A bibliography for Jack Vance
Jack Vance, sorted by year written
show ‘novel’ (clear filter)
74 matchesContains the following stories:
- Turjan of Miir
- Mazirian the Magician
- T’sais
- Liane the Wayfarer
- Ulan Dhor
- Guyal of Sfere
According to Foreverness, the original title of the collection (The Dying Earth) was strongly disapproved by Vance. Later published under the title Mazirian the Magician. Vance also preferred a different order (starting with the similarly titled “Mazirian the Magician”) for the stories from the one originally used.
Vance wrote the stories while serving in de Pacific as a merchant seaman, during the Second World War. Foreverness writes:
Thought to be influenced by various writers; influences actually mentioned by author include: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jeffery Farnol, P. G. Wodehouse and L. Frank Baum; from The Emerald City of Oz: The Phanfasms were Erbs, and so dreaded by mortals and immortals alike that no one had been near their mountain home for several thousand years. Other interesting Oz echoes occur. [ref]
Jackvance.com asserts that the stories have...
...inspired generations of fantasy writers- from Gene Wolfe and Michael Moorcock, to Neil Gaiman and George R.R. Martin- and has deeply influenced today’s realms of graphic novels, comics, and fantasy role-playing games (in particular, Dungeons & Dragons). [ref]
See also the Wikipedia article.
Republished as Mazirian the Magician, Spatterlight, 2012
Quotes:
“I want to minimize the shock on the brain,” explained the doctor. “The visual images no doubt will be confusing, to say the least. The Phalid’s color spectrum, remember, is twice as long, the field of vision three or four times as wide as that of the average human being. It has two hundred eyes, and the impressions of two hundred separate optic units must be coordinated and merged. A human brain accommodates to two images, but it’s questionable whether it could do the same for two hundred. That’s why we’ve left intact a bit of the creature’s former brain the nodule coordinating the various images.” Here Plogetz paused long enough to give the complex black head an appraising glance.
Wratch looked about the sky for familiar star-patterns, and for the first time regretted the seven new colors in his spectrum. Because the stars were entirely different in guise, some bright in over-violet, others in sub-red.
Republished in Chateau d’If and Other Stories. Spatterlight, 2012
Quotes:
They drove south with the sun phosphorescing through a high mist that swirled in across the bay from San Francisco. At San Jose the mist was gone and the sun was yellow. At Monterey a wind blew in off the Pacific from the direction of Hawaii, twisting the black cypress, flecking the face of the ocean with whitecaps.
By nightfall San Giorgio seethed with sensation. Two mutilation murders in the week, a maniac at large! Sheriff Hartmann felt blind, baffled, helpless. He had no suspects to question, no leads, no idea of where or how to begin. A single course of inquiry presented itself, stemming from Carr Pendry’s half-dazed identification of Robert Struve. It was a poor piece of evidence. But it was a lead, and he had no others.
Under the pseudonym Peter Held according to this article.
Republished The Flesh Mask, Spatterlight, 2012.
Quotes:
Paddy stared aghast. “They’d draw and quarter me! They’d wear out their nerve-suits! They’d—”
She said coolly, “We could be tourists from Earth, making the Lantry Line.”
“The situation has backfired now, Paddy. Today we’re the root-stock, and all these splits and changes brought about by the differences in light, food, atmosphere, gravity they may produce a race as much better than men as men were superior to the proto-simians.”
“Paddy!” cried Fay as if her soul were dissolving. She could not close the outer door as his leg hung out, twisted at an odd engle. Shou could not open the inner door lest she lose all the air inside the ship.
Republished in the Rapparee, Spatterlight 2012.
Quotes:
“She’s okay,” said Carr. “It was that kapok stuff from Deneb Kaitos. Now let’s see I’ve got to set up this phony code. Hey, Scotty,” he called down to Allixter, “made your will yet? This is like stepping out of an airplane holding your nose and hoping you’ll hit water.”
Encouraged, Allixter proceeded to Step Two Enumeration. The screen depicted symbols representing the agglomerative numerals a series of lines, one dot in the first line, two dots in the second line, three in the third, four in the fourth, in such fashion up to twenty. Joe, alive to his task, made sounds for the numbers. Then the screen displayed a random multitude of dots and Joe created another sound.
The speaker made a bleating sound which once more seemed to carry near-human overtones. Allixter set his shoulder to the mobile unit.
Republished in Sail 25 and Other Stories
Revised for The Augmented Agent and Other Stories, Underwood-Miller, 1986.
Reprinted in Chateau d'If and Other Stories, Spatterlight, 2012
Quotes:
“It’s catching,” said the pilot vehemently. “Look, kid, I know. I’ve ferried out to all the stations, I’ve seen ’em come and go. Each station has its own kind of weirdness, and you can’t keep away from it.” He chuckled self-consciously. “Maybe that’s why I’m so batty myself...Now take Madeira Station. Gay. Frou-frou.” He made a mincing motion with his fingers. “That’s Madeira. You wouldn’t know much about that...But take Balchester Aerie, take Merlin Dell, take the Starhome ”
When Jean reached the Hotel Atlantide in Metropolis she wore a black dress and black pumps which she felt made her look older and more sophisticated. Crossing the lobby she kept wary look-out for the house detective. Sometimes they nursed unkind suspicions toward unaccompanied young girls. It was best to avoid the police, keep them at a distance. When they found that she had no father, no mother, no guardian, their minds were apt to turn to some dreary government institution. On several occasions rather extreme measures to ensure her independence had been necessary.
Comment: According to foreverness the story was based on an idea of the editor. According to www.isfdb.org Station Abercrombie and Cholwell’s Chickens were revised (fix-up) as Monsters in Orbit, 1965.
Republished in Golden Girl and Other Stories, Spatterlight, 2012
Foreverness writes that the author commented on this story as “Horrible! Horrible!”.
Republished in Sail 25 and Other Stories, Spatterlight, 2012.
Quotes:
NOLAND BANNISTER, superintendent of Star Control Field Office #12, was known at the space-port and along Folger Avenue as a hell-roarer a loud-voiced man of vigorous action. He made no secret of his dislike for administrative detail and attacked paper work with a grumbling rancor. Negligence in his staff he dealt with rudely. Mistakes of a more serious nature left him grim and white with rage.
“Here’s how I see it,” said Bannister. “If there’s money to be made looting this planet, Plum will be out and away as soon as he organizes a trip. Once in space, under sky-drive, he’s gone. We can’t trace him. Unless of course we have a representative aboard. There’s where you come in. He’s practically hired you already. You return the jewel to him, tell him you’re sorry you ran off with it, and that you want a chance to pick up a few yourself.”
Republished in Sail 25 and Other Stories, Spatterlight 2012
Quotes:
Six days after the Kay had come and gone, the Beaudry arrived from Blue Star. It brought a complete ecological laboratory, with stocks of seeds, spores, eggs, sperm; spawn, bulbs, grafts; frozen fingerlings, copepods, experimental cells and embryos; grubs, larvae, pupae; amoebae, bacteria, viruses; as well as nutritive cultures and solutions. There were also tools for manipulating or mutating established species; even a supply of raw nuclein, unpatterned tissue, clear protoplasm from which simple forms of life could be designed and constructed. It was now Bernisty’s option either to return to Blue Star with the Blauelm, or remain to direct the development of New Earth. Without conscious thought he made his choice; he elected to stay. Almost two-thirds of his technical crew made the same choice. And the day after the arrival of the Beaudry, the Blauelm took off for Blue Star.
Within the Beaudry there was everywhere a sense of defeat. Bernisty walked limping along the promenade, the limp more of an unconscious attitude than a physical necessity. The problem was too complex for a single brain, he thought or for a single team of human brains. The various life-forms on the planet, each evolving, mutating, expanding into vacant niches, selecting the range of their eventual destinies they made a pattern too haphazard for an electronic computer, for a team of computers.
“Kay ships,” said Bufco. “A round dozen mountainous barrels! They made one circuit departed!”
Quotes:
Frayberg interrupted. “What we can use, Wilbur, is a sequence on Sirgamesk superstition. Emphasis on voodoo or witchcraft naked girls dancing stuff with roots in Earth, but now typically Sirgamesk. Lots of color. Secret rite stuff...”
The creature rose to his feet, strode springily toward Murphy. He carried a crossbow and a sword, like those of Murphy's fleet-footed guards. But he wore no space-suit. Could there be breathable traces of an atmosphere? Murphy glanced at his gauge. Outside pressure: zero.
Republished in Sail 25 and Other Stories, Spatterlight 2012
From Wikipedia: “The Houses of Iszm is a science fiction novella by Jack Vance, which appeared in Startling Stories magazine in 1954. It was reissued in book form in 1964 as part of an Ace Double novel, together with Vance’s Son of the Tree . The story published in Startling Stories is about 22,000 words while the version that appears in the Ace Double still less than novel length at about 30,000 words. The Houses of Iszm was re-published as a stand-alone volume in 1974 by Mayflower. ” (more on Wikipedia)
Republished by Spatterlight in 2012.
Comment:
A mystery story, set on a planet with marine life.
Quotes:
Fletcher tried to recall the line-up of barges along the dock. If Mahlberg, the barge-tender, had been busy with repairs, Raight might well have gone out himself. Fletcher drew himself a cup of coffee. “That’s where he must be.” He sat down. “It’s not like Raight to put in free overtime.”
Ahead shone the Bio-Minerals mast-head light, climbing into the sky as the barge approached. Fletcher saw the black shapes of men outlined against the glow. The entire crew was waiting for him: the two operators, Agostino and Murphy, Mahlberg the barge-tender, Damon the biochemist, Dave Jones the steward, Manners the technician, Hans Heinz the engineer.
Republished in Chateau d’If and Other Stories, Spatterlight 2012.
Foreverness writes that the book was “Apparently extensively revised prior to publication.” The book was also filmed for television. [1]
Quote:
Looking into the mirror, he saw a face familiar only from the photographs he had studied dark, feral and harsh: the face, literally, of a savage. His hair, which he had allowed to grow long, had been oiled, stranded with gold tinsel, braided and coiled; his teeth had been replaced with stainless-steel dentures; from his ears dangled a pair of ivory amulets. In each case, adornment was the secondary function. The tinsel strands in his head-dress were multi-laminated accumulators, their charge maintained by thermo-electric action. The dentures scrambled, condensed, transmitted, received, expanded and unscrambled radio waves of energies almost too low to be detected. The seeming ivory amulets were stereophonic radar units, which not only could guide Keith through the dark, but also provided a fractional second’s warning of a bullet, an arrow, a bludgeon. His fingernails were copper-silver alloy, internally connected to the accumulators in his hair. Another circuit served as a ground, to protect him against electrocution one of his own potent weapons. These were the more obvious augmentations; others more subtle had been fabricated into his flesh.
Forverness writes: “Written at editor’s request to fit an illustration.” [1]
The wordpress blog site gaping blackbird (carries adds) has a review on “The Augmented Agent”. Internet Archive: [snapshot].
Republished in Chateau d’If and Other Stories, Spatterlight, 2012
Comments:
According to Foreverness the version that was published by Satellite Science Fiction was shorter than the one published next year 1958 by Avalon (as intended by the author). (ref)
This is easily one of my favorite Vance novels. Wikipedia writes that Frederik Pohl:
... reported that Vance had “pretty carefully” worked out his extrapolation, but that “it isn’t terribly convincing as presented”. Pohl also noted that “Vance writes well—sometimes even brilliantly”, but that his prose sometimes seemed uneven and artificial.
When I first read the novel I was little and didn’t even know about the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. However, even then I understood from the text that the transformation involved more that simply using another language. (I’m looking forward to rereading the book.)
Also from Wikipedia:
David Langford cited Vance’s “engaging speculation”, but concluded that the protagonist “seems too weak a character for his leading role”, while “the culture and landscape of Pao are grey and ill-defined, in strong contrast to the exotically colourful societies and ecologies which became Vance’s trademark”
I remember the protagonist being weak, but accepted that simply as a fact in the story. Often he was manipulated, sometimes he managed to score a point. I don’t remember the novel ending in a jubilant victory, but that was all right. As for Pao being ill-defined—perhaps a bit, but in my recollection Pao being a somewhat blend and static society of mostly simple farmers was also exactly part of the problem that had to solved.
(Wikipedia accessed 15 March 2019)
Quote:
The guards subjected Palafox to a most minute scrutiny. Every stitch of his clothes was examined; he was patted and prodded with complete lack of regard for dignity.
Nothing was discovered; no tool, weapon or instrument of any kind. Bustamonte watched the search in unashamed fascination, and seemed disappointed at the negative result.
Republished by Spatterlight, 2012, The languages of Pao
Introduction to the novel from Wikipedia:
The city of Clarges in the future is a near-utopia, surrounded by barbarism throughout the rest of the world. Abundant resources and the absence of political conflict lead to a pleasant life that should be stress-free. However, nearly everyone is obsessed with a perpetual scramble for longer life, as measured by slope.
Medical technology has led to a great lengthening of the human lifespan, but, in order to prevent the Malthusian horrors of over-population, it is awarded only to those citizens who have made notable contributions. Five categories have been created for those playing the life-extension game, the first four each offering an additional twenty years of life. One’s progress can be shown as a graph, whose upward direction indicates a greater likelihood of achieving the next level. Therefore, the slope of one’s “lifeline” is a measure of success. A person whose lifeline reaches the vertical terminator is not merely deprived of life-lengthening treatment, they are deliberately eliminated by government operatives, known as “Assassins”.
The ultimate prize is the top category, called Amaranth, which offers true immortality to the fortunate few. People who achieve this distinction are accorded the honorific “The” in front of their name.
The Grayven Warlock was one of those few, but he has become a fugitive after a feud with another Amaranth resulted in the latter’s death. Masquerading as his own “relict” (clone) using the name Gavin Waylock, he lives in obscurity, looking for the accomplishment that will reinstate him among the immortals. However, Waylock’s dramatic stratagems result in changes to society far beyond anything he had intended.
(Article accessed 4 March 2019)
Republished as Clarges, Spatterlight, 2012
Quote:
Dickerman gingerly performed introductions: “Duke Gassman, Duke Holox...” and finally: “I present to you my successor, Mr. Milton Hack of Zodiac Control. He is an expert military strategist, as well as an economic authority; with your cooperation he will solve the various problems of Sabo.”
Republished as “Milton Hack from Zodiac” in Chateau d’If and Other Stories, Spatterlight, 2012.
Comment: It’s a bit unclear to what genre this story exactly belongs (unless one reads SF simply as Speculative Fiction).
Quote:
The affair had occurred five years previously. The house was abandoned and perhaps inevitably there was talk of haunting. Jean explicitly corroborated these reports. The group had been jocular, skylarking, inviting ghosts to the feast: all ostensibly casual and careless, but all inwardly thrilling to the spooky look of the house, and the memory of the macabre killing. Jean had noticed a flickering of red light at the window of the living room. She had assumed it to be a reflection of the fire, then had looked again. There was no glass in the window. Others noticed; there were squeals and squeaks from the girls. All rose to their feet. Inside the living room, clearly visible, hung a body, twisting and writhing, clothed in flames. And from within came a series of agonized throat-wrenching sobs.
Republished in Sail 25 and Other Stories, Spatterlight, 2012.
Quote:
The scouts approached at breakneck speed, at the last instant flinging their horses sidewise. Long shaggy legs kicked out, padlike hooves plowed through the moss. The scouts jumped to the ground, ran forward. “The way to Ballant Keep is blocked!”
Republished as The Miracle Workers by Spatterlight, 2012.
Summary on jackvance.com:
While in Rome, art student Chuck Musgrave is offered a job painting pictures of Positano, a picturesque town south of Naples. When Chuck arrives in Positano, strange things begin to happen. It becomes clear that not all foreigners living in Positano are there for the scenery!
Foreverness writes that the book was written during Vance’s second stay in Positano (below Napels, Italy), in 1957. [ref]
Republished as Strange People, Queer Notions, Spatterlight, 2012
Comment: A mystery set in Morocco. Foreverness writes that it is based on traveling Morocco in 1957. [ref] The novel was awarded the prestigious Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America in the category “Best First Novel by an American Author”. Actually Vance had published two mystery novels earlier, but used for those the pseudonyms Peter Held and Alan Wade respectively, while The Man in the Cage was published under his full name John Holbrook Vance.
The Man in the Cage has a number of favorable user reviews on Amazon. [ref] Hector DeJean writes that Vance had a knack for exotic cultural settings and gives a sketch of Morocco that is “...enough to keep hold the story together, without being excessively wordy. [ref]
Filmed for television as an episode in the TV series Thriller as Man in the Cage, 1961. [imdb title]
Republished as The Man in the Cage, Spatterlight, 2012.
Summary from jackvance.com:
Welfare worker Paul Gunther is killed when he looks into the blackmailing of some of his cases. Lieutenant George Shaw leads the murder investigation, which touches on the jazz community and beatnik culture of Oakland in the early 1960’s.
Quote:
“I see.” She straightened the pleats in her skirt. “I was telling you about the party where I met Paul. It wasn’t a very hip party although certain people there probably qualified. I guess you’d call it a middle-class Bohemian group: Graduate students, artists, writers, people connected with the University. I don’t go with that crowd very much, mainly because of Father. He thinks they’re all Communists and homosexuals. Anyway Jeff knew the fellows who gave the party. I forget their names, but they seemed nice enough.” Barbara snorted with sour laughter. “Jeff is something of a stuffed shirt, and he thought this party was a lark, a slumming expedition. Of course it wasn’t. The people there just had more brains than Jeff. Jeff went out into the kitchen to get us a drink; when he came back I was talking to Paul.” Barbara smiled sadly. “I noticed Paul when I came in. He stared at me as if he knew me. I was puzzled, because I didn’t know him. I thought he looked interesting dark-haired, pale, just a bit dissipated, if you know what I mean...Well, it developed that Paul had fallen in love with me at first sight.” Barbara laughed. “Naturally I don’t believe in that not too much anyway. But I couldn’t help but be interested. He’s a very interesting person he was, I should say.” Barbara frowned, and Shaw saw that her eyes were wet and luminous. She shook her head angrily. “If I wanted I could feel very badly about Paul’s death...But I’m not going to.”
Republished by Spatterlight, 2012: The House on Lily Street.
Quote:
Luke often daydreamed of a more sumptuous life: AAA nutrition, a suite of rooms for his exclusive use, Special Coupons by the bale, Class 7 Erotic Processing, or even Class 6, or 5: despite Luke’s contempt for the High Echelon he had no quarrel with High Echelon perquisites. And always as a bitter coda to the daydreams came the conviction that he might have enjoyed these good things in all reality. He had watched his fellows jockeying; he knew all the tricks and techniques: the beavering, the gregarization, the smutting, knuckling and subuculation…
Republished in The Moon Moth and Other Stories, Spatterlight, 2012
From the book’s blurp:
In the aftermath of World War II, 8-year old Luellen Enright is orphaned and shipped to San Francisco and the care of a covetous aunt, over-friendly uncle, and adolescent male cousins.
Her only friend is a neighbor boy—the sickly and eccentric “Chickweed”, who writes in his “Book of Dreams” and makes home movies.
Quotes:
In the year 1907 a curious adventure befell Harry Botham, partner in the firm Botham and Brewer, Commercial Factors of Shanghai.
Returning early from a party Botham surprised a trio of robbers in the act of looting his house. His small daughter Flora lay trussed and gagged as a preliminary to kidnapping; the amah huddled on the floor moaning. By the wall stood the house-boy, a dagger pinning his ear to the woodwork.
Lulu dressed swiftly in a neat gray suit, drove across the bridge, to San Francisco. She followed the Embarcadero past Fisherman’s Wharf into the Marina, and presently parked on Sherwood Street. A single block downhill from Belvedere, with its fashionable mansions and green old gardens, Sherwood Street was unabashedly lower-middle class.
Comments:
First published in two parts in Galaxy, December 1963 and February 1964.
From Wikipedia:
Star King (also published as The Star King) is a science fiction novel by American writer Jack Vance, the first in his Demon Princes series. It tells the story of a young man, Kirth Gersen, who sets out to track down and revenge himself upon the first of the Demon Princes, the five arch-criminals who massacred or enslaved nearly all the inhabitants of his colony world when he was a child.
The antagonist of the book was originally known as Grendel the Monster, and was subsequently renamed Attel Malagate for the novel version. (Accessed 12 March 2019)
Quotes:
“Will you stay awhile, Mr. Gersen?”
“Two or three days, perhaps. I have things to think over.”
Smade nodded in profound understanding. “We’re slack just now; just you and the Star King. You’ll find all the quiet you need.”
“I’ll be pleased for that,” said Gersen, which was quite true; his just-completed affairs had left him with a set of unresolved qualms. He turned away, then halted and looked back as Smade’s words penetrated his consciousness. “There’s a Star King here at the tavern?”
“He has presented himself so.”
“I’ve never seen a Star King. Not that I know of.”
Smade nodded politely to indicate that the gossip had reached to the allowable limits of particularity. He indicated the tavern clock: “Our local time; better set your watch. Supper at seven o’clock: just half an hour.”
Tristano fell back, now startled. For an instant he sat laxly asprawl. Gersen caught Tristano’s leg and ankle in a lock, threw over his weight, and felt the bone snap. Tristano sucked in his breath. Snatching for his knife, he left his throat exposed; Gersen hacked backhand at the larynx. Tristano’s throat was well-muscled, and he retained consciousness, to fall back, feebly waving his knife. Gersen kicked it away, edged forward carefully, for Tristano might be equipped with one or a dozen secret built-in weapons.
Leave me be,” croaked Tristano. “Leave me be, go your way.” He dragged himself to the wall. (more)
Republished as The Star King and in the collection Demon Princes, both Spatterlight, 2012.
Quotes:
The houseboat had been built to the most exacting standards of Sirenese craftsmanship, which is to say, as close to the absolute as human eye could detect. The planking of waxy dark wood showed no joints, the fastenings were platinum rivets countersunk and polished flat. In style, the boat was massive, broad beamed, steady as the shore itself, without ponderosity or slackness of line. The bow bulged like a swan’s breast, the stem rising high, then crooking forward to support an iron lantern. The doors were carved from slabs of a mottled black-green wood; the windows were many sectioned, paned with squares of mica, stained rose, blue, pale green and violet. The bow was given to service facilities and quarters for the slaves; amidships were a pair of sleeping cabins, a dining saloon and a parlor saloon, opening upon an observation deck at the stern.
Thissell tried again, laboriously manipulating the strapan. He sang, “To an out-worlder on a foreign planet, the voice of one from his home is like water to a wilting plant. A person who could unite two such persons might find satisfaction in such an act of mercy.”
Republished in The Moon Moth and Other Stories, Spatterlight, 2012.
According to Foreverness the story was written at Amazing Stories’ editor’s request to fit an illustration. (ref) Presumably the cover, for which the ISFDB hosts an image here.
Republished in Sail 25 and Other Stories, Spatterlight, 2012.
Comments:
Wikipedia on Dragon masters:
It won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1963. The story describes a human society living under pre-industrial conditions that has bred lizard-like intelligent aliens to function as warriors, and an encounter with a ship from the alien planet, containing both the same aliens, and humans bred by them for similar purposes. (accessed 15 March 2019)
Quote:
The apartments of Joaz Banbeck, carved deep from the heart of a limestone crag, consisted of five principal chambers, on five different levels. At the top were the reliquarium and a formal council chamber: the first a room of somber magnificence housing the various archives, trophies and mementos of the Banbecks; the second a long narrow hall, with dark wainscoting chest-high and a white plaster vault above, extending the entire width of the crag, so that balconies overlooked Banbeck Vale at one end and Kergan’s Way at the other. (more)
Republished by Spatterlight, 2012: The Dragon Masters.
Later expanded as The Blue World and as such published by Ballantine Books May 1966.
Based on and expanded from the short story “The Kragen”. This is the only Vance novel that is an expansion of a short story. [ref]
Republished by Spatterlight, 2012, The Blue World.
Foreverness indicates that at the time of writing (1970) Vance was in Ireland. [ref]
The first publication in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (February and March 1971) involved a version that was shorter than the novel. (ref: colophon Durdane, 1976 Meulenhof)
The first book publication was as The Anome in 1973 by Dell Publishing. [ref]
The first publication in French was also serialized (in three parts, 1973). [ref]
Plot intro from Wikipedia:
It tells the story of a boy growing to manhood in the land of Shant, a society composed of many different, and wildly individual cantons, some of which are run by cults. Each adult wears an explosive torc which can be detonated by remote command, bringing about instant death by decapitation. The torcs are controlled by an anonymous dictator, the Anome, whose identity is literally unknown. Because those whose heads are exploded are selected primarily by the cantonal leaders, for violations of local law, the Anome is able to operate with only a handful of assistants, or ‘Benevolences’, who themselves do not know his identity. (accessed 7 March 2019)
First publication was in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May and July 1973. (ref: colophon Durdane, 1976 Meulenhof)
First book publication in 1974 by Dell Publishing. [ref]
Comment:
First published in two parts, July 1975—September 1975. First published as a book September 1975 by Ballantine Books.
According to Foreverness Vance resided in Spain at the time of writing. (ref)
I remember the novel as having potential, but ending too soon with a deus ex machina-like ending.
Quote:
Pardero said somewhat ponderously: “You recognize me then?”
Yes, Your Force, now that I have spoken with you. I admit to confusion; your presence has altered in a way which I hardly know how to explain. You seem, shall we say, more mature, more controlled, and of course your foreign garments enhance these differences. But I am certain that I am right.” The clerk peered in sudden doubt. “Am I not, Your Force?”
Pardero smiled coolly. “How could you demonstrate the fact one way or the other without my assurance?”
Republished by Spatterlight, 2012: Marune: Alastor 933
This collection contains outlines, and other unpublished work.
A list form the jackvance.com website:
- Cat Island (1946, fragment)
- The Stark (1954, outline for series)
- The Telephone was Ringing in the Dark (1962, outline for novel)
- The Kragen (1963, novella; first version of The Blue World)
- The Genesee Slough Murders (1966, outline for Joe Bain novel)
- Guyal of Sfere (1969 , revision of same title, 1944),
- Wild Thyme and Violets (1976, outline for novel)
- The Magnificent Red-Hot Jazzing Seven (1976, movie treatment)
- Clang (1984, movie treatment)
- Dream Castle (1962 revision of I’ll Build Your Dream Castle, 1946).