Lord Valentine's Castle

I started reading this book in 1988, and just finished it now. It's a fantasy novel featuring a troupe of jugglers. There is lots of detailed talk about juggling patterns and what it feels like to perform, etc., which is novel and interesting, especially if you are a juggling nerd like me. Majipoor makes a pretty interesting story world (a hundred billion people, multiple alien races, etc.), and there are some cool events... but instead of building to some great climactic ending, the novel kind of peaks in the middle, and then gradually runs downhill. I know there are more books in the series, but I doubt I'll read them. If I understand right, the Flying K's helped consult on some of the juggling stuff, and it shows -- some of their juggling philosophy is in there. My two favorite parts of this book are that it does a good job of explaining what skilled juggling feels like, and also this picture of the author on the back cover.