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Saga of the Pliocene Exile #4

The Adversary

Name: The Adversary
Rating: 4.24 (5928 reviews)
Author: Julian May

Julian May January 1, 1984

4.24 5.9k Ratings

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Synopsis

Until the arrival of Aiken Drum, the 100,000 humans who had fled backward in time to Pliocene exile on Earth knew little but slavery to the Tanu, the humanoid aliens who came from another galaxy. But King Aiken’s rule is precarious, for the Tanu’s twisted brethren are secretly maneuvering to bring about his downfall. Worse, Aiken is about to confront a man of incredibly powerful talents who nearly overthrew a galactic rule. He is Marc Remillard. Call him…The Adversary.

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Intervention

★ 4.28

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Intervention sets the scene for Julian May's new trlogy of the Galactic Milieu. This has been split into two books: The Surveillance (containing Prologue, The Surveillance, and The Disclosure) and The Metaconcert, containing The Intervention and Epilogue.

For 60 000 years the five races of the Galactic Milieu have watched and waited for the time when human mental development on Earth is ready for the Intervention ...

As the twentieth century draws to its end, phenomenal mental powers are displayed by 'operants' all across our planet... They can 'farspeak' one another telepathically. They can build mental shields and they are capable of coercion by power of mind.

One of there is Rogatien Remillard, a dealer in secondhand books, whose memories - written a century on - form the core of this chronicle. They tell of a world where the mind has become a weapon; and of two brothers, each possessed of extraordinary powers - one a peace-bringer, the other an advocate of evil...

The Nonborn King

★ 4.19

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On Earth, six million B.C., two species of alien ruled, the graceful humanoid Tanu and their twisted brethren, the Firvulag. Then men from twenty-second century Earth arrived through a one-way time tunnel — and soon the aliens were locked in a battle to the death, for the humans had upset the precarious balance of power that existed between them.
But when the tides of combat had receded, no one group held firm control, though Aiken Drum, man of no woman born, had declared himself the Nonborn King . . . .

The Golden Torc

★ 4.14

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By A.D. 2110 nearly 100,000 humans had fled the civilized strictures of the Galactic Milieu for the freedom they thought existed at the end of the one-way time tunnel to Earth, six million B.C.
But all of them had fallen into the hands of the Tanu, a humanoid race who'd fled their own galaxy to avoid punishment for their barbarous ways.
And now the humans had made the Tanu stronger than the Firvulag, their degenerate brethren and ritual antagonists. Soon the Tanu would reign supreme. Or so they thought . . . .

The Family Tree

★ 4.04

Sheri S. Tepper

THE ONCE FERTILE EARTH OF DORA HENRY'S CHILDHOOD HAS BEEN UNDERVALUED AND OVERDEVELOPED. NOW NATURE, APPARENTLY, HAS DECIDED TO FIGHT BACK.

Police officer Dora Henry is investigating the bizarre murders of three geneticists. Meanwhile, strange things are happening everywhere she turns. Weeds are becoming trees; trees are becoming forests. Overnight, a city is being transformed into a wild and verdant place.

And, strangest of all, Dora can somehow communicate with the rampaging flora.

A potential civilization-ending catastrophe is in the making. The nearer Dora gets to a murderer--and to the truth--the more seemingly disparate events begin to entwine. And the answers she seeks today to the salvation of humankind may lie in afar distant future. . .one which is suddenly much closer than anyone imagines.

An exhilarating and enchanting novel that deftly combines fantastic invention with insight and a social conscience, from one of the most lyrical and important voices in contemporary speculative fiction.

Diamond Mask

★ 4.22

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The 21st century was drawing to a close, and metapsychic humankind was poised at last to achieve Unity to be admitted into the group mind of the already unified alien races of the Galactic Milieu. But a growing corps of rebels was plotting to keep the people of Earth forever separate in the name of human individuality. And the rebels had a secret supporter: Fury, the insane metapsychic creatrue that would stop at nothing to claim humanity for itself. Fury's greatest enemy was the mutant genius Jack the Bodiless, whose power it craved. But Jack would never be a tool for Fury . . .
And so it turned to Dorothea Macdonald, a young woman who had spent a lifetime hiding her towering mindpowers from the best mind readers of the Milieu. But she could not hide them from Fury or from Jack. Time and again she rejected their advances, unwilling to be drawn into the maelstrom of galactic politics or megalomaniacal dreams. And in the end, no one not Jack, not Fury, not even the Galactic Milieu would be a match for the awesome powers of the girl who would come to be called Diamond Mask . . .

Jack the Bodiless

★ 4.2

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In the year 2051, Earth stood on the brink of acceptance as full member of the Galactic Milieu, a confederation of worlds spread across the galaxy. Leading humanity was the powerful Remillard family, but somebody--or something--known only as "Fury" wanted them out of the way.
Only Rogi Remillard, the chosen tool of the most powerful alien being in the Milieu, and his nephew Marc, the greatest metapsychic yet born on Earth, knew about Fury. But even they were powerless to stop it when it began to kill off Remillards and other metapsychic operants--and all the suspects were Remillards themselves.
Meanwhile, a Remillard son was born, a boy who could represent the future of all humanity. His incredible mind was more powerful even than his brother Marc's--but he was destined to be desroyed by his own DNA...unless Fury got to him first!

Magnificat

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"FASCINATING . . . May has cemented her position as one of this generation's foremost storytellers. . . .This satisfying end to a remarkable feat of the imagination is a necessary purchase."
--Library Journal

By the mid-twenty-first century, humanity is beginning to enjoy membership in the Galactic Milieu. Human colonies are thriving on numerous planets, life on Earth is peaceful and prosperous, and as more humans are being born with metapsychic abilities, it will not be long before these gifted minds at last achieve total Unity.

But xenophobia is deeply rooted in the human soul. A growing corps of rebels plots to keep the people of Earth forever separate, led by a man obsessed with human Marc Remillard. Marc's goal is nothing less than the elevation of human metapsychics above all others, by way of artificial enhancement of mental faculties. His methods are unpalatable, his goal horrific. And so Marc and his coconspirators continue their work in secret.

Only the very Unity he fears and abhors can foil Marc's plans. And only his brother, Jack the Bodiless, and the young woman called Diamond Mask can hope to lead the metaconcert to destroy Marc, Unify humanity, and pave the way for the Golden Age of the Galactic Milieu to begin . . .

"A CERTAIN CROWD-PLEASER."
--Kirkus Reviews

The Many-Coloured Land

★ 4.07

Julian May

In the year 2034, Theo Guderian, a French physicist, made an amusing but impractical discovery: the means to use a one-way, fixed-focus time warp that opened into a place in the Rhine River valley during the idyllic Pliocene Epoch, six million years ago. But, as time went on, a certain usefulness developed. The misfits and mavericks of the future—many of them brilliant people—began to seek this exit door to a mysterious past. In 2110, a particularly strange and interesting group was preparing to make the journey—a starship captain, a girl athlete, a paleontologist, a woman priest, and others who had reason to flee the technological perfection of twenty-second-century life.

Thus begins this dazzling fantasy novel that invites comparisons with the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, Arthur C. Clarke, and Ursula Le Guin. It opens up a whole world of wonder, not in far-flung galaxies but in our own distant past on Earth—a world that will captivate not only science-fiction and fantasy fans but also those who enjoy literate thrillers.

The group that passes through the time-portal finds an unforeseen strangeness on the other side. Far from being uninhabited, Pliocene Europe is the home of two warring races from another planet. There is the knightly race of the Tanu—handsome, arrogant, and possessing vast powers of psychokinesis and telepathy. And there is the outcast race of Firvulag—dwarfish, malevolent, and gifted with their own supernormal skills. Taken captive by the Tanu and transported through the primordial European landscape, the humans manage to break free, join in an uneasy alliance with the forest-dwelling Firvulag, and, finally, launch an attack against the Tanu city of light on the banks of a river that, eons later, would be called the Rhine.

Myth and legend, wit and violence, speculative science and breathtaking imagination mingle in this romantic fantasy, which is the first volume in a series about the exile world.

The Adversary

More in Saga of the Pliocene Exile Series

The Many-Coloured Land

The Golden Torc

The Nonborn King

Books similar to The Adversary

Intervention

The Nonborn King

The Golden Torc

The Family Tree

Diamond Mask

Jack the Bodiless

Magnificat

The Many-Coloured Land

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