
C. T. Hunter "chips_books" at Amazon.com
Silverberg dissapoints by failing to give his character more than a small challenge every now and than. (There couldn't have been more than 2 battle scenes the entire book, and even those weren't very suspenseful).