Valentine, a wanderer who knows nothing except his name, finds himself on the fringes of a great city and joins a troupe of jugglers and acrobats. Gradually, he remembers that he is the Coronal Valentine, executive ruler of the vast world of Majipoor, and all its peoples, human and otherwise.

Valentine's journey is a long one, a tour through a series of magnificent environments. Fields of predatory plants give way to impossibly wide rivers, chalk-cliffed islands, and unforgiving deserts. The prose is unrelentingly dreamlike—no accident given that on Majipoor, dreams rule the minds of great and humble alike.

This epic tale is an imaginative fusion of action, sorcery, and science fiction, set in a wildly imaginative universe.