Review of Maske: Thaery by Jack Vance

I was going to post different review, but hearing of Jack Vance's passing this past week, I've decided to pay a small tribute to the master of the imaginative fantastic by posting a review of one of his novels, instead. Thanks for the stories, Jack.

By the mid ‘70s, Jack Vance had established himself as an important name in science fiction and fantasy.  Having gotten initial forays into pulp out of the way, he’d reached a strong mid-point in his career.  With the unique Blue World, well-developed Emphyrio, and, if anything else, highly imaginative and entertaining Tchai series under his belt, Vance’s books had found a singularity of voice that would later be taken to even greater heights in the Cugel saga, Lyonesse, and Cadwal Chronicles.  Perhaps the most mature of this transition period, the author’s 1976 Maske:Thaery deserves more attention than it receives.

Maske: Thaery is the story of Jubal Droad.  A second son, Jubal is left to seek gainful employment outside the home upon the death of his father and the ascendancy of his older brother to the Droad house seat.  The isolated peninsula where they live, Thaery, dominated by a traditional social structure, House Droad is viewed by the other Houses as haughty, forthright, and all too lacking in restraint—character traits Jubal unwittingly exhibits to a T.  A slight to his House’s honor occurring while Jubal is in the wilds one day, the remainder of the book is Jubal’s quest to effect reprisal, but the form it comes in is not what he inititally hopes.  

Review of "The Moon Moth and Other Stories" by Jack Vance

Neither prolific or close-mouthed, Jack Vance has written a few dozen short stories in his career.  And of these, “The Moon Moth” is the best.  Period.  Full stop.  End of story.  Thus, The Moon Moth & Other Stories is worth owning for the title story alone—or any other collection which contains it, for that matter.  But before I get ahead of myself, the following is a rough breakdown of the eleven stories in the VIE collection.

“The Kokod Warriors” – A funny caper involving mini-warriors on a touristy planet.  (George R.R. Martin may or may not have taken his inspiration for “Sandkings” from this.)  This story can likewise be found in a few other Vance collections.

“The New Prime” (aka “The Brain of the Galaxy”) - One man is thrown naked into a party; another suddenly faces a firefight with aliens; an artist must make impromptu mental creations; a relic hunter has his loyalty tested.  This is one of Vance’s better ideas given the insightful ending which draws these threads together.

“The Men Return” - A bizarre story with ‘80s computer animation imagery. Evolution has never been so surreal.

Review of "Big Planet" by Jack Vance

Big Planet (1957) is Jack Vance’s third published novel.  Barely longer than a novella, the book nevertheless features many of the ideas and imaginative storytelling that would come to make the writer so well known in fantasy circles.  Big Planet itself home to a seeming unlimited variety of wild cultures, species, and fantastical creatures, the storytelling is full-on planetary adventure.  Though the idea would later be revised and expanded in The Tchai (Planet of Adventure) series, this is the roots of fantasy travelogue. 

 

Big Planet is the cross-planetary adventures of Claude Glystra and his crew after they crash land in strange circumstances on the titular planet.  Landing at a point far distant from the only civilized locale on the massive world, Glystra and the others, with a limited amount of supplies, set off on the 40,000 mile journey with little hope of surviving the wilds.  Making matters worse, they know a traitor exists in their midst.  Bajarnum de Beaujolais, a self-made ruler who hopes to build a power base on Big Planet, has an agent planted among them.  The other schemes the delusional Bajarnum has cooked up are for Glystra and the reader to stumble into.

Review of "Galactic Effectuator" by Jack Vance

Though certainly more well-known for his science fiction and fantasy, Jack Vance was also an avid mystery writer.  The crime genre influencing much of his more famous works, all five of The Demon Princes books, Araminta Station, Son of the Tree, The Houses of Iszm, Maske: Thaery, the Magnus Ridolph stories, and several others feature men solving riddles in private eye fashion.  But, Galactic Effectuator is Vance’s most overt example of mixing space adventure and mystery.  Actually a compendium of two novellas: The Dogtown Tourist Agency and Frietzke’s Turn, the book features Miro Hetzel doing what he does best: effectuate investigations into the puzzling and mysterious. 

The Dogtown Tourist Agency opens with Hetzel signing off on a contract for which he’d been employed tracking a playboy.  Moving quickly on to the next case, one Palladian Micronics which produces robots, Hetzel interviews the CEO who informs him a competitor is able to sell a similar product at a much, much lower price.  An obvious threat to the industry, the CEO wants to know why, and gives Hetzel a retainer.  He also provides some clues, all of which point to the backwater Maz.  Arriving on the strangely populated planet, what follows is an investigation that becomes only more mysterious by the day and requires all of Hetzel’s wits and bravery if he’s to get to the bottom of the case.

Review of "The Houses of Iszm" by Jack Vance

According to his autobiography This Is Me, Jack Vance!, the author constructed his own home.  The wood home is also an idea that plays out in much of Vance’s fiction, Son of the Tree, The Cadwal Chronicles, and “Dream Castle”, included.  It’s also the main behind the novella The Houses of Iszm, the subject of this review.

The Houses of Iszm is the story Farr Sainh, a botanist from the University of Los Angeles, who arrives at Iszm on a sabbatical intending to study the planet’s unique tree life in which its people make and sell homes.  Security on Iszm strict due to the value of the trees, Sainh undergoes a variety of procedures having his identity verified, and even after being allowed entrance, is monitored continuously by the paranoid Iszic.  Quickly becoming involved in another species attempts to steal some of the famous Iszic trees, Sainh’s adventures roll from there.

Review of "Son of the Tree" by Jack Vance

Son of the Tree is a novella from very early in Vance’s career.  Written in 1950, the story presents some of the basics of style that would later become Vance’s signature, but by in large is simplistic story-telling with few bright spots.  

Almost as if having a laugh at writing itself, the protagonist of Son of the Tree is Joe Smith.  Essentially a galactic vagrant, Smith finds himself on the planet Kyril searching for the man who stole his love.  Quickly getting caught up in events surrounding Kyril’s gigantic tree of life and the rival Druids and Mangs fighting for its control, Smith soon finds saving his own skin is of more importance than getting revenge.  

Son of the Tree’s pacing is brisk even for Vance.  Events continually on the move, readers barely have a chance to settle in one location before being whisked away to another.  It would have been nice, for example, to see the peoples of Kyril given a little more detail and color.  Like two other of Vance’s short works, Telek and “Chateau D’If”, Son of the Tree feels as though it would have been better expanded into a novel, interplanetary revenge and culture coups too much for only 100 pages.  

Review of "The Cadwal Chronicles" by Jack vance

The 1980s found Jack Vance moving into his sixth decade of life.  Imagination still sharp, he produced such works as the Lyonesse trilogy, the second half of the Cugel saga, as well as began the Cadwal Chronicles, Araminta Station published in 1989.  The novel on par with the best of Vance’s oeuvre, the second novel in the series, Ecce and Old Earth, sees only a slight decline in quality, the story furthered in fine fashion.  The third and concluding volume, however, is like a different writer took hold of the script.  The story delivered is dry and bland, and does not come close to the bar set by the first two.  Throy fortunately not bad enough to destroy the integrity of the series, the Cadwal Chronicles contain all of the tropes that make Vance, Vance, and likewise make the series well worth a read for any fan of the author.  

The Cadwal Chronicles is the story of Glawen Clattuc and his fight to protect the planet Cadwal from being overrun by greedy developers and political dissidents.  The planet set aside as a nature preserve and population limited many centuries prior by a group on Earth called the Naturalists, in the time that has passed since many things have changed for the worse on the planet.  Aside from the deterioration of the Naturalists, a listless, unintelligent group called the Yips have slowly settled in the beautiful but dangerous forests of Cadwal and caused social problems of all variety.  Making matters worse, the eight families designated to oversee the planet and ensure it’s pristine quality have begun to collapse internally, Glawen’s own family even suffering from in-fighting and civil turmoil.  Through this mire of family feuds and social ills, not to mention political plays for power and motives of overblown revenge, Glawen needs every bit of wisdom and luck at his disposal to protect the planet he’s bound by duty to oversee.

Review of "The Last Castle" by Jack Vance

Winning the 1966 Nebula for best novella, The Last Castle is amazingly only one of few major awards Jack Vance won in his career.  It is surprising because there is nothing that really sets the Last Castle apart from any of Vance’s other work to warrant such a distinction.  The colorful imagination, the playful plot, the witty dialogue, the fantastical creatures—all are Vance through and through, leaving one in wonder. 

Sidestepping the lure of discussion on the inconsistencies of speculative fiction awards, The Last Castle is the story of Castle Hagedorn and its stand against a rebellious horde of aliens on far-far future Earth.  The incumbent humans living in decadence and useless décor for far too long, their slaves, the Meks, have revolted, taking the country by storm until only Hagedorn remains standing.  Xanten, a surly, aggressive personality (not a typical Vance hero), decides to take action facing the complacency of the ruling elite and sets out over the land to find how and why the Meks rebelled.  What he discovers is surprising, not to mention more disagreeable than any of the lords and ladies could have imagined.

Filled with the wit and creativity readers of Vance have come to take for granted, The Last Castle is no exception.  Though short (less than 100 pages), the story’s details and originality are more than enough to set the imagination alight.  Fleshing out Xanten’s story are Phanes, insect-esque humans, exhibited every evening by the lords of Hagedorn in a sort of “Whose peacock is more beautiful?” display.  Birds, impertinent pterydactyl-esque creatures, work as other-worldy taxi drivers.  And the Meks, though never developed beyond comic book presentation, fill the role of foil well enough—and weirdly enough—to make the story at least readable.  

Thematically, The Last Castle is one of Vance’s strongest stories.  Perhaps the reason it won the Nebula, slavery and the mindset underpinning the practice take center stage as Xanten pursues his mission on a sap-slurping power-wagon across the country.  Talking amongst the variety of classes and peoples inhabiting the land, he encounters perspectives that don’t always line up with Hagedorn’s view of propriety.  Drastic steps needed as the Meks draw closer, Vance’s solution to the slavery issue, while not exactly chiming with modern liberalism, is nevertheless practical.

In the end, The Last Castle is a superb novella from a Grandmaster of Fantasy (one of the few other awards Vance has won).  Available by itself in older publications, it is now included only in collections of short stories, or paired with Vance’s other highly successful novella, The Dragon Masters.  Fans won’t want to miss it, while those new to the author will find it a short and sweet introduction that exhibits the majority of Vance’s strengths.

Review of "The Dragon Masters" by Jack Vance

The Dragon Masters may be Vance’s most successful work of short fiction.  The novella playing out like a film or video game, the reason is clear.  Action, action, and more action, the story rocks to the smoke, blood, and battle of genetically modified dragons, their human masters, and a species of alien that has a surprise up their space-ship sleeve.  

The story is of Joaz Banthen, the wise and modest ruler of Banthen Valley.  Overseeing his land with aplomb, Joaz breeds dragons efficiently while ensuring the villagers have enough food, as well as a means of escape when danger comes.  The latter is needed as Ervis Carcolo, the ruler of nearby (ironically named) Happy Valley, spites everything Joaz does, and ultimately seeks to take over Banthen Valley and its dragons for his own.  Humans inhabiting the world for only a handful of generations, a species of alien patrol the neighboring galaxy and pop in to take slaves as needed.  Fighting off the malice of Carcolo’s on one side and the harvesting of humanity on the other, Joaz has his work cut out for him.

Action and entertainment taking center stage, thematically there is little to say about The Dragon Masters.  What can be said is that the hubris of working independently toward a goal common to all appears and reappears; Ervis is not the only one who refuses to join forces with Joaz to fight the aliens.  An underground group called the sacerdotes inhabit the land, secluding themselves, hoarding their secrets, and are unwilling to unite against their common foe.  Discussion futile, the smoke of battle drowns all.  

In the end, The Dragon Masters is full barrel Vance aimed at fun and entertainment.  The usual bits and pieces of moral and cultural insight exist, but are most often smothered by the carnage of Juggers, Termagants, Long-horned Murderers, Striding Monsters, and other genetically modified beasts duking it out in the valleys.  Like a boy in the sandbox with his collection of action figures, dragons, space ships, and ray guns, Vance fills the story with all manner of youthful imagination.  Short and sweet, the novella is recommended as light reading for Vance fans for this precise reason.

Review of "Tales of the Dying Earth" by Jack Vance

There is a variety of contexts in which a writer’s imagination can be viewed.  The profound depth of a single idea (e.g. Orwell’s 1984 or Golding’s Lord of the Flies), the degree to which a concept can be tied to the reader’s psychological, emotional, spiritual, and physical reality (e.g. Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game), the number of internal touch-points ideas have when interwoven (e.g. William Gibson’s Neuromancer), the depths of the sub-conscious plumbed (e.g. Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day), the brilliance of language (e.g. Austen’s Pride and Prejudice or Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man), details of word building (e.g. Tolkien’s Middle Earth or George R.R. Martin’s Westeros), etc., etc., are all different perspectives on judging the quality of imagination in a book.  Its imaginative scope unparalleled, Jack Vance’s Tales of the Dying Earth is as fantastic as literature gets—somewhere between literally and figuratively.

Like Don Quixote stumbling upon Alice’s Wonderland,  Jack Vance conjures some of the most fantastical and satirical of settings and events in Tales of the Dying Earth.  The scenes continually topping one another for brilliance, the collection of stories is a feast for the imagination that gets more delightful with each page turned.  The list of magicians and their fortes near the beginning of “Rhialto the Marvellous”, for example, contains more unique ideas than the works of fantasists like Eddings, Feist, and Brooks combined.  Stories that must be experienced to be believed, there is perhaps no more colorfully fantastic book in all of literature.  

Tales consists of a variety of works bound together by setting.  (This connection is tenuous at best, the universe of the mind perhaps the only fully inclusive context in which to read the Dying Earth.)  The collection opens with some of the first short stories Vance ever wrote.  Style yet to fully mature, the adventures contained in "The Dying Earth" of the magicians and their protégés nevertheless give every indication of what is to come. Cugel—thief, hero, and human in every bone—is simply the greatest rogue in literature, and the subject of the two volumes at the heart of the collection: “Eyes of the Overworld” and “Cugel’s Saga”.  Closing out the book is the collection of short stories “Rhialto the Marvellous” that, while lacking the singular antics of Cugel, nevertheless up the ante imaginatively and close the collection as a whole in style and grace.  

Picaresque as picaresque can be, each of the stories, novel length or less, are imbued with a sense of enjoyment that shows Vance fully capable of bringing a smile to the reader’s face while telling an absorbing tale.  A master wordsmith, dialogue—Vance’s forte—will either put readers off for reasons they have trouble identifying, or turn readers on, their eyes dancing across the pages with delight.  For the latter, reading Vance is pure pleasure, the juxtaposition of situation and voice head-shakingly lovable.  Subtle but poignant, each story is likewise permeated by a profound understanding of the motives underpinning human nature.  Cugel’s greed, Morreion’s nonchalance, and Liane’s pride are all indicative of mankind, as are the esoteric yet wholly believable religions, cults, cultures, and characters encountered in their travels.  Style inimitable, the collection is Vance at his peak.  

In the end, Tales of the Dying Earth is as imaginative as fantasy gets.  The people, ideas, settings, motifs, plots, etc. are truly an unmatched presentation of the capability of the human mind.  Style indescribably unique, it’s best to first sample Vance’s writing before taking the plunge and buying one of his books.  Numerous have tried to define it (“wry”, “baroque”, “tongue-in-cheek”, “comically over-formal”, etc), but try as hard as they like, nothing compares to the real experience.  It will either be loved or hated, so best to try before.  For those who find it enjoyable, the collection is the best of Vance’s work and one of the greatest treats of fantasy.  It is certainly the most imaginative—from a certain point of view.

Review of "Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honor of Jack Vance" ed. by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois

(Note: this review is for the collection as a whole rather than individual short stories.)

Encomium is a tribute album created in the ‘90s in honor of Led Zeppelin.  (Have patience, this review is about the Dying Earth.) The artists who contributed were given free rein, save repeat performances.  With Zeppelin’s oeuvre the field of choice and all musical interpretations welcome, some of the performers decided to contribute safe, emulative covers much in the vein of the originals, while others chose to experiment, trying their own band’s style on a Zeppelin tune.  The result is an eclectic album that remains listenable for both its differences and similarities to the Zeppelin originals, not to mention the limited number of tributes.  Sadly, Songs of the Dying Earth, the anthology of short stories in honor of Jack Vance, does not parallel this concept. 

Vance being one of the most important writers in sci-fi, the idea of creating a tribute anthology in his honor seems wholly appropriate.  But when actually made a reality, something was lost.  Rather than leave the gates wide open for the all-star cast of writers to contribute as they pleased, George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, editors of the 2009 anthology, saw fit to limit them to the Dying Earth.  While this setting alone is imaginative enough to allow an infinite number of yarns, such limitation would be the same as Encomium’s producers preventing bands from interpreting anything other than “Stairway to Heaven”.  What kind of tribute would that be?

Another problem is quantity.  With twenty-three stories in play (almost twice the number of a typical short story collection), it seems anybody who contributed was published, no filter in place to weed out sub-par performances.  With such a large number of writers solicited, surely the editors could have chosen the best of, rather than simply putting them all in the 620 page (620 pages of short stories!) collection?


When these two issues are combined, suffice to say, the individual pieces of Songs of the Dying Earth too quickly meld together, individuality and unique expression muddled in the press.  Every story in the anthology seems to feature a red sun fading on the horizon, wily magicians, pelgranes, roguery, attempts at clever Vancian dialogue, deodands, as well as a dearth of magical-mystical names for spells and places that only sometimes live up to the quality of the originator’s. 

Vance’s oeuvre—Durdane, Alastor, Lyonesse, etc.—would have been a much better playground for Martin and Dozois to allow their talented cast of writers to frolic in.  Vance having probably penned his last, such a collection would give readers one more opportunity to experience the Pnume, check in on what Kirth is doing now, or learn what events have transpired on Blue World since the death of King Kragen.  Creative writers like Dan Simmons, Robert Silverberg, Jeff Vandermeer and the like would have also been free to come up with their own Vancian settings, characters, and motifs.  Alas, such is not the case.  These writers must huddle together, bumping elbows, and drawing lines over one another in the relatively limited space of the Dying Earth.

For readers who indulge only in epic or high fantasy, the length and uniformity of the collection will probably go overlooked, and the similarity of the details, unnoticed.  However, for readers who prefer variety, the never-ending take on the Dying Earth theme may quickly become stale.  For the latter, it’s quickly apparent that reading the book straight through is not the best option.  Taking in a story here and there between other reading projects seems wise if the imagination and individual efforts of the contributors are to truly be appreciated.  Otherwise, the monotony may overwhelm.

And there is imagination.  Reading the stories, there can be no doubt that each of the contributing authors has an affection for Vance.  But like most short story collections, readers will enjoy some and despise others--a point exacerbated by the quantity.  Affection does not automatically translate to quality.  Many attempt to emulate the master but fall flat.  Whether it be dialogue, tone, or plot development, some aspect of Vance’s talents is often missing.  Others succeed mightily, but very few of the contributors actually capture the feel of Vance’s craft, strengthening the argument that the collection should have been culled. What remained would have been a stronger collection--and tribute--for it.

In the end, Martin and Dozois’s intentions are beyond reproach. Vance is truly a grand master of the genre and is fully deserving of the recognition.  The manner in which the two pay tribute, however, falls suspect.  By limiting writers like Silverberg, Simmons, Tad Williams, Tanith Lee, and a host of other well-known authors to one setting alone, in addition to including more than twenty stories, their efforts get lost amongst one another.  The pair would have been better off opening the doors to Vance’s oeuvre to allow every sort of adventure its place, space to the fantastic, thus providing the reader a more varied experience, not to mention eliding the less quality contributions.  This would have paved the way for a more justifiable tribute to Vance’s works.  Thus, Songs of the Dying Earth will not be for everybody, including die-hard Vance fans.  The imagination is there, but when funneled into a single bottle, the colors get mixed, producing a uniform rather than varied result. 

…and did I mention the sour notes on which the anthology opens and ends—Dean Koontz’s self-indulgent pity party with Vance pushed to the background for an introduction, bookended by Neil Gaiman’s equally self-indulgent anti-Vance story as a saccharine bow out?  Not very stylish…

Review of "Blue World" by Jack Vance

What’s to be said about Jack Vance that hasn’t already been said.  The man is simply one of the most imaginative writers of the 20th century.  His sci-fi fantasy styled adventures deceptively simple, the complexity of being human hides just below the surface, rearing its head in profound fashion in the middle of all the humor and fun.  Vance’s 1966 Blue World is no different.

Our hero this tale around, Sklar Hast, is an assistant hoodwink living on Tranque Float.  Not a con or charlatan, Hast literally winks the hoods—in more complex Morse Code fashion—of the communicator devices located on the floats of their lily-pad archipelago, passing news between themselves.  At the outset of the story, Sklar’s life is relatively simple.  He sits in when the master hoodwink is away, teaching apprentices at other times.  Tranque Float’s ancestors, having escaped their home planet in Pilgrim fashion two centuries prior, traded one oppression for another.  The world they crash landed on, the unnamed Blue World, is covered in water, habitation possible only on the giant lily-pads.  And if survival isn’t difficult enough, fighting for food are the kragen—water dragons submerged just beneath the waves always looking for a meal.  Internal politics drawing to a head, at the outset of the tale Hast’s close knit community is experiencing a reprisal of the oppression it once escaped from.

Hast proves himself a typical Vancian hero.  Dissatisfied with the offerings he and his community are obliged to provide the largest of the water dragons, the great King Kragen, Hast sets about finding a way for the people of the archipelago to free themselves of the supplicatory burden.  Barring his way are the intercessors, men whose caste responsibilities include overseeing regular offerings of delicious sponge to the King.  The disagreement which unfolds between Skarl and the intercessors comes about in a fashion only Vance can describe.  The comedic, over-formal dialogue that is his trademark, though toned down compared to The Demon Princes or Tales of the Dying Earth, remains a force.  The direction Hast and his followers’ convictions take them, developing as possible only in fantasy, will have readers smiling in appreciation of the superior storytelling skills.

Though Blue World will never be accepted by academia, the parallels to history and literature are numerous.  Visions of Moby Dick spring to mind reading of the hunt for King Kragen, while just by the beast’s name Norse and Icelandic myths come to life--mysterious sea creatures who appear from the depths, attacking helpless mortals.  Furthermore, the doctrine Barquan Blasel and his fellow intercessors propound runs an eerie parallel to dogma the propagandists backing the Crusades must have spun.  And lastly, there is a book within a book, one which survived the ancestor’s crash landing on the planet.  Treated with profound reverence, it is called the Analects.  Quotes like “Whoever is willing to give will never lack someone to take.”, put the reader firmly in mind of Confucius and his brand of one-line wisdom, yet spun as only Vance can. 

In the end, Blue World is more great stuff from Vance.  It is fantasy adventure as best it can be.  The unique imagination, comedic dialogue, Campbellian hero, brisk plot, detailed motifs, and storytelling all exist in spades.  Paralleling the fun is Vance’s keen eye for human virtue and vice in their simplest yet most affective forms, not to mention the inability of humanity to escape the cycles of civilization and disarray which mark the passage of history.  Readers who love Vance but have not read Blue World, don’t be afraid; this is more great stuff.  Readers who are unaware of Vance will find this one of many great entry points into his oeuvre.

(This review has also been posted at www.fantasyliterature.com)