Lord Valentine's Castle

This really is a masterpiece of science fiction. As well as being astonishingly prolific the author has an astounding imagination as big as the planet of Majipoor itself. We open on a pastoral scene with our hero having nothing of himself other than his name. He becomes a travelling juggler (inspiring me to pick up my own juggling balls again) and from that small beginning attempts to regain the stolen throne, a task that involves travelling across most of the vast landmasses of the giant planet. The world building is extraordinary, a low-metal planet moving on almost medieval society but with some elements of advanced technology left over from the interstellar colonisation thousands of years ago, and a range of non-human species largely living in peaceful co-existence. We visit fabulous cities, vast forests, deserts and cross wide oceans encountering all sorts of adventures and picking up retainers and troops on the way. One of the strengths of the book is how immersively real…