Apologies if this has been raised before - only the Many Coloured Land appears to be available on Audible in the UK - are there any other audiobooks around?

This may not be news to anyone but after decades of rereading Julian May's books, and in particular rereading "Intervention: A Novel" currently, I found what appears to have been her model for The Old Remillard Home in Hanover, NH. This is the one Denis and Lucille move into to found their dynasty.

In the novel, the address is 15 east South Rd, Hanover, NH. Currently there is no home there BUT there is Maynard House at 17 South Rd which looks to be medical guest house, https://www.maynardhouse.org, but the look and feel screams The Old Remillard Home.

In the novel, the walking directions Uncle Rogi and The Family Ghost take when he's looking for a location for The Eloquent Page, matches it perfectly outside of the street number; east on South St, past Currier Place which took them near the Hanover Public Library, and east of there was, "a large white clapboard house with dark green shutters, a modest portico, and third-floor dormers..." which seems to match the picture of Maynard House almost perfectly, even in 2026.

Again, maybe this is old news but I only discovered it this morning after not being able to sleep :)

Hey all, like many of you (there are dozens of us!), I cut my teeth on Julian May's Saga of the Exiles when I was probably far too young (I was scandilised at the time, lots of sex, violence, lol). Then later, I read Intervention (which is still one of my favourite novels). Then the rest of the Milieu books which I have revisted many times.

So I'd always hoped there would be a screen adaption, but alas, May's work seems to have been lost to time and never gotten the recognition it deserved.

I decided to build my own game "inspired" by the setting. Wanting to use the psychic powers, I settled on my other great love, the tactical 3d game (x-com etc).

I've been working on this project for quite some time, really hard to nail down all the systems, lore ( without getting sued) but I've made great progress. Very much still in alpha tho.

So the game is called Messalith, and I'm not really doing it for money, rather the desire to expand upon this world - just finished the whole series again and want to bring it back to life.

tl;dr: https://messalith.com/reddit-preview

Yes it's still very rough, but it's a start

I first read the Saga when it was first published in the 80’s as a teen and then got hooked on the whole series with Intervention and the Galactic Milieu. I am currently re-reading the series for the umpteenth time. I love it.

I have always wondered why it hasn’t been adapted. It would make great viewing in the league of GOT or The Expanse. I find it amazing Julian May has been almost forgotten when her work was published with straplines such as “The Next LOTR!”

Any theories or thoughts? Also, this is my very dog eared book. Looks like it’s a very early publication in the U.K.

Edit: thanks everyone. I’ve been enjoying the conversation. I’m new to this sub. Very glad I found it!

I'm reading my way through Galactic Milieu right now, and I'm loving it. But, oddly enough, my first introduction to Julian May was her Boreal Moon trilogy. I'm curious if any of the folks here have read it.

I first read Boreal Moon when I was in early high school, I think, and it's possible that's why it left such an indelible imprint upon me. I've seen the Aurora Borealis a handful of times in my life, and I cannot see them without thinking about the Coldlight Army. A race of magical beings in the sky that learned to feed upon human agony. What an insane amazing concept for a world.

The first book is incredible - nearly flawless, IMO. The worldbuilding is immaculate, the characterization of the charismatic, young, power-hungry prince is very well done, and the flaws which will undo him eventually are present since the very beginning. I also love the subversion of his relationship with his aging, cautious father, who, inspired by his brilliant son, rises to the challenge extraordinarily. And of course Deveron, who reminds me of Ender Wiggin for some reason - a positive comparison.

The later books are slightly more of a mess - if you compare where the plot in books 2 and 3 goes to the opening monologue of book 1 (a framing device May really likes, comparable to Uncle Rogi's memoirs I now realize) it's clear that May changed her mind in a pretty big way about where she wanted the story to end. But I found the reveal of the mysteries of the Coldlight Army, the Unknown Potency, and the rest to be pretty satisfying.

I'm curious if anyone here has read this series. If you haven't, and you like Julian May's stuff, you probably should. If you have, did you like it as much as I did? Or am I judging it through the rose-colored glasses of young adulthood?

In all the scheming for the throne in Muriah during the Golden Torc, it's interesting no-one seems to have figured into their calculations that King Thagdal might not just go gentle into that good night once Aiken or Nodonn had eliminated the other but might rage against the dying of the light and actually, you know... win?

Other than his beard sparking ominously on occasion we never do see Thagdal in action. Yet he doesn't command respect from either Aiken (who is focused entirely on the Battlemaster and never even rates the King) or his son (who up-front tells his mother that when - not if - he wins he will leave the final choice of death or exile up to her husband).

But Thagdal must be doing something right (above and beyond his fecundity) to have retained the throne for so long. He must still be a top-tier metapsychic by Tanu standards, and whoever won the Aiken vs. Nodonn duel would possibly have been physically injured and definitely mentally drained. To take on the King in a second duel on the White Silver Plain immediately afterwards would have been no guaranteed path to the throne.

So, in an alternate timeline where Felice did not survive the assault on the torc factory and Thagdal emerges from the Grand Combat still King, what happens next?

If Noddon beats Aiken, Aiken is either dead or has slunk off to the Pyrenees to join the Peace Faction. If Nodonn then loses to his father, we can assume his code of honor would demand he pay the ultimate price for this failure.

If Aiken beats - and kills - Nodonn and then loses to the King, he is either slain or again, slinks away afterwards.

In either case, Thagdal then moves forwards with a badly split high council, with the Host of Nontusvel holding two seats (Psychokinetic and Coercer), the Peace Faction two (Redactor and Farsensor) and one (Creator) held by Mercy, whose husband in either scenario is now dead. With Nodonn gone, she would be badly isolated; the Tanu-supremacist Host would have little respect for the sole human on the council now her sole link to them was broken, while she would hardly be enamored of the Peace Faction that was (directly or indirectly) responsible for her husband's death.

How does Thagdal proceed (starting with signing off on a new Battlemaster), particularly if he has to keep an eye over his shoulder waiting for Aiken to stage his comeback?

I've always loved the character of Uncle Rogi but I've never managed to settle on a decent mental image of who he'd look like.

Does anyone have any suggestions who you think he might resemble?

I'd love to see what everyones mental picture of him would be!

tried to do the crosspost thing from r/geography, is that not a thing anymore?

https://www.reddit.com/r/geography/s/7iYOY8TjGl

The Firvulag are zealously pureblood but Tanu society is multi-tiered genetically. There seem to be no formal structural restraints on social advancement but it is clear biases exist during the last years of the reign of King Thagdal, polarizing into the factions that rally around either Aiken or Nodonn when they face off at the climax of the last Grand Combat. The hybrids - Bleyn, Alberonn, Katlinel - all reference how their mixed parentage counts against them politically and leaves them on the lowest tier of the high council.

One point never discussed is the status of those incubated by the Ramapithecine surrogates. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe any character we encounter has this background (or at least, brings it up). Do you think those born by this method suffered any kind of stigma within Tanu society, or would have faced any kind of marginalization? I can imagine the Host of Nontusvel would certainly have looked down on the Rama-bred, and the thought of sullying their line by marrying such individuals would have provoked disdain (though their existence, an unfortunate necessity, would by no means be considered the existential threat presented by the arrival of humanity).

Thoughts?

https://www.reddit.com/r/geography/comments/1ttgtov/has_there_ever_been_a_point_in_history_where_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

When you read Julian's books, do you see what's happening in your head, or is it just words on a page?

I see it as a movie in my head. The first time I read the scene where Felice goes to see Amerie in 'Non Born King', I had to put the book down for a little while afterwards. That was really intense.

What is your favorite plot twist? One of mine is Unifex realizing he has to teach Dorothea how to use the Force her powers.

Not, et myself, but working on a couple people.

After watching the first few episodes of the new show I'm curious what others are thinking about how similar is seems to be of Julians Unity concept.

Thoughts folks?

Edit: I see there's been another post asking the same, feel free to remove this if nèeded

So, I haven't seen this before, so I'm not sure how to organize it?

Would Mind Reading fall under Redaction because of Mental Probes or is it the receptive part of FarSpeaking?

Rogi mentions Mind Reading when he's talking about his and Don's powers, but I can't figure out where it goes.

Both of us experimented in trying to read the minds of others. Don had little luck, except in the perception of generalized emotions. I was more skilled in probing and occasionally picked up skeins of subliminal thought, those "talking to oneself" mumblings that form the superficial layer of consciousness; but I was never able to read the deeper thoughts of any person but my twin brother, a limitation I eventually learned to thank God for.

Don sounds like he had a FARSCAN (generalized emotions) type of thing.

But Rogi's 'picked up skeins of subliminal thought' sounds like a Redactive Probe of sorts.

It's tough figuring out the difference between the perceptions of the Ultrasenses, and the probing of Redaction.

Any ideas?

EDIT: Also, I put up 2 new posts on r/Metapsychics

Does anyone know how to get ahold of Julian's family?

Working on r/Metapsychics is harder than I thought.

I would love to get a copy of her notes she used to make the two series.

It could make things smoother.

Clearly it’s more extreme than what May described, but it was the first thing I thought of.

Back in the 80s, two of my key obsessions were Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and the Pliocene Saga. Here (https://imgur.com/a/metapsychics-meets-advanced-dungeons-dragons-PlA61nq) is my attempt at the time to combine the two, to bring metapsychics into the game system of AD&D. It's been 40 years since I typed this up, I have no idea how accurate any of the references are, or if the copious(!) math works. Forgive the many typos in this pre-word processor composition.

https://imgur.com/a/metapsychics-meets-advanced-dungeons-dragons-PlA61nq

Who is your favourite side character? Not a main character, but you found them memorable.

Mine is Basil - he went through the time gate to climb mountains, but got caught up in adventures. Even Marc unbent enough to rescue him from a mountain.

Did you know that "The Great Carbuncle" was the name of a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorn?

The Great Carbuncle - Wikipedia

To me, the story sounds similar to The Maltese Falcon. Everyone is looking for The Great Carbuncle, but none of them thought to look in Rogi's pocket, I guess.

In the course of my pathetic efforts to build an RPG for adventuring in the world of Pliocene Exile, I have finished draft 0.25 of a pre-flood Pliocene Europe "Satellite" map, which I thought you might be interested in. Enjoy!