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Jack Vance: Seven Articles on His Work and Travels
A collection of writings about the science fiction and travel of Grand Master Jack Vance (1916-2013). The six essays were first published in "The New York Review of Science Fiction," while the one review was published in "Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts." Topics include the curious linkages between some of Vance's novels into a sort of "Future History;" an examination of a Vancean "hard sf" novel; a look at his various globe-trotting excursions and what he wrote while out on each one; and further delvings into the methods he employed to create such memorable fiction.
This book is approximately 16,000 words and about 56 Kindle pages long.
The
"Asi The Future History of Jack Vance"
"The Blue Jack Vance's Hard Science Wonder"
"The Adventures of Jack Vance in Traveling and Writing"
"Tracing Terms in Jack Vance's 'Sjambak'"
"Patterns to the Five Demon Princes of Jack Vance"
"'The New Prime' as Herald of Future Jack Vance"
Review of "An Encyclopedia of Jack Vance"
This book is approximately 16,000 words and about 56 Kindle pages long.
The
"Asi The Future History of Jack Vance"
"The Blue Jack Vance's Hard Science Wonder"
"The Adventures of Jack Vance in Traveling and Writing"
"Tracing Terms in Jack Vance's 'Sjambak'"
"Patterns to the Five Demon Princes of Jack Vance"
"'The New Prime' as Herald of Future Jack Vance"
Review of "An Encyclopedia of Jack Vance"
70 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 22, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 28, 2024
This is a 61 page paperback book published in August of 2017. It was copyrighted in 2016 and had previously been available as a Kindle Edition. Michael Andre-Driussi is well known for his articles and books about the writings of Gene Wolfe. He has also written about Jack Vance and is the author of Handbook of Vance Space, which is a very useful reference book for Vance fans.
For the most recent review and other Vance reviews please see:
https://vancealotjackvanceinreview.bl...
"Asi Achich: The Future of History of Jack Vance" is the first article and is 18 pages long and, in addition to a fascinating discussion, it provides a very interesting chronological guide called "Tentative Unified Timeline for Vance Space." The timeline begins with the year "-9.3meg: Pnume history begins on Tschai," continues through The Oikumene, The Middle Millennia and The Gaean Reach into the Post-Gaean Period. Vance novels extend through a vast history of time with most of his novels set in a particular period Here is novels are listed each in its appropriate time frame. The author clearly points out that, "Vance drives home the impression that all history is local in scale, provincial in focus, and basically the same sorry mess as the post colonial world." Those who read and study history should have a deeper appreciation of Vance's writings and how history often repeats itself. Asi achich, by the way, is the term of resignation that the men of Dar Sai utter each day when they return from the mines. The author does an excellent job of tying the timelines of Vance novels together. Vance fans will want this book simply for this one article.
The second article is "The Blue World: Jack Vance's Hard Science Wonder." In 14 pages the author explains how Vance used hard science in his novel The Blue World. He also provides an interesting table of Blue World social castes with the name, crime, new role and rank of each caste. The article should be immensely interesting to anyone who has read and appreciates the novel. After reading this article I wanted to go back and carefully reread The Blue World.
"The Adventures of Jack Vance in Traveling and Writing" is eight pages long and is quite captivating because it connects Vance's novels and stories with his travels. It is fascinating to see which stories Vance wrote during specific trips, beginning with those he wrote when he was in the Merchant Marines in World War Two up through 1974 when he and his family went on a world wide travel tour, starting in Ireland and continuing on to Borneo. This last major adventure included a month on the island of Madeira, three months on a houseboat on Nagin Lake in India, and a month in Sri Lanka. These travels certainly influenced Vance's ability to create atmospheric cultures, unusual worlds, strange beings, and interesting characters. His travels also seemed to help increase the sociological, anthropological and psychological depth and insights of Vance's writings.
"Tracing Terms in Jack Vance's Sjambak" is a very short article of only three pages where the author guesses at some of Vance's word plays and explains how Vance combined some Malay related words to create new words.
"Patterns to the Five Demon Princes of Jack Vance" is nine pages long. The author discusses the five demon princes and then proceeds to discuss the five mutant races in The Five Gold Bands, how the five fingers of the human hand relate to the five demon princes, how colors are related to the seven days of the week and how the metals in the Gaean Reach correspond to the days of the week in the Gaean week. I've never been fond of this sort of analysis of symbolism but it is a creative and sometimes humorous article, and the author admits that the "last bit seems like an outrageous stretch."
"The New Prime as Herald of Future Jack Vance" is five pages long. The author states that "The New Prime stands out for me as exemplifying Vance's work beginning ten year later with the Moon Moth (1961)." He discusses the "Woodhouse mode", the "Beowulf mode", the "Barsoomian mode," the "Battle of Techno-Wizards" and "heroic insanity." Andre-Driussi concludes that The New Prime (also known as The Brain of the Galaxy) "is a direct ancestor to the Demon Prince series...Which further emphasizes the import of this one early piece to the entire body of Vance's work."
The final article is six pages long and is titled, "Review of an Encyclopedia of Jack Vance." This is a short review of the three volume Encyclopedia of Jack Vance compiled by David G. Mead. This is the most comprehensive Jack Vance reference set ever compiled. The closest competition is The Jack Vance Lexicon by Dan Temianka that has 1700 entries focusing on words coined by Vance. The Encyclopedia, by comparison, is nine times that size, and there is an even more extensive data base. He mentions that unfortunately David Mead has been unable to find a publisher for the CD-ROM version. I do not own the Encyclopedia but have seen it for sale. Personally I'd prefer access to the data base to make searches easier.
In summary, "Jack Vance Seven Articles on His Work and Travels" is an essential purchase for Vance fans. I loved reading it so gave it a rating of 5. Fortunately it is in print and readily available on Amazon for only $6.95 with a free shipping option. The Kindle Edition is only $1.99.
For the most recent review and other Vance reviews please see:
https://vancealotjackvanceinreview.bl...
"Asi Achich: The Future of History of Jack Vance" is the first article and is 18 pages long and, in addition to a fascinating discussion, it provides a very interesting chronological guide called "Tentative Unified Timeline for Vance Space." The timeline begins with the year "-9.3meg: Pnume history begins on Tschai," continues through The Oikumene, The Middle Millennia and The Gaean Reach into the Post-Gaean Period. Vance novels extend through a vast history of time with most of his novels set in a particular period Here is novels are listed each in its appropriate time frame. The author clearly points out that, "Vance drives home the impression that all history is local in scale, provincial in focus, and basically the same sorry mess as the post colonial world." Those who read and study history should have a deeper appreciation of Vance's writings and how history often repeats itself. Asi achich, by the way, is the term of resignation that the men of Dar Sai utter each day when they return from the mines. The author does an excellent job of tying the timelines of Vance novels together. Vance fans will want this book simply for this one article.
The second article is "The Blue World: Jack Vance's Hard Science Wonder." In 14 pages the author explains how Vance used hard science in his novel The Blue World. He also provides an interesting table of Blue World social castes with the name, crime, new role and rank of each caste. The article should be immensely interesting to anyone who has read and appreciates the novel. After reading this article I wanted to go back and carefully reread The Blue World.
"The Adventures of Jack Vance in Traveling and Writing" is eight pages long and is quite captivating because it connects Vance's novels and stories with his travels. It is fascinating to see which stories Vance wrote during specific trips, beginning with those he wrote when he was in the Merchant Marines in World War Two up through 1974 when he and his family went on a world wide travel tour, starting in Ireland and continuing on to Borneo. This last major adventure included a month on the island of Madeira, three months on a houseboat on Nagin Lake in India, and a month in Sri Lanka. These travels certainly influenced Vance's ability to create atmospheric cultures, unusual worlds, strange beings, and interesting characters. His travels also seemed to help increase the sociological, anthropological and psychological depth and insights of Vance's writings.
"Tracing Terms in Jack Vance's Sjambak" is a very short article of only three pages where the author guesses at some of Vance's word plays and explains how Vance combined some Malay related words to create new words.
"Patterns to the Five Demon Princes of Jack Vance" is nine pages long. The author discusses the five demon princes and then proceeds to discuss the five mutant races in The Five Gold Bands, how the five fingers of the human hand relate to the five demon princes, how colors are related to the seven days of the week and how the metals in the Gaean Reach correspond to the days of the week in the Gaean week. I've never been fond of this sort of analysis of symbolism but it is a creative and sometimes humorous article, and the author admits that the "last bit seems like an outrageous stretch."
"The New Prime as Herald of Future Jack Vance" is five pages long. The author states that "The New Prime stands out for me as exemplifying Vance's work beginning ten year later with the Moon Moth (1961)." He discusses the "Woodhouse mode", the "Beowulf mode", the "Barsoomian mode," the "Battle of Techno-Wizards" and "heroic insanity." Andre-Driussi concludes that The New Prime (also known as The Brain of the Galaxy) "is a direct ancestor to the Demon Prince series...Which further emphasizes the import of this one early piece to the entire body of Vance's work."
The final article is six pages long and is titled, "Review of an Encyclopedia of Jack Vance." This is a short review of the three volume Encyclopedia of Jack Vance compiled by David G. Mead. This is the most comprehensive Jack Vance reference set ever compiled. The closest competition is The Jack Vance Lexicon by Dan Temianka that has 1700 entries focusing on words coined by Vance. The Encyclopedia, by comparison, is nine times that size, and there is an even more extensive data base. He mentions that unfortunately David Mead has been unable to find a publisher for the CD-ROM version. I do not own the Encyclopedia but have seen it for sale. Personally I'd prefer access to the data base to make searches easier.
In summary, "Jack Vance Seven Articles on His Work and Travels" is an essential purchase for Vance fans. I loved reading it so gave it a rating of 5. Fortunately it is in print and readily available on Amazon for only $6.95 with a free shipping option. The Kindle Edition is only $1.99.
February 12, 2017
This book contains seven articles examining a particular story or series of Vance's, or about the circumstances of their writing while Vance and family were abroad. Andre-Driussi's work here echoes his other works such as Lexicon Urthus, an encyclopedia of Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun, in that everything is well-researched to the smallest detail; and it is easy to tell that the writer is a fan of Vance.
I'd recommend this book for anyone who considers themselves a Vancean. Any chance to learn more about this great man and his work is a welcome one. This book in particular does a fine job in filling in some of the blanks left by Jack's autobiography, which is now notorious among fans for its utter lack of any real subject matter about Vance the author.
I can honestly say that if Michael Andre-Driussi's name is on something, I buy it. I just know that it will be well-written and researched as well as entertaining.
I'd recommend this book for anyone who considers themselves a Vancean. Any chance to learn more about this great man and his work is a welcome one. This book in particular does a fine job in filling in some of the blanks left by Jack's autobiography, which is now notorious among fans for its utter lack of any real subject matter about Vance the author.
I can honestly say that if Michael Andre-Driussi's name is on something, I buy it. I just know that it will be well-written and researched as well as entertaining.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews