Posted by leon J. Janzen on July 19, 1997 at 18:25:52:
In Reply to: Re: Vance 5 Favorites posted by Michaela Mellody on March 30, 1997 at 11:42:17:
There's a point in the early sixties where virtually everything written by Jack Vance strikes some kind of resonance in me. Every book has sections, chapters, incidents and side-stories that have become favorite as I re-read them (and I've been doing it since I first discovered The Dragon Masters in a 1963? Galaxy Sci-Fi digest. As others have already said, narrowing the list to five means picking the stories that maintain that Vancian level of human debate within alien backgrounds throughout the work. Here goes: 1) The Dragon Masters (no other one book has this many Vancian mechanisms, cultures, frictions between social systems) 2) The Dirdir (the Carabas!!! a tight, scary, thrilling chapter of a great four book series) 3) The Blue World (the classic formula: one dissident upsets generations of religous conservatism, and here comes King Kragen) 4) The Killing Machine (with Kirth Gersen who counterfeits SVU, travels beyond the "old dog star" to Thamber, and defeats Kokor Hekkus) and 5) Showboat World (where Vance's funny and detestable people are all over Big Planet's landscape) Best short stories: The Miracle Workers/Sail 25/Last Castle (it's a tie)... Leon