Valentine Pontifex
core novel 1983 Majipoor Cycle
Record
| First published | 1983 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.79 (3,111 ratings, collected 2026-09-14) |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780877955443 |
| Internal chronology | 3 |
Synopsis
Valentine Pontifex, published in 1983, picks up years after Valentine has secured his throne as Coronal of Majipoor, when a new crisis threatens the order he worked to restore. The Metamorphs, the planet's shapeshifting native species displaced long ago by human and other settlers, launch a covert ecological campaign to reclaim their world, spreading blights, droughts, and other environmental disasters across Majipoor's provinces to drive out the population that has made the planet its home. As reports of famine and unrest reach the court, Valentine, grown from the amnesiac wanderer of earlier events into a ruler determined to govern justly, must confront both the emergency and the deeper moral question of what is owed to the Metamorphs his ancestors displaced. The novel follows his search for a resolution before Majipoor's civilization collapses under the strain.
Where it sits
- Universe: Majipoor Cycle
- Series: The Lord Valentine Cycle core; position 3 of 4 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Robert Silverberg
Notes
- From the series record (The Lord Valentine Cycle): Majipoor Chronicles (a linked collection of 5 short stories and 5 novelettes/novellas, each following a different point-of-view character across Majipoor's history) is registered Core, not Expanded, under the collection-as-Core exception -- it is the primary reading unit for book 2 of this cycle, not a peripheral side collection.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within the series The Lord Valentine Cycle: position 3 of 4: previous Majipoor Chronicles (1982) · next The Mountains of Majipoor (1995)
- Internal chronology, within Majipoor Cycle: position 5 of 7: previous Lord Prestimion (1999) · next The King of Dreams (2001)
Sources
← Majipoor Cycle dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.