Product Description

This is the fourth book in "The Saga of the Exiles" series. The Frivulag are rising, while the children of the metaphysic rebels are to re-open the time gate - sole escape route back to the Galatic Milieu - and Marc Remillard, the adversary, takes up his destined role in the power play.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26891 in Books
• Published on: 1984-01-13
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Review
Part four and last of The Saga of Pliocene Exile - and, after the agreeably improved Volume Three (The Nonborn King, 1982), it's back to the overcrowded, stagey blather that characterized Volumes One and Two. A band of human malcontents, exiled via timewarp to Earth's Pliocene epoch, have, under their paranormal-powered king Aiken Drum, achieved dominance over two alien races, the knightly Tanu and their age-old rivals, the dwarfish Firvulag. The latter, however, are plotting to destroy both the Tanu and the humans by launching the Nightfall War according to the requirements of the battle religion they share with the Tanu. Other complications arise as super-paranormal Marc Remillard, perfecting a method of teleportation, schemes to win over his rebellious children and use them in a breeding program aimed at creating a new race of immortal disembodied brains. The children, though, supported by Drum, prefer to take their chances up in the future, and so work frantically to build a new timewarp so that anyone who wants to may return home. Wildly overblown, soggy, undramatic, and labored: strictly for series addicts. (Kirkus Reviews)

Customer Reviews

A great successor to the Milleu Triology
Anyone who read the Milleu Triology will agree with me that this book is a definetely MUST. I have started reading this Saga because I enjoyed the Triology so much, and I hoped for a continuation of Marc's story.

This book is the culmination of the set, and we get to see Marc making a decision once more to interfere, except this time he fights for salvation instead of damnation. This is where the development of the greatest Saint of the Gallactic Milleu occurs (greater than the Saint Illuso and Saint Jack, his brother), a moral creation of Unifex, as we see him in the Triology.

Once again we see a well-developed plot, with threads that reach to both of the sets. The best part about this book is all the vague references to the future so taht reader has to make their own conclusions.

If you have read any of the other books, this is a definite must-read. You can't go wrong with it!

Readable, and very RE-readable
I first read the Golden Torc at high school in the 80s, and have returned to the Exiles and Milieu trilogies as well loved friends ever since. Characters you'll warm to, characters you'll love to hate, characters you'd love to give a stingy smack around the chops and an "oh stop whinging!" to.
What I like best about this set of May's work is that while being a serious story, the narrative never takes itself too seriously unlike a lot of worthy yet ponderous fantasy.

Start with the Many Coloured Land and work your way through the Exiles, then Intervention, then the Milieu series, even if this way you have to wonder at some of the 'convenient' set ups in the later series.

A complex, satisfying many-layered story
This book, and the whole Saga of the Exiles is first of all a good long satisfying read. It has more layers than an onion, and is also a damn fine adventure story. The whole series along with the later Galactic Milieu books involve politics, psychology, myths and legends and lots of "proper" Science Fiction, as well as some good old space opera. I recommend it to anyone who reads any kind of Science Fiction or Fantasy