Just a quick Saga

Hmm, think I’m gonna fill in some time; at least until the Gazette turns up, at any rate …

More often than not, when I’ve posted about a book, here, it’s usually because I’ve felt they have something to say – Frank Herbert’s Dune is about the only one I’ve mentioned regularly, in that regard.

Or they’re an author who’s work I’ve admired for some time – Terry Pratchett fan remember? And, having read the Discworld novels practically from day one, back when the Corgi edition of The Colour of Magic in 1985. And watching him grow and develop, over the past 24 years has been a pleasure.

But occasionally, I’ll read something for pure entertainment …

Frederick Forsyth occasionally comes to mind; while I’m not sure I agree with his politics, he does knock out a ripping yarn, occasionally.

But I’d like to talk more about Julian May’s Pliocene Sage of Exiles; another … well … four such ripping yarns.

And while I always find the fact that Robert Jordan was on something like his 90th Wheel of Time novel, The Saga of Exiles, much like the original five books of The Belgariad, by David Eddings, had a definite start and stop*.

I came across the first of them in the early 1980’s, when I found The Many Coloured Land in the Brentwood branch of W. H. Smith’s.

I wasn’t grabbed by the blurb on the back cover,which was fairly non-committal, consisting mostly of rave reviews – nice to see, but not necessarily telling you anything you wanted or needed to know about the contents.

To be frank, it was more the mastodon skull on the cover that caught my attention.

And Chapters One and Two of the Prologue were a bit slow burning.

Slow burning, but interesting; – Chapter one describing the arguing crew and passengers of an crashing alien spacecraft, chapter two a pre-historic creature finding a strange, but seemingly familiar looking piece of neck jewellery.

The third chapter of the prologue, on the other hand, opened with “In the early years after humanity, with a little help from its friends, had set out to overrun the compatible stars, a professor of dynamic field-physics named Théo Guderian discovered the way into Exile.”

An went on to describe the last demonstration given by the ageing professor – to a diverse group of human and non-human academics – of his Big Scientific Discovery.

A Time Machine.

Or, to be more accurate. a Time Gate.

Into the – you’ve guessed, already – Pliocene epoch of Earth’s pre-history, roughly six million years ago.

Time Travel.

And Aliens.

In the Prologue.

I was was interested, certainly …

The rest of that third chapter, along with the opening half a dozen or so chapter’s of the book tell us of how humanity has developed various telepathic powers – pychokinesis, telepathic communication, various forms of psychic healing – and has been inducted into what Julian May terms the Coadunate Galactic Milieu; – a Galactic Federation, who’s member races all possess the same telepathic powers, and manage to work and live together in a close degree of harmony.

But these chapter’s also tell us that humanity is the newest member of this particular federation, and, as such, has misfits; – the opening chapters inform us of 8 examples who use to late Professor Guderian’s time-gate to escape to what they believe will be a simpler time.

And find,instead, that the Pliocene isn’t what the Milieu’s palæontologists had thought it would be.

That the survivors of the crashed spaceship in the first chapter had crashed on Pliocene Earth.

That those survivors — members of a dimorphic alien species, the Tanu and Firvulag — had flourished, increased and were quite happily calling Earth their home. Indeed, the Tanu were using the human time-travellers as both a work force and breeding-stock, whilst the Firvulag had allied themselves with the Lowlives — humans who’d escaped from their Tanu masters.

The rest of The Many Coloured Land, along with The Golden Torc, the second in the series, tell how Group Green deals with finding itself in a very alien, but very familiar, Earth, and how the Dirty ⅔rds of a Dozen cope with the Many Coloured Land, in the run-up to The Grand Combat; the ritual battle, held in late October, in which the two alien factions fight every year. The last two novels of the series — The Non-Born King and The Adversary — deal with the aftermath of the Grand Combat, the various warring factions attempts to gain power, and one hell of a villain …

I’ll say little else, on that front, but my word — Patrick McGoohan would have been perfect for the rôle …

I’ll say little else, here, I think.

But I will recommend you see if you local library has a copy.

Granted, the four books that make up The Saga of Exiles isn’t a huge work of deep philosophical meaning, great art, or novels that will change human nature for the better.

But fans of sci-fi will find them a romp of a series.

And those knowledgably about Celtic mythology will have a blast, playing ‘Spot the Referance’

And they’re damn good entertainment.

* That’s something that’s always put me off investing any time in The Wheel of Time tomes. Having got through the complete Lord of the Ring trilogy by the time I was sixteen, and every single “Dune” sequel Frank Herbert had penned not long after that, Julian May’s Saga of Exiles, and the David Eddings opus that was “The Belgariad” weren’t that intimidating. The Belgariad’s another fun one; a fantasy version of “Star Wars” with swords, wizards, evil guys in black … Oh, wait, hang on …

Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time on the other hand – occupying a whole bookshop shelf of its own – at eleven books, with at least three more in the works, seemed just a touch excessive …