A bibliography for Jack Vance

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The Visitors

Author: Jack Vance
Year written: 1950
Author’s age at the time: 34
Year published: December 1951
Publication: Galaxy Science Fiction
Other title(s): Winner Lose All
Genre: short story, SF

Quotes:

Avery had been watching the dancing lights over his shoulder. “They’re like eyes watching us...Before a colony’s sent out here, these damn things will have to be destroyed. They’d be dangerous flying loose around electricity.”

Far down the beach, Avery and Jason saw the white flash of the explosion, saw the black gullies light up in a ghastly swift glare. Then came a rolling sound and a jar of concussion.

Comment:

Two ideas in this early story I later saw elsewhere (in a book by Larry Niven, another in a book by Peter F Hamilton). (more)

Republished in Sail 25 and other stories, Spatterlight, 2012