Valentine Pontifex - (Majipoor Cycle) by Robert Silverberg (Paperback)

About the Book

The Shapeshifters scheme in secret to regain their stolen world, and confusion and chaos are whispered on the winds of Majipoor. To save Majipoor, Valentine faces an agonizing choice--accept the mantle of Pontifex and surrender his high office to his young successor, or use his own great powers to avert a long nightmare of bloodshed.

Book Synopsis

In the third novel of this acclaimed sci-fi/fantasy series, the ruler of a vast planet faces a threat of war--and conspiracy within his own court.

Plagued by nightmares of blizzards and earthquakes besieging the planet Majipoor, Lord Valentine believes these dreams signal the coming of war between his people and the Shapeshifters, who once ruled the planet. For centuries they have conspired to regain their stolen world, and recently they were discovered impersonating members of the kingdom's inner circle.

Since coming to power, Valentine has made peaceful overtures to the Shapeshifters. This has led select members of the royal court to question his loyalties. Now some even want to remove Valentine from his governing role--casting him into the higher, ceremonial office of Pontifex.

But if Valentine accepts the mantle of Pontifex and surrenders his position to his successor-in-waiting, he may be remembered as a leader who evaded his duties--and shattered the peace that has reigned for eight thousand years. . . .

"[Valentine Pontifex is] a dance of conflicting emotions and political intrigue. Both the world and Lord Valentine have matured, and the trilogy becomes whole in a way that the form rarely achieves." --The Village Voice

"There's an almost hypnotic grandeur to the thoughtful way Silverberg weaves the strands of the story together, effortlessly jugging the various motifs." --Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Robert Silverberg has won five Nebula Awards, four Hugo Awards, and the prestigious Prix Apollo. He is the author of more than one hundred science fiction and fantasy novels -- including the best-selling Lord Valentine trilogy and the classics Dying Inside and A Time of Changes -- and more than sixty nonfiction works. Among the sixty-plus anthologies he has edited are Legends and Far Horizons, which contain original short stories set in the most popular universe of Robert Jordan, Stephen King, Ursula K. Le Guin, Gregory Benford, Greg Bear, Orson Scott Card, and virtually every other bestselling fantasy and SF writer today. Mr. Silverberg's Majipoor Cycle, set on perhaps the grandest and greatest world ever imagined, is considered one of the jewels in the crown of speculative fiction.