Jack Vance

[AE35Unit]

That is one wicked cover Wullie! Very sfnal

 

[HardScienceFan]

isn't that another name for the Blue Planet,WWD?

 

[AE35Unit]

Ben I think you mean Blue World or Big Planet. Blue Planet is Attenborough...

 

[HardScienceFan]

you're right
The cover on the Ballantine edition i have is better than the godawful DAW one.

Certainly NOT Big Planet,written in 53,I think
(i've got the one with the Emsh cover!)

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

isn't that another name for the Blue Planet,WWD?

HFS Yes it was expanded into Blue World as a novel.

 

[easygoingman]

Heh thanks to books like Emphyrio i am much patient about his less brilliant work cause you know specially the series books that they do get better when he builds up the story and the world.

I have started reading To Live Forever who is just like Emphyrio about a very different society. From page one i enjoyed the way he paints up their world and culture.

I expect a full review with a warning about spoilers if present when you have finished 'To Live forever' = on ebay it's on offer at £15
+
I've re read 'Ports of Call' and wouldn't recommend it. It's basically the story of a young man living in a Victorian style society but with spaceships. His aunt wins a spaceship as compensation for slander and eventually decides to go on a trip searching for the alleged secret of 'eternal youth'. she's an annoying person who doesn't pay attention to her nephew. He reads out information on a planet she wants to visit warning how bad it is, she dumps him on the world after finding another man in a cafe who she likes more. There begins his adventure. He finds a position onboard another spacecraft and some comedy happens, travel and adventure, some killing but ends unfinished with no resolution and there are no big themes as in Empyrio for example.The sequel is called Lurulu (I haven't read it)and to be fair to Jack, I believe he became blind when writing the sequel and was nearly 90 as well.
I'm re reading Night Lamp at present set in the same Gaean Reach setting as Ports of Call and Lurulu

 

[AE35Unit]

Well I've just discovered a Jack Vance story(well,novella) in a fantasy anthology I have listed to give away on bookmooch. Its called Guyal of Sfere. Sounds Sf tho yet its in the Mammoth Book of Short Fantasy Novels.
Is this set in one of Vance's worlds?

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

AE35 Yes it is set in the "Dying Earth" series my favorite of all Vance series.

 

[Connavar]

AE35Unit :


I want that collection when you wanna give it away in bookmooch.

I will take it for Vance short story.

 

[AE35Unit]

Conn its been on my bookmooch list for ages, I'm reading the Robert E Howard story at the mo ,I'll pm you when I'm done.

 

[Vetch]

I have only read "Nachtlicht" - Night Lamp, and I loved it. It was a very good story, and told in that strange style... he has a strange style, imo. Though I haven't read any original English stuff by him (yet). I'm lacking the words to describe his writing -- sometimes I thought it was almost a bit like Terry Pratchett.
I'm looking for more (preferrably English) in our libraries and in 2nd hand shops, but unfortunately without success yet.

 

[AE35Unit]

So is his stuff easy to read? By that i mean clear and easy to understand. I have the 3 planet of adventure books and would like to start them soon.

 

[Vetch]

I think - without much experience, of course -his stuff is perfectly easy to read.
That's part of his style, it has a naive charm... I really can't express it very well and am hoping for others to help me out there.

'Clear and easy to understand' is fitting for the Vance that I know.


edit - Just checked the page before this one -- I think have read that one too, The Kragen. Kracken, Kracken, Kracken...
Nice read, but Night Lamp is better, imo.

 

[AE35Unit]

.
.

'Clear and easy to understand' is fitting for the Vance that I know.


.

That sounds good to me!

 

[Connavar]

That sounds good to me!

Vance’s stories written for pulps in the 1940s and 1950s cover many science fiction themes, with a tendency to emphasis on mysterious and biological themes (ESP, genetics, brain parasites, body switching, other dimensions, cultures) rather than technical ones. Robots, for example, are entirely absent. Many of the early stories are comic.

Vance's stories have a wide variety of temporal settings, a majority of them belong to a period long after humanity has colonized other stars


Thats a very good description of his SF books early or later. Thats his SF style. He is different with fantasy and other genres like mystery.

Dont expect technological stuff, i have seen even in reviews people saying his weakness is that he doesnt go into explaining how techs like space ships,flying cars etc work in his stories. His fans like me dont care since they are only tools to tell his social,cultural,species type SF stories.

I dont want you to expect wrong things from him.

After all he is one of my alltime favorit in SF and Fantasy. I will say though he is very easy to read thanks to his style,prose. He is correctly called as the premier stylised in SF.

 

[iansales]

Connavar, have you tried Matthew Hughes? See here. He writes very much Vancian sf. I have to review his latest, Template.

 

[AE35Unit]

Its funny. Tho i've not read any vance i've always seen him as a sf writer. Never thought he wrote fantasy!

 

[Connavar]

Connavar, have you tried Matthew Hughes? See here. He writes very much Vancian sf. I have to review his latest, Template.

Interesting, i only know him as the guy that did a sequal on Dying Earth story approved by Vance but regretted later.

I will look into your review of him. You know of any good reviews of his SF i mean earlier works?

 

[AE35Unit]

I just leafed thru the first Planet of Adventure book and it says first in a tetralogy! Doesn't that mean 5 books ?(4 is a quadrilogy)
Only 4 are listed on fantastic fiction,the 4th being The Pnume which i don't have. So what would be the 5th?

 

[j d worthington]

Interesting, i only know him as the guy that did a sequal on Dying Earth story approved by Vance but regretted later.

Unless I'm mistaken, it sounds like you're conflating two things here. Hughes has written in the style of Vance, but I don't believe he's done a sequel to The Dying Earth (or any of the later tales of that sequence); however, Michael Shea did: The Quest for Simbilis, with Vance's permission. I don't recall Vance (or Shea) actually regretting this (though I could be misremembering) as Vance getting interested in doing another story of Cugel himself, and simply deciding to go from there.... (Incidentally, Shea's book is worth looking into.....)

I just leafed thru the first Planet of Adventure book and it says first in a tetralogy! Doesn't that mean 5 books ?(4 is a quadrilogy)

No. Though "quadrilogy" is often used these days, the more proper term, and the one most commonly used until fairly recently, is tetralogy, from tetra-, meaning "four"