Posted by Rodger Whitlock on March 22, 1999 at 11:20:42:
I'm always pleased when I read a book that has something of Jack Vance's unique outlook and style.
Lately I've been reading a lot of old Latin classics in the Penguin Classics editions and have come across one that seems positively Vancean, much to my surprise. It's Apuleius, "The Golden Ass."
The translation is by Robert Graves, a noted author in his own right ("I, Claudius"), very slightly revised by later hands. It's very readable, and a lot of fun! I recommend it to those Vancephiles who relish JV's anthropological and sociological inventions.
In reading Apuleius, I've had to ask myself why "The Golden Ass" reminds me so much of Vance, and I think I have some new insight into one of Jack Vance's strengths as a writer. Although his stuff is called -science- fiction, in fact the technology is about as important as a pair of old shoes. It's the peoples, the cultures, the cuisines, the religions, that are important, not the details of how space ships fly or rayguns work.
I see in Vance a forecast of post-technologial society.