Jack Vance began writing science fiction and fantasy stories in 1945, hitting his stride in 1950 with
the publication of his first few books, of which the
most notable is his classic fantasy collection, The
Dying Earth (1950). His first science fiction novel
was The Space Pirate, which appeared in magazine
form in 1950 and as a softcover book in 1953; it
was later reprinted as The Five Gold Bands. Although set against an interstellar civilization, the
story is, in form, a fantasy quest adventure. Big
Planet (1952/57) was his first completely successful
SF novel, a story that proved to be influential in
the evolution of the planetary adventure story, in
that the author took great pains to explain the
physical basis for the environment of that world
and the sociopolitical basis for the cultural structure. In this case, the planet has a vast and largely
unexplored land mass that was settled primarily by
extremists and nonconformists, posing entertaining
and amusing problems for an agent sent to sniff out
a possible interplanetary plot.
During the early 1950s Vance published a
handful of short novels in magazines; but these stories would not appear in book form until years later.
Although relatively minor compared to his later
work, Planet of the Damned (magazine version 1952,
paperback as Slaves of the Klau in 1958 and later as
Gold and Iron) anticipated The HIGH CRUSADE
(1960) by Poul ANDERSON, with captive humans
overpowering their technologically superior alien
abductors. Vance’s short fiction was also improving
steadily, and stories such as “Abercrombie Station”
(1952) and “The Devil on Salvation Bluff” (1954)
began to attract more serious attention.
To Live Forever (1956) adopted a much more
serious tone than most of Vance’s prior work. The
setting is a subtle future dystopia in which immortality is achieved by creating cloned bodies and
transferring memories periodically, although Vance
never addresses the question of continuity of personality. The protagonist awakens to find that his
previous incarnation committed a serious crime,
and his subsequent investigation leads to rebellion
against what he now recognizes to be a repressive
government. The importance of individual freeVance, Jack 389
dom would become a recurring theme in Vance’s
novels. The Languages of Pao (1958) explores the
effect of language on psychology. The planet Pao
has always had one common language, and the
planet has been at peace for countless generations.
Outside agents wishing to disrupt things introduce
variant languages, and by so doing, undermine the
stability of the local culture.
The short novel The Dragon Masters (1963),
which won a Hugo Award, involves an interstellar
war between humans and a reptilian species, each
of which uses genetic engineering and surgery to
modify captured enemies and turn them into organic weapons. A sequel, The Last Castle (1967),
won Vance his second Hugo, along with a Nebula
Award. Vance had developed a distinct prose style
by now, a mixture of unusually formal word choices
and dialogue, enhanced by a talent for selecting
evocative proper names. The Blue World (1966)
would merge this refined prose style with his gift
for planetary romances, this time set on a water
world whose human inhabitants live in floating
communities and struggle with oversized and
ravenous sea creatures.
The Star King (1964) began a series of five
novels that was completed after an interval of
more than a decade between the third and fourth
volumes. Kirth Gerson is the survivor of an attack
by five famous space pirates that left him without a
family. Each volume consists of his efforts to locate
and kill one of the so-called star kings. The Killing
Machine (1964) and The Palace of Love (1967) followed the same pattern, but the uniqueness of
each villain and the unusual problems facing Gerson make for fascinating reading. Vance would
eventually finish the sequence with The Face
(1979) and The Book of Dreams (1981), which
were slightly different in tone from their predecessors but were rewarding nonetheless.
Three separate series of novels appeared during the hiatus in the Star Kings sequence. The
Planet of Adventure tetralogy consists of City of
the Chasch (1968, also published as Chasch), Servants of the Wankh (1969, also published as
Wankh), The Dirdir (1969), and The Pnume (1970).
The protagonist is stranded on a world inhabited
by four separate alien races, as named in the titles,
among whom he has a series of light-hearted adventures. The Durdane series was much more substantial, beginning with The Anome (1973, also
published as The Faceless Man) and continuing
with The Brave Free Men (1973) and The Asutra
(1974). A planetary population governed by a rigid
dictatorship is eventually freed from domination by
what is revealed as a secretive alien species. The
villains were rather transparent stand-ins for communists, but the stories have a grand sweep and
are generally rewarding.
The third series was much more openly constructed, and shares a common galactic setting, although not the same characters. Trullion: Alastor
2262 (1973) is another water-covered planet,
caught up in a web of political intrigue, although
the high point of the novel is the elaborate sporting
event known as hussade. Marune: Alastor 933
(1975) follows the adventures of an amnesiac who
visits the planet he believes to be his home world,
only to have himself declared planetary ruler. Unfortunately, and predictably, there is a catch. In
Wyst: Alastor 1716 (1978) a government official becomes suspicious about a planet that claims to have
achieved a perfectly balanced utopian society, and
sends an investigator to look into matters. Not surprisingly, all is not what it seems to be. Not all of
Vance’s novels from this period fit into a series, although the interstellar setting was usually the same.
In Emphyrio (1969), a refugee from a planetary dictatorship seeks knowledge with which to undermine the oppressive rulers. Vance’s occasional
satiric attitude toward organized religion surfaces
much more overtly than usual. The Gray Prince
(1974) deals with warfare among various strains of
humanity that have diverged from one another
during the diaspora to the stars. Showboat World
(1975) follows the adventures of a troupe of entertainers who visit the world Vance first created in
Big Planet. In Maske: Thaery (1977), a single man
successfully undermines an entire planetary culture.
New novels have appeared at greater intervals
during the last few years. The Cadwal Trilogy—
Araminta Station (1987), Ecce and Old Earth
(1991), and Throy (1992)—is set on a planet that
functions as a gigantic nature preserve. Vance’s
baroque prose style is particularly effective in this
history of the battle between the forces of exploitation and those of preservation. Night Lamp (1996),
a singleton, chronicles the adventures of an orphan seeking his own past, and Ports of Call (1998)
follows the career of a somewhat similar young
protagonist who escapes from the restrictive life
imposed by his family to pursue a career among the
stars. Vance’s unique use of language and his intricately contrived future societies have had a very
strong impact on other writers, perhaps most noticeably Gene WOLFE.
Although his short stories only occasionally
rival the quality of his novels, Vance has written
an appreciable number of them, most of which are
collected in Future Tense (1964, also published as
Dust of Far Suns), The Worlds of Jack Vance (1973),
The Best of Jack Vance (1976), The Narrow Land
(1982), and The Augmented Agent and Other Stories (1986). Vance’s short fiction has also been collected in various combinations by small press
publishers.