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| "Preste" as the Emperor of Ethiopia, enthroned on a map of East Africa. From an atlas by the Portuguese cartographer Diogo Homem for Queen Mary, c. 1555–1559. (British Library) |
I'm reading The Verge about European exploration from around 1490 to 1530. Seems that one of ideas that inspired the Portuguese to venture around the Cape Horn was the legend of the Christian King Prester John ruling over a kingdom somewhere in Central Asia. Or Africa. Or India. Nobody seems to have pinned it down, nor are we even sure he existed. It may just have been a case of Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers passed down over the centuries. But Robert Silvergberg wrote a book about him. Robert Silverberg, the prolific science fiction writer, though this one was non-fiction. I read a bunch of his stuff a long time ago though I can't remember a single one. I did read one of his stories not too long ago.
I read a lot of Silverberg years ago. He struck me as being as good as a writer can be without ever once suggesting greatness.
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