Beyond Jack Vance discussion

I wanted to post some books of Vance's that I have found while scrounging around used bookstores in the last few months. Any thoughts anyone would like to post about these books/series would be most welcome of course.

These are the ones I've happened to buy:


Araminta Station


The Dirdir


The Pnume


The Brave Free Men


The Asutra


The Narrow Land


A Quest for Simbilis by Michael Shea (the authorized Cugel novel) - this one cost me a few bucks online

I also bought new:


Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honour of Jack Vance

I love "The Narrow Land" - one of my favorite Vance novellas.

also love Planet of Adventure so it's nice seeing you scored two books from that series.

Yeah, very nice score! Personally, I adored all 4 books of the Planet of Adventure series. Pulp sci-fi action/adventure at it's best! I'm 3 books into his Demon Princes series, which is also excellent, but I think just a notch below in terms of the incredibly rich, world building that Vance is revered for.

Jamie wrote: "I think just a notch below in terms of the incredibly rich, world building that Vance is revered for"

Demon Princes is definitely one that improves in leaps and bounds as it goes along. Books 4 and 5 are a cut above the others, and certainly among Vance's best. Masterpieces of psychology and that sort of quasi-anthropological thing Vance does.

Thanks, that's all helpful feedback! I think Shea's A Quest for Simbilis will probably be my next read, even though it isn't officially Vance. I'd like to see the alternate version for how Cugel's story ends.

Shea’s Nifft the Lean is somewhat Vancian. Mr. Vance told me himself he never cared for A Quest for Simbilis.

-- Backstage with Jack Vance, Volume 2: Outlines for Three Novels --

-- Backstage with Jack Vance, Volume 1: Nightlamp, an Outline --

Im trying to complete my Vance collection by supporting Vance family directly so im collecting Spatterlight press volumes even with the books i have already so:

Vol. 5 - The Magnificent Showboats of the Lower Vissel River, Lune XXIII South, Big Planet


Vol. 7 - Vandals of the Void

I didn't buy these recently, but found this 2001 review-essay in the files & brought it up to date:
Jack Vance in the 25th Century -- and Beyond
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Have a look. I think it holds up well, 20 years on. Time for a reread, I think.

Peter wrote: "I didn't buy these recently, but found this 2001 review-essay in the files & brought it up to date:
Jack Vance in the 25th Century -- and Beyond
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

..."

Thanks for the link both to your review and the one called Jack Vance: Lord of Language, Emperor of Dreams. I find any Vance analysis that a must read, extra interesting.

You're welcome. GR just ate my comment, dammit!

I found a nice copy of


The Five Gold Bands

OK, I can't let this group go a whole year without a post.

I was at my favorite used bookstore a couple weeks ago and I lucked into finding a hardcover copy of


Maske: Thaery

Anyone else find a Vance book or have any Vancian stuff to share?

I read an interview with him in Platt's Dream Makers 2, he was teasingly playful and curmudgeonly.

I got this from Lulu Jack Vance : Interviews, Speeches & Texts
The type-setting is a bit flat and it does not contain all the interviews I'd hoped for, like the ones from 2010. It has the Platt interview though. Platt who?

Charles Platt