Richard is an ex-spacer who came to Pliocene after being sued by an alien space crew who he refused to help whilst on a mission for a client. Richard tries to act tough throughout the book and often refuses to help other people, especially the Lowlives, but always comes through for them in the end. Richard is most notable in the book for killing the first Tanu to die in the book, in the process discovering iron to be a potent weapon against them. He also flies the aircraft at the end of the book, as the only one with enough experience to work out how. Bryan Grenfell Julian May has written the “Saga of the Pliocene Exile” series, the “Galactic Milieu” trilogy, the “Intervention” series, and the “Rampart Worlds” series. Her work is from the horror, science, fantasy, science fiction, and children’s genres. From 1956 until 1981, she wrote over 250 books for kids and young adult (mainly that are non-fiction works). Julian May wrote both under her own name and many pen names; she has written novels and short stories. A liaison to and close ally of the Lowlives, Fitharn is a wise cohort of the Lowlife contingent and representative of the Firvulag. He often acts as scout in Firvulag controlled areas and acts a sort of diplomat between the humans and his people. This is where The Golden Torc starts to feel a little different than The Many Colored Land. We have some dozen or more primary characters, and at least double that number of secondary—yet still incredibly important—characters that we need to keep tabs on. To accomplish this feat, Julian May ups the speed while pushing a lot of occurrences off screen.

And of course, in the end, we have the Grand Combat, which Julian May utilizes to grand effect to clear the board, as it were.As an out-of-print physical copy from any of many used book stores. Seriously, though, this book shouldn't be out of print. I really enjoyed the series first, The Many-Colored Land, and looked with anticipation to reading this one. The Golden Torc dropped many features that I liked and adopted many devices whose absence I had valued. The writing was not as pleasing and selective as it was in the first. The pacing, likewise, carried forward with momentum this time instead of with choice steps. The first one had a unique identity - not just with the mishmash of themes, but with its way of building up anticipation and delivering excitement. This was much more of a standard action-adventure. Of course, it remains aloft of the generic sword and sorcery since it employs science fiction tropes to supplement the sword and paranormal powers in lieu of the sorcery. A lovely balance of male and female roles, which passes the Bechdel test with flying colours. A pleasure to read.

Do not read this if you are reading it with SFFBC and want to go in without any preconceived notions!I had this odd assumption that it was all fantasy from the bookcovers I'd known and from the comments I'd heard, and that's true as far as most of the story elements are concerned, but at its core, it's Hard SF with a huge dash of space opera, a truly epic amount of world-building in both the future and 6 million years in the past, with, of course, a lot of time-travel, and there's a truly epic amount of psi abilities, too. Now that we’ve got all that out of the way, there’s one big reason to read these books: They are great FUN! If you fall asleep while reading it, you won't know what's dream and what's real and it won't matter anyways, because your imagination is just as probable a plot point! Author May made a conscientious effort to get the Pliocene geology and paleontology right for her European setting. While I'm not an expert, I think she did a good job, certainly more than good enough for fiction. One of the thing that drew me into her novel.

This was not what I expected at all. What should you expect? It is kind of like a cross between Dawn and Seed to Harvest, but it is not nearly as good as either of them. So many interesting ideas—one-way time travel to 6 million years ago, prohibition of time travel with modern weapons, sterilization of female travelers to prevent childbirth in the Pliocene Epoch–go nowhere. I was so excited to see how the absence of offspring (and thus of young apprentices) affected knowledge transmission and the organization of society. But nope. Similarly, the characters, all “psychosocial anachronisms”—a xenophobic pilot, a young homosexual athlete, a troll-sized thief, a widowed exopaleontologist, etc.—had so much promise. I was excited to see how they interacted and worked together (or against each other) in the 6-million-years-ago world. But nope. That fell flat, too.This is a SF novel that mixed a lot of themes. The book was nominated for Nebula, Hugo and Locus Awards after it was published in 1981. I read is as a part of monthly reading for March 2020 at SciFi and Fantasy Book Club group. The intrigue is so complex that it is almost impossible to summarize, and yet it was easy to follow while reading it. Surprises lurk around every corner, and May is definitely not afraid to kill her darlings, following both William Faulkner’s and Stephen King’s writing advice. A lot happens in the book, the characters are tested, and enough change happens that I am excited there are still two more books, as opposed to wondering how the author could possibly tell more story. In spite of the action, sometimes the book did feel overly long, with long descriptions of vegetation and scenery far away from where most of the action was taking place.

Sound complicated? Not the way she writes it! Like I said, it's all fun adventure the high-tech magical artifacts, winning epic battles in the deep past, and getting to know and love some very interesting characters who happen to be... us. Flawed, idiotic, us. :) Lots of nice twists & turns in this second installment of the Saga of the Pliocene Exile. The worm turns, when humans turn out to be nastier and craftier than their Tanu overlords ever imagined. For one thing, humans are willing to fight dirty. It’s reminiscent of the British facing Native Americans, two different codes of conduct ending in unexpected victories for the less-well-armed side of the conflict. Honour means different things to different cultures and May exploits those differences masterfully. Recommended To: Male readers of fantasy and sci-fi at my library seem to love this series. Any plot- or milieu-driven readers would eat this up. I recommend it to teen and adult readers of sci-fi. It will appeal to some fantasy readers, but more to sci-fi readers, I think. Also an interesting revelation: Mercy (the woman who drew the anthropologist Bryan into exile) has been genetically tested and though she came from the future, she is almost full-blooded Tanu. Which begs the question of how that was possible—presumably some hints will be given in later books. The last chief of the Wallawalla tribe. Almost as big as Stein, probably 40 years old, grey hair and a red skin. He used to be the judge of the highcourt in the state of Washington. He takes the role of the military leader and strategist for the Lowlives. He is (in the Pliocene) the leader of the Paskudnyaks.

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

There is a lady sweet and kind, Was never face so pleas'd my mind; I did but see her passing by, And yet I love her till I die. Stein Oleson Boy 4: "All of our characters need something wrong with them so we can make them better or grow or whatever our teacher keeps saying" The negatives first: I very nearly DNF'd The Many Coloured Land at about 15% because of the introduction of a million characters I couldn't keep straight. Every chapter felt like the beginning of a new book, and there was no discernible plot. Usually this wouldn't bother me as I like character studies, but I didn't particularly like any of the characters. I kept going, though.