Customer Reviews
Severley Under rated - By: S.A.R., 01 Oct 2007 
The Many Coloured Land is a book that I only picked up by mistake but caught my interest as it had an exciting sounding story & had excellent reviews on its front (claiming it would be as big as the Lord of the Rings). I started reading the book & found it slow & confusing to begin with, as it switched from one character to another with almost lightning speed, but soon got into it. In no time at all it takes you on an epic journey which I could not put down until I had read the entire series. Without wanting to give too much away I will just say it blends magic with adventure with deep characters. As I sayin my title, I think this book (and series) is seriously under rated & should be a lot more available (and sought after) than it currently is.
fantastic - go on, but the whole series - By: House of the Haricots, 08 Aug 2007 all this saga of books is uniquely excellent. Julian May carries the longs & complex story arc without a hitch. buy every one of them. unlike many fantasy & sci fi series that you dutifully buy to the bitter end, this one will continue to delight all the way. then move on to the galactic milleiu books
Cannot be praised highly enough! - By: Rod Williams, 01 Mar 2007 Although having achieved some success with short fiction, Julian May seemed to leap from nowhere into SF major status with this initial sequence of four books (The Saga of The Exiles)
The Many-Coloured Land is one of those wonderful booksin which the narrative refuses to provide explanation of its own internal history. In the first chapters, tantalising hints are given about `the Intervention' & `The Metapsychic Rebellion' & the reader gradually picks up the pieces of human history throughout the text although some references are not explained until much laterin the novel sequence.
It is not clear whether the entire overall saga (which comprises of eight books) was initially designed as such, but as the full narrative isin the form of a time-loop, the final novel comes back to almost the point at which The Many-Coloured Land starts.
Deftly manipulating a multi-character storyline, May starts us offin a near futurein which human colonists are being set up on hundreds of ethnically-streamed fresh planets; many humans are developing metapsychic operancy with talents such as psychokinesis, telepathy, the transformation of matter, illusion spinning & mental coercion.
Five alien races, members of a kind of superpsychic gestalt, have made themselves known & are helping Humanity along the road to Coalescence.
Meanwhile, Madame Guderian, a French hotelier, is custodian of an odd piece of Earth history. Her late husband had constructed a machine which interfaced with a unique geological & temporal anomaly within the Earth's crust. He had built,in effect, a time portal, but one which led only one way, back to Earth's Pliocene past.
After a traveller paid handsomely for the privilege of escaping the modern world into Exile, Madame Guderian began a tradein transporting `misfits', those discomfited by the strange complex place their society had become.
Oncein the past, however, the travellers find themselves enslaved by the Tanu, an oddly humanoid race. The aliens had fled to earth from their own world where they were being forced to abandon certain traditions which their enlightened brethren deemed barbarous.
We follow the fortunes of several travellers, all of whom got to know each otherin the orientation & survival training sessions before they left. May's characters are an eccentric bunch; a `blinded' Grandmaster Metapsychic lady, a disgraced space captain, a neurotic Viking, a psychotic lesbian sports player, a recidivist trickster, a lovesick sociologist, a bereaved palaeontologist & an `old school' nun.
It sparkles with wit & a depth of character & background research which is refreshing & breathtaking. It is by far one of the best series of books of the late Twentieth Century, & is compulsory reading for fans of SF.
Long nights of reading guaranteed! - By: Mr. RCS Young, 21 Jan 2004 I bought the Many Coloured Land on a recomendation from a friend. I have not been so truly gripped by a bookin a very long time. Admittedly the book starts very slowly as you become introduced to the Exiles but suddenly after about 150 pages the book takes off & you're whirled awayin to the Pliocene Epoch.
May has mixed some wonderful & plausible views of the future with myths of the past & come up with something quite astounding. I think what impressed me most through the series is the way that she (Julian May is a she by the way) swings your emotions from one side to the other almost at will. As the saga continues through The Golden Torc, The NonBorn King & The Adversary you will be amazed at your own fickleness as your support sways from one faction to another & back again.
These four books are a delight. If I was to grade The Many Coloured Land as a bookin & of itself it would probably get 4 stars if only because of its slow start, but once you have started just make sure that you have the others waiting on the shelf!
Addiction and cure - By: cornishlady@lineone.net, 06 Jul 2001 Having bought my first Land book via a local charity shop, I have to say it was not this one.So off I went & bought it. Bad move I was hooked, addicted to this stupendous story. Herein one novel were so many things I just am interested in. But this first one is really great it tells you so much about what is to come, yet never spoils the punch lines. Having bought the whole series I sat down for a week & reread them all, no housework little cooking just reading. Then suddenly I realised there were no more, I suffered withdrawel symptoms & still do. Yet for me this first book is the best, still worth investingin the set, if you are one of the few who do not own them.
