（外文电子版资料）Robert Silverberg - Majipoor - The Book of Changes.pdf

MAJIPOOR ROBERT SILVERBERG L V ’ C (1980) ORD ALENTINE S ASTLE MAJIPOORCHRONICLES(1981) VALENTINEPONTIFEX(1983) THEMOUNTAINS OFMAJIPOOR(1995) THE PRESTIMION TRILOGY: SORCERERS OFMAJIPOOR(1997) LORDPRESTIMION(1999) THEKING OFDREAMS(2001) The giant world of Majipoor, with a diameter at least ten times as great as that of our own planet’s, was settled in the distant past by colonists from Earth, who made a place for themselves amidst the Piurivars, the intelligent native beings, known to the intruders from Earth as “Shapeshifters” or “Metamorphs” because of their ability to alter their bodily forms. Majipoor is an extraordinarily beautiful planet, with a largely benign climate, and is a place of astonishing zoological, botanical, and geographical wonders. Everything on Majipoor is large-scale—fantastic, marvelous. Over the course of thousands of years, friction between the human colonists and the Metamorphs eventually led to a lengthy war and the defeat of the natives, who were penned up in huge reservations in remote regions of the planet. During those years, also, species from various other worlds came to settle on Majipoor—the tiny gnomish Vroons, the great shaggy four-armed Skandars, the two-headed Su-Suheris race, and several more. Some of these—notably the Vroons and the Su-Suheris—were gifted with extrasensory mental powers that permitted them to practice various forms of wizardry. But throughout the thousands of years of Majipoor history the humans remained the dominant species. They flourished and expanded, and eventually the human population of Majipoor came to number in the billions, mainly occupying huge and distinctive cities of ten to twenty million people. The governmental system that evolved over those years was a kind of nonhereditary dual monarchy. Upon coming to power the senior ruler, known as the Pontifex, selects his own junior ruler, the Coronal. Technically the Coronal is regard