King, hero, god... there are many names for Gilgamesh, highest of high kings of the great city of Uruk at the center of the world. Here, in his
waning years, he sets down his own story, from a childhood where he first learned to hate and fear death through his rise to the crown, his
tumultuous relationship with the gods and the high priestess of the goddess Inanna, the finding of a true friend in the wildman Enkidu, and his
grief-stricken wanderings in search of immortality.
Review
Silverberg puts a historical fiction spin on one of the oldest tales known (if in fragmentary form), the Epic of Gilgamesh, from the ancient
Middle East. While a real king of that name is presumed to have existed from other records of the time, around him has grown up a myth cycle
reminiscent of later half-divine heroes such as Hercules. Silverberg does a decent job fleshing out the basic tale with decently realized
characters and action and details, creating a reasonably cohesive arc. The world he inhabits comes to life in many vivid details about the lands,
the cities, the peoples, and the beliefs and customs. I'm not educated enough to know how historically accurate these details may be (or were as of
the time this was written in 1984), but they create a solid world for the tale to unfold in, and a solid foundation for Gilgamesh's triumphs and
failures, his worldview and senses of right and wrong. Here, elements of the supernatural and the presence of gods and demons are taken as a matter
of course, though their presence is often just ambiguous enough to invite some skepticism over whether there actually is spiritual influence or if
Gilgamesh and his companions are reading their own beliefs into otherwise natural events; some things clearly appear to be natural phenomena, while
others aren't quite so easily explained. From his childhood, watching the funeral of his royal father, the boy who would be Gilgamesh vows to never
let death defeat him; since he is two parts divine and only one part mortal (or so he has been told, and his unnatural size and strength seem to
confirm), he considers this an entirely plausible goal. This ambition and assumption of ultimate divine victory shape his personality from the start.
Along the way, he must regain the throne that was handed to an unworthy successor after his father's passing, enduring through years of exile and
dealing with the plots and scheming of an ambitious priestess who may or may not be backed by the power of a goddess. He must also come to terms with
the mortality of his subjects, whom he pushes to the point of tyranny with his semidivine ambitions and his lusts until he finds a worthy match for
his energies in wild Enkidu. Though the story sometimes bogs down and Gilgamesh can be rather self-absorbed and a bit slow on the uptake at times,
it moves decently as he faces various challenges and struggles to either overcome them or gain wisdom from them (as in his quest for a way to evade
death).
Where this story lost a half-star was partly due to the occasional sense of dithering but also due to the fact that, to be mild, this was clearly
written by a man. Gilgamesh is almost a caricature of a manly man at times, the problems with his rule stemming from him being so perfect and so full
of testosterone that no mere mortal can hope to keep up with him. His sexual exploits in particular are detailed and somewhat boastful throughout the
tale. Women, meanwhile, are best when they are mild-mannered and stay in their place well behind (or pliantly underneath) men; both the priestess and
the goddess Inanna are shrewish, petty, grasping, backstabbing, power-hungry vixens who threaten to destroy everything in the name of vengeance,
utterly corrupted by their power. The priestess herself suffers most because she falls in love with a man who, through custom and her vows to her
goddess, she can never truly marry and can only know pleasure with ritualistically once a year; yes, Gilgamesh is such a perfect specimen of
masculinity that even a priestess falls hopelessly in love with him, and would rather see the world burn than admit he must be shared with his people
and his kingdom. Clearly, no woman of this world should ever be given any power at all, not when there are manly and masculine men who are far better
endowed to handle such things. There's historical accuracy (as interpreted here, at least), and there's stomping the sexism into the reader's face...
Add to that some irritation with the way the audiobook reader delivered some of the lines, particularly the ritual incantations, and it was enough to
drop the rating just below Good.
On a hillside beyond the coastal capital of Pidruid, the fair-haired wanderer Valentine finds himself alone, bereft of memory and purpose, yet
with a pouch full of money. He falls in with a boy traveling to town for the coming festival, a visit from the grand Coronal who rules the great
planet of Majipoor: a lord named Valentine, same as himself (but surely, it is a common name). The wanderer joins a troupe of human and Skandar
jugglers, and thinks of no other future than traveling the land with them and honing his new trade, at which he proves uncommonly adept - until
the dreams begin. On Majipoor, where the Lady of Sleep and King of Dreams have direct access to the sleeping minds of the citizens, it is known
that dreams are rarely to be brushed aside as mere fancy, especially dreams as potent as the ones that plague Valentine. They tell him,
impossibly, that he is actually the true Lord Valentine, that a usurper stole his body and his throne and cast him into this stranger's skin, and
thousands of years of peace on the planet will end if the imposter is not deposed soon. Already, new and strange laws fly from Castle Mount,
causing the first stirrings of unrest, and in his travels he sees more signs of problems, dreaming more intense dreams of the destiny set before
him. But what can Valentine hope to do, when his memories and true face have been stolen and his only friends are mere common street
performers?
Review
This is something of a classic, melding genres in a story with mythic overtones. The world of Majipoor is literally larger than life, a vast
planet much bigger than Earth, where many alien races live side by side in seemingly idyllic harmony (save the natives, shapeshifters known as
metamorphs, who live in bitter isolation after losing a long-ago rebellion; some acknowledgment is made that the scars of conquest are not so
easily healed, and may be behind the current unrest so long as rifts remain and the metamorphs are considered second-class citizens). Its wildly
fantastic flora and fauna and geography are reminiscent of old planetary romances like Burroughs, where plausibility or scientific accuracy take a
distant back seat to sense of wonder and mind's eye candy. And, indeed, there is much to wonder at in Majipoor, where sorcery and science (albeit
a reduced science, owing to the dearth of native metals and fuels to power industry and an implied overall decline in interstellar trade, for all
that other worlds and aliens are known) coexist, where "advancements" have pulled humanity (and aliens) full circle back to royal houses as the
only fit and just rulers of the people (royal houses that are all human, despite the numerous other races on the planet, and Coronals who are all
male, because the archetypes Silverberg invokes only allow for so much progress). The planet outshines the characters at several points, as
Valentine and his juggler companions, who become his first devoted followers when his true identity comes to light, travel hither and thither and
encounter all manner of great and wondrous sights and adventures and trials and travails. The characters themselves tend to devolve into
archetypes bordering on stereotypes, unfortunately, particularly Valentine, who becomes such a caricature of the Perfect King - divinely blessed
with abilities beyond mere men, feeling the pains and troubles of his subjects to a fault, even reaching out in compassion and love repeatedly to
his bloodthirsty and unworthy enemies because he dare not entertain base notions like anger or vengeance even after said enemies prove willing to
casually slaughter billions of people - that I was almost rolling my eyes by the end. Several of the characters had potential to be more, but
they're swallowed up in the greater quest to restore Lord Valentine to his throne and only occasionally bubble to the surface again. (There's a
particularly wasted potential plot with an offworlder whom the party rescues from a sacrifice, only to be mostly forgotten about until meeting
their fate later on. Why bother, except to prove the point that the true lords of Majipoor are such divinely gifted rulers that even offworlders,
with no blood ties to the planet, fall under their spell and raise arms in their cause?) Their journey follows the standard epic arc of the lost
ruler reclaiming their crown and purpose, putting Valentine and his companions through various tests of their mettle and wit (and Valentine's
worthiness) on his way to the final confrontation with the usurper and the unmasking of the mastermind behind the treachery.
Still, for all that predictability and stereotype, there's something imaginative and compelling about the story and the setting, something
recalling old epics and grand adventures painted on a wild, over-the-top scale one doesn't see so much of anymore. I'm not sure I'll follow the
rest of the cycle, but I can't say I regret my time spent on Majipoor.
There was a time when humans walked among the stars, working veritable miracles of science, considered equals among the many sentient races
of the galaxy. Now, Earth is in its twilight years, the world a broken and faded memory of itself, the people living in cities riddled with
remnants of former days of glory. A series of self-inflicted disasters devastated the climate and civilization, and though we haven't
regressed completely to a planetbound existence, we're far from the giants we once were - and, technically, our planet is no longer our own,
although the new legal owners have yet to arrive.
For over a thousand years, the Guilds of Earth have kept wary watch upon the skies, preparing as best they can for the impending invasion, but
some have started to believe it's never going to happen. An aging Watcher, traveling with a winged Flier and a mutant member of the reviled
underclass Guildless, has traveled far across the remnants of the world, and comes at last to the city of Roum, were fragments as old as the
First Cycle of civilization itself can still be seen (though that's more the provence of the Rememberer Guild). He is here when at last the
ancient threats come true, and the Invaders arrive to find our spirits as broken as our planet. As the Watcher struggles to find a purpose in
this new, occupied world where his guild is no longer needed, he starts to wonder if he is seeing the last guttering embers of human
civilization - or the first sparks of a new and rising glory.
Review
Though this book feels like it might be in the same far-future milieu as the Majipoor books, it appears to be a standalone title, which is
probably just as well. This is mostly a story of thinly-veiled religious concepts about sin, rebirth, and redemption, even if it cloaks it in
terms like "the Will". The setting itself has some nice, imaginative (if rather dystopian) ideas, though it's saddled with certain markers of
when it was written: old white guys lusting after barely-legal girls, women being either shy, delicate flowers of purity or selfish, vain,
power-hungry vessels of pure lust and irredeemable sin, and a casual assumption that of course humans are divinely blessed above all else,
that there is an aware Will guiding all, and the promises of primarily Abrahamic religions will eventually come to fruition even if the
religions themselves have been lost to history. For all that, the story does at least acknowledge the deep and lasting damage done by cultures
who consider themselves superior treating others as animals (or worse), plus warnings about attempts to control or alter global climates that
have eerie resonance as we barrel headlong toward catastrophe in the here-and-now, and how the bill for both sins may be delayed but
eventually comes due with interest. The Watcher is not always the most sympathetic of characters, though he does have to come to terms with
his own faults, as well as those of his world. Around him are characters who are more archetype or symbol or metaphor to convey the Message
than rounded individuals. I suspect that, if I were more literate in religion, I would see even more messages and symbolism pretty much
everywhere and in every event, as that angle grows exceptionally heavy-handed the further into the tale one wanders. The ending... no
spoilers, but I almost groaned out loud, as Silverberg dispenses of the sledgehammer and resorts to a metaphoric pile driver to pound the
Lesson and Message home.
As I mentioned, there are some decent ideas and images, and there's something vaguely compelling about the fantastic vision of the future it
presents. I just have a very limited tolerance for Message stories, particularly ones that seem primarily designed to gently soothe readers
of a particular (assumed) cultural and religious persuasion that, yes, they really are the best and their Truth is the only Truth.
