GRAND MASTERS OF SCIENCE FICTION: JACK VANCE

I am not by nature a fantasy reader. I am not intrigued by magic or wowed fantastic creatures; I find pseudo-medieval settings or language off putting; and, the sexism in anything written before about 1985 is awkward. So I picked up Jack Vance with low expectations, knowing that he had earned his Grand Master status with the SFWA in 1997 at the age of 81, but that much of his writing, and in particular the group of writings I had chosen, were firmly placed in the realm of fantasy rather than SF. (Full disclosure: I have read only the first two of the four books in this collection.)

That said, I realized just a few pages into the first story of The Dying Earth that here was a real storyteller. On an earth where its few inhabitants realize that their sun is dying and where magic has replaced science as the highest pursuit of mankind, Vance zips his characters from continent to continent, delights in their peccadilloes and blunders, and gleefully concocts for them personalities riddled with the baser range of human qualities. Most of them I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw them, but with the right bit of runic magic I could throw them into another universe or a million years back in time.

Magic, as a narrative device, is usually an exercise in adolescent wish-fulfillment. Why else do ten-year-old boys ask for magic kits for their birthdays? There is plenty of that here, along with that other adolescent standby -- beautiful women in diaphanous gowns; but, Vance has a sardonic approach to the dark arts. Unlike science, magic is a closed system. Its mysteries are available only to the few and must be jealously guarded. The desire to attain greater magic makes fools of most of his characters and can cost them their lives. 

The Eyes of the Overworld is a series of stories that link together and form an entertaining picaresque novel. Our hero, Cugel, is one of Vance's finest creations. He is known as Cugel the Clever, although that epithet is certainly self-assigned. Cugel is wily and gets away with most everything he tries, but it is rare that cleverness is the quality that saves his days. Dumb luck is often on his side and his casual disregard for the lives of others comes in handy. Vance's stories are among the most lightheartedly bloodthirsty I have ever read. Individuals or entire villages can be struck down thanks to Cugel's machinations, and the mass deaths are all part of a day's work. His outrageous actions serve an egotism crystalline in its purity. In one scene, Cugel trades a princess, whose kingdom he has just ruined, to bandits. In exchange he receives directions, probably not trustworthy, to his next destination. 

One piece of magic in Vance's own possession must be a spell that spontaneously generates an endless supply of silly names for people, places, food items, and just about everything else in his far future world. I quickly tire of unpronounceable names, but Vance has a real flair for it. He reels them off in lists that it would take me days to dream up, and mine would never be as fun as Vance's. Monty Python may have learned a thing or two from this particular Grand Master.


On Worlds Without End I review Trullion by Jack Vance.

WHO WRITES THIS STUFF?: JACK VANCE

(In a year or more of reading SF and horror, I have found a surprising amount

 of literature relating to authors --  bios, memoirs, and letters. WHO WRITES THIS STUFF will take an occasional look at what I've found.)

I have already had to return this book to the library because I had it through 

inter-library loan, and late fees for inter-library loan are death. So I am a bit self-conscious about saying bad things about it, without being able to make specific references. But here goes.

I am currently reading the Dying Earth cycle by Vance out of a commitment to exploring Golden Age SF and a challenge issued by the website Worlds Without End to read a book by one of the Grand Masters of Science Fiction each month for the year 2012. Such fantasy fiction is not to my taste, but I looked forward to Vance's memoirs to see where this stuff came from. Vance, however, states that he is not interested in writing a nuts and bolts book about SF writing. He wants to tell his personal story, and he is doing so via dictation. An operation for glaucoma almost blinded him in the 1980's. Since then he has worked with computers, early versions of voice recognition software, and for the memoirs diction. His wife dies during the dictation of the book, but at this writing he is still alive in his mid-nineties.

So it seems churlish to say the book is not very interesting. There are many biographical tidbits a reader might want to know more of, but perhaps it's the dictation method and a natural diffidence that keeps them from print. The memoirs turn into an overlong "What I Did on my Summer Vacation" report. There is little personal insight and essentially no relationship betweenf the life, which involved periodic adventurous world travel, and the fantastic fiction it produced. It is not surprising late in the book in what passes as some personal reflection to learn that Vance prefers cozy to hard-boiled crime fiction. It is not unlike the account he gives of his own life.

I am not, or at least not yet, a Vance fan. But they are legion. I wonder what they have made of this lukewarm memoir?

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