Post by Calenture on Nov 23, 2008 17:54:47 GMT
George Underwood
The Narrow Land by Jack Vance, 1980; this Coronet copy 1984
The Narrow Land (1967, Ultimate Pub. Co.)
The Masquerade on Dicantropus (1951, Standard Magazines, Inc.)
Where Hesperus Falls (1956, King Size Pubs. Inc.)
The World-Thinker (1945, Standard Magazines, Inc.)
Green Magic (1963, Mercury Press, Inc.)
The Ten Books (1951, Standard Magazines, Inc.)
Chateau D'If (1950, Standard Magazines, Inc. as New Bodies For Old)
A collection of long out-of-print stories by master fantasist
Jack Vance.
The Narrow Land, first published 1967, is the most recent of Vance's stories here. Like all Vance's worlds, the setting is meticulously constructed.It tells the story of Ern, a primitive amphibious biped. In infancy Ern explores the waters off the shores of the long tongue of the Narrow Land, where he evades the clutches of the terrible ogre who lives in the deeps, and watches the shore where sometimes he sees men walking, performing their mysterious rites. The men are "one horns"; they see to the hatching of the eggs, then retrieve the young at an appropriate age from the sea. They in turn are ruled by the two horns. A peculiar narrative, this one is a little slow getting into, but once the effort is made is actually very readable, eventually
turning into an exciting mini-adventure.
The Masquerade on Dicantropus (1951) tells of Jim Root, an interplanetary archeologist, who is puzzled by the pyramid in the desert near his observation station, and baffled by the problem of getting along with his wife, whose temperament is not suited to isolated observation posts on planets whose only other inhabitants emerge occasionally from pools to indulge in brief exchanges. The natives guard the secret of the pyramid jealously.
Her life is livened up considerably by the arrival of another man and the discovery that the natives possess a vast fortune in
diamonds...which, she theorizes, can come from nowhere else but
inside the pyramid.
Where Hesperus Falls (1956) sees Vance returning to a theme that has interested most SF writers for decades: immortality. Henry Revere is an immortal. He has lived countless thousands of years and no longer has any interest in life, nor feels anything in common with the humans around him. He longs for death, but his guardians watch his every move. At last, noticing that the orbit of a satellite launched several thousand years before has begun to decay, Revere begins to calculate and plan...
The World-Thinker (1945) shows Vance at his energetic best.
Lanarck is a rebellious interplanetary policeman given the task
of finding and bringing to justice Isabel May. Isabel May's
father has contrived a way to write a blank cheque on the bank of
all mankind, and before his death has passed the secret to his
daughter. Lanarck pursues her beyond the reaches of known space, eventually landing on a desert-planet occupied only by the
gigantic lizard creature Laoome, who creates worlds through his
thoughts. Isabel May has escaped to one of these dreamworlds, but Laoome is in the process of going mad. A brilliant mini-fantasy.
Green Magic (1963) is, if anything, even better. Howard
Fair, looking through the workbooks of his occultist great uncle
Gerald McIntyre, finds some references to an obscure form of
magic giving access to a fantastic green realm and unlimited
power. Fair is warned by a visitor from the green dimension that
his researches into green magic will bring him nothing but grief.
Naturally he ignores the warning.
The Ten Books (1951) are the ten volumes of the Encyclopedia of Mankind. These books were all that the settlers of Haven had to remind them of Earth when they had landed on Haven generations before. When Ralph and Betty Welstead land on Haven they find a world where human achievement has been extended beyond all known parameters: with only the overblown descriptions of Earth's music, art and literature in the Encyclopedia of Mankind - but no actual examples or illustrations - the people of Haven have laboured to try to equal what they believe Earth's greatest artists have achieved, always failing in their own eyes, but in reality creating work of greater power than the originals whose descriptions inspired them. The people of Haven long for reunion with Earth; but will Earth, with its overcrowding, its slums, squalor and corrupt politics, mean the end of the perfect world that has been made on Haven?
Chateau D'if (1950): Five friends, successful but bored,
regularly meet at a sidewalk cafe. An advert in the newspaper
promises adventure at the Chateau D'if; but just what kind of
adventure, nobody knows. One by one they go to learn the secret
of Chateau D'if. One by one they vanish. Roland Mario finds
himself in the body of an ageing, unpopular businessman,
struggling to make enough money to win back his own body...or any body...
An engaging story, atypical of Vance's work.
The collection is excellent. Even if one or two of the pieces seem unrepresentative of Vance's work in general. Good cover by George Underwood.