Short Story Collections
A short story collection originally published as Future Tense by one of SF's greatest authors, Jack Vance. Contents: - Dust of Far Suns (1962) - Dodkin's Job (1959) - Ullward's Retreat (1958) - The Gift of Gab (1955)
Slightly different edition of Eight Fantasms and Magics, omitting the two Telek, and Cil. Otherwise, the same contents.
Ace, 1973. Paperback. RARE, collectible. Collection of stories by this Grand Master of science fiction. Includes: The World Between (1953); The Moon Moth (1961); Brain of the Galaxy (1951); The Devil on Salvation Bluff (1955); The Men Return (1957); The Kokod Warriors [Magnus Ridolph] (1952); The King of Thieves [Magnus Ridolph] (1949); Coup de Grace [Magnus Ridolph] (1958); The Brains of Earth [Nopalgarth, 3] (1966).
A classic science fiction tale finds new life in this graphic novel adaptation. A fascinating blend of murder mystery and high-concept science fiction, The Moon Moth has long been hailed as one of Jack Vance's greatest works. And now this intricately crafted tale is available in glorious full color as a new graphic novel. Edwer Thissell, the new consul from Earth to the planet Sirene, is having all kinds of trouble adjusting to the local culture. The Sirenese cover their faces with exquisitely crafted masks that indicate their social status. Thissell, a bumbling foreigner, wears a mask of very low status: the Moon Moth. Shortly after Thissell arrives on Sirene, he finds himself embroiled in a an unsolved murder case made all the more mysterious by the fact that since everyone must always wear a mask, you can never be sure who you're dealing with.
Unlike most "Best of" collections, this one concentrates on longer stories, including the award winning novel *The Last Castle.* Also contains: . . Sail 25 . . Ullward's Retreat . . Abercrombie Station . . The Moon Moth . . Rumfuddle First Book Publication, 1976.
Tales of fantasy and science fiction bring together Vance's visions of alien beings, magical worlds, and the future of man
from DAW sf UE1563 No. 402 $2.25. By science fiction grand-master, Jack Vance. Three complete Vance novels in one big volume! Nopalgarth (formerly titled The Brains of Earth), Son of the Tree, and The Houses of Iszm. No ISBN.
'- Assault on a City - I'll Build Your Dream Castle - Four Hundred Blackbirds - Meet Miss Universe - The Potters of Firsk - Sabotage on Sulphur Planet - Seven Exits from Bocz - Winner Lose All - The World-Thinker
This 2005 SFBC Edition contains all 5 of the stories previously printed inVols 1&2 : 'The Star King' , 'The Killing Machine' , 'The Palace of Love' , 'The Face ' , 'The Book of Dreams'
First edition bound in black cloth, 125 pages. Although not the limited signed edition of 200, this Trade edition of 800 copies is, however Flat SIGNED without inscription by Vance on the Title page. A Fine copy In a Fine DJ.
'- Shape-Up (1953)- The Man from Zodiac (1967)- Golden Girl (1951)- The Planet Machine (1951)- Crusade to Maxus (1951)- Three-Legged Joe (1953)- Sjambak (1953)- The Augmented Agent (1961)
Lying off the coast of Monterey, Bird Island is favored with tranquil beaches, coves and rocky hills. The island is home to a finishing school for girls, and a picturesque old hotel—in desperate need of repair. The hotel owner must sell plots of the island to finance renovation and enlargement. The buyers are an odd a whale hunter, an amateur photographer of artistic nudes, a fugitive from justice, a young poet who composes rhymes for greeting cards, and an explorer, accompanied by his pet baboon. Everything goes wrong, to the extent that even Rexie, the cheese-loving hotel cat is affected! So much for tranquility, on Bird Island… First published as Isle of Peril , Bird Isle mixes intrigue with humor, inspired by the great P.G. Wodehouse. Bird Isle is Volume 16 of the Spatterlight Press Signature Series.Released in the centenary of the author's birth, this handsome new collectionis based upon the prestigious Vance Integral Edition. Select volumes enjoyup-to-date maps, and many are graced with freshly-written forewords contributedby a distinguished group of authors. Each book bears a facsimile of theauthor's signature and a previously-unpublished photograph, chosen from family archives for the period the book was written. These uniquefeatures will be appreciated by all, from seasoned Vance collector to new reader sampling the spectrum of this author's influential work forthe first time. – John Vance II
A collection of the author's short science fiction includes "Dodkin's Job," "Masquerade on Discthropus," "Telek," "New Prime," and "Devil on Salvation Bluff"
Nebula and World Fantasy Grand Master Jack Vance is one of the most admired and cherished writers of science fiction and fantasy in the world, and is one of the truly important and influential storytellers of the 20th century. From his first published story "The World Thinker" in 1945 to his final novel Lurulu in 2004, Vance has shown an astonishing range of inventiveness, versatility and sheer storytelling power, as well as a gift for language and world-building second to none. Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy and Edgar awards, his acclaimed first book The Dying Earth and its sequels helped shape the face of modern heroic fantasy for generations of readers -- and writers! In more than sixty novels, he has done more than any other author to define science fantasy and its preeminent form: the planetary adventure. Born in San Francisco in 1916, Vance wrote much of what you'll find between these covers both abroad and at home in the hills above Oakland, either while serving in the merchant marine or traveling the world with his wife Norma, all the while pursuing his great love of fine cuisine and traditional jazz. Now, at last, the very best of Vance's mid-length and shorter work has been collected in a single landmark volume. With a Preface by Vance himself and a foreword by long-time Vance reader George R.R. Martin, it stands as the capstone to a splendid career and makes the perfect introduction to a very special writer.
Jack Vance is science fiction s world-builder par excellence, a multi-award-winning Grand Master and much-loved doyen of the art of the planetary adventure. In a career spanning 59 years, Vance has been responsible -- more than any other writer in the field -- for creating exotic alien cultures and living, breathing worlds, among them Tschai, Durdane and Big Planet, Trullion, Cadwal and Wyst, Aerlith, Fader and Dar Sai. Now, in a single impressive volume, The Jack Vance Reader brings together three of the master's very best planetary adventures: the internationally acclaimed Emphyrio, the classic interplanetary whodunnit, The Domains of Koryphon, and the provocative and unforgettable The Languages of Pao.
Five vintage stories from the 1950s by Science Fiction Grand Master, Jack Vance. SF stories of adventure, detection, horror, and humor. Stories include The Men Return; The Devil On Salvation Bluff; A Practical Man's Guide; Worlds of Origin; and the haunting, When the Five Moons Rise.
When Jack Vance decided to become a writer, a million-word-a-year man as he put it so pragmatically at the time, he also gave fantastic literature one of its most cherished and distinctive voices. Though primarily a novelist throughout his long and distinguished career, this Hugo, Nebula, Edgar and World Fantasy Award-winning Grand Master also produced many short and mid-length works. Wild Thyme, Green Magic collects an alien s handful of these wondrous tales, among them the author s first-ever sale, The World-Thinker, the unforgettable Chateau D If, the stylish Green Magic, the macabre, gothic Seven Exits from Bocz, and The Seventeen Virgins, a rousing adventure with Cugel the Clever set in the author s acclaimed far-future Dying Earth.
POD 01 The World-Thinker and Other Stories This volume might have been titled "The Early Jack Vance", as it features stories from the first dozen years of Vance’s career, when his major outlet was pulp magazines. In these stories, Vance already displays the lively imagination and mastery of the English language that came to characterize his entire career. Among the fifteen stories are these: The World-Thinker , Vance’s first published story, features two types who would recur often in Vance’s writing: the assured and competent hero, and the feisty, equally-competent heroine. They deal with an entity who, like Vance himself, creates fully-formed worlds at will. I’ll Build Your Dream Castle is the first occurrence of a theme that also would appear again: the tension between those who buy and those who sell; in this case, houses. DP! was written shortly after World War II, when refugees and victims of the carnage and upheaval were constantly in the news. Here, the ‘displaced persons’ are a hominid species driven from their homes by geological catastrophe. Seven Exits from Bocz is also informed by the horrors of the second War. The Foreword to this volume is written by Vance scholar David B. Williams, who presents a thorough overview of Vance’s entire career, from the promising beginnings presented here, to the masterpieces that would earn him the SFWA Grandmaster award in 1997 and a place in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. The World-Thinker and Other Stories is Volume 1 of the Spatterlight Press Signature Series.Released in the centenary of the author's birth, this handsome new collectionis based upon the prestigious Vance Integral Edition. Select volumes enjoyup-to-date maps, and many are graced with freshly-written forewords contributedby a distinguished group of authors. Each book bears a facsimile of theauthor's signature and a previously-unpublished photograph, chosen from family archives for the period the book was written. These uniquefeatures will be appreciated by all, from seasoned Vance collector to new reader sampling the spectrum of this author's influential work forthe first time. – John Vance II
Here in one unforgettable volume are three of Jack Vance’s best novellas–rich adventures of humanity in crisis, showcasing Vance’s stylistic flair, creative ingenuity, wit, and storytelling skill: the Hugo-winning “The Dragon Masters,” Hugo and Nebula-winning “The Last Castle”, and that gem of science re-born, “The Miracle Workers”. Resilient Joaz Banbeck of Aerlith sends his remarkable dragons against the non-human Basics. Xanten of Castle Hagedorn deals with the alien Meks, in their war of retribution on our own beleaguered, far-future Earth; the pragmatic Sam Salazar outdoes his betters, to save the last remnants of the human race on Pangborn. A volume for the Vance completist, a book so many of us wish we’d had for the last fifty years. – Terry Dowling The Dragon Masters and Other Stories is Volume 12 of the Spatterlight Press Signature Series. Released in the centenary of the author's birth, this handsome new collection is based upon the prestigious Vance Integral Edition. Select volumes enjoy up-to-date maps, and many are graced with freshly-written forewords contributed by a distinguished group of authors. Each book bears a facsimile of the author's signature and a previously-unpublished photograph, chosen from family archives for the period the book was written. These unique features will be appreciated by all, from seasoned Vance collector to new reader sampling the spectrum of this author's influential work for the first time. – John Vance II
Eight of these nine stories were published between 1951 and 1955, years when Jack Vance wrote for the pulp magazines. Even in this early work, the voice of the future SFWA Grandmaster may be heard. Jean Parlier is the first of Vance’s strong female protagonists. Captivatingly amoral, Jean seeks her fortune in Abercrombie Station , providing a gravity-free paradise for the obese. In Cholwell’s Chickens , she sets out (like Madouc, nearly 40 years later) to find her pedigree. Before Gold and Iron and Komeitk Lelianr—there was Lurulu, another gold-skinned Lekthwan. Sole survivor of a spaceship crash, The Golden Girl is stranded on Earth, only of her kind. She is lionized, fêted and courted by a fascinated public, but pines for home. Meet Miss Universe introduces 23 contestants from throughout the galaxy, some human, some monstrous. The winner will be judged by standards of beauty from her home world. She will choose her own prize, and the organizers must fulfill their obligation! Alice Tynnott is The Insufferable Red-headed Daughter of Commander Tynnott, O.T.E. (originally published as Assault on a City ). After spending the first seventeen years of her life on rural planets, Alice visits urban Earth; attractive and self-assured, her confidence inspires men to think she is naive and vulnerable—but this is not the case, and scoundrels will learn a memorable lesson. The Golden Girl and Other Stories is Volume 25 of the Spatterlight Press Signature Series.Released in the centenary of the author's birth, this handsome new collectionis based upon the prestigious Vance Integral Edition. Select volumes enjoyup-to-date maps, and many are graced with freshly-written forewords contributedby a distinguished group of authors. Each book bears a facsimile of theauthor's signature and a previously-unpublished photograph, chosen from family archives for the period the book was written. These uniquefeatures will be appreciated by all, from seasoned Vance collector to new reader sampling the spectrum of this author's influential work forthe first time. – John Vance II
A collection of Vance's early short stories, including Planet of the Black Dust (1945), Four Hundred Blackbirds (1948), Dead Ahead (1949), The Enchanted Princess (1949), The Potters of Firsk (1949), The Visitors (1950), The Uninhibited Robot (1950), Dover Spargill's Ghastly Floater (1951), Three-Legged Joe (1951), Sabotage on Sulfur Planet (1952), Sjambak (1952), Parapsyche (1957), and Sail 25 (1961). Cover art by Tais Teng
This collection contains “unpublished” work of SFWA Grandmaster Jack Vance, some rough, some well-developed. Previously released only in Volume 44 of the Vance Integral Edition , contents include proposals for screenplays ( Clang , The Magnificent Red-hot Jazzing Seven ), and outlines for novels ( The STARK , Cat Island , a third Joe Bain novel titled The Genesee Slough Murders , The Telephone was Ringing in the Dark , and the wondrously atmospheric Wild Thyme and Violets ). Also: Dream Castle , a 1963 rewrite of 1946’s I’ll Build Your Dream Castle , for Groff Conklin’s anthology Great Stories of Space Travel . The Kragen ( Fantastic 1964), a fully-developed story, later expanded to become The Blue World . Guyal of Sfere , a 1970 version of the final story of The Dying Earth ( Mazirian the Magician ), rewritten for Eight Fantasms and Magics . Is Vance’s later style better suited to this story than the lush, voluptuous original of the 1940s? You decide. Last but not least is an insightful foreword written by Paul Rhoads, Editor-in-Chief of the Vance Integral Edition . Mr. Rhoads discusses some of the technical problems encountered during the V.I.E. project, and brings his valuable perspective to each piece in turn—elucidating a perceptual background which provides the perfect context for these gems within the broad expanse of Jack Vance’s extraordinary oeuvre. Wild Thyme and Violets and Other Unpublished Works is Volume 61 of the Spatterlight Press Signature Series. Released in the centenary of the author's birth, this handsome new collectionis based upon the prestigious Vance Integral Edition. Select volumes enjoyup-to-date maps, and many are graced with freshly-written forewords contributedby a distinguished group of authors. Each book bears a facsimile of theauthor's signature and a previously-unpublished photograph, chosen from family archives for the period the book was written. These uniquefeatures will be appreciated by all, from seasoned Vance collector to new reader sampling the spectrum of this author's influential work forthe first time. – John Vance II
Being there... Jack Vance has long been F&SF's grand master of regional science fiction, creating living, breathing locales on distant worlds or on our own fabulously transformed, often magical future Earth that are second to none. But at the same time he was giving us these vivid, award-winning fantasy and science fictional settings, even as he was exploring the far corners of this world as a keen and inveterate traveller, Jack was vigorously pursuing an exciting and promising parallel career as a writer of mystery and suspense novels under his given name of John Holbrook Vance. The three JHV mysteries featured here, The Fox Valley Murders, The Pleasant Grove Murders and The Dark Ocean were produced during the mid-60s, in the same fertile years that Jack sent Cugel the Clever off exploring the Dying Earth in The Eyes of the Overworld, left Sklar Hast to face danger among the kragen in The Blue World and gave Kirth Gersen a third Demon Prince to track down in The Palace of Love. Even as Jack was hard at work producing high adventure in such interstellar 'regional' locales as Sogdian, Sarkovy and Blue World, he found time to don his other hat and concoct always interesting, often life-changing, sometimes desperate, adventures for Sheriff Joe Bain in Central California's San Rodrigo County, a Vance setting as intricate, vividly rendered and closely observed as any of his SF and fantasy creations. So, too, he gave personable, wilful naif Betty Haverhill all manner of life and death thrills aboard the Italian freighter Garda on its way to Europe. A follow-up volume to the widely acclaimed Dangerous Ways: Selected Mysteries, Subterranean Press is proud to present Desperate Days: Selected Mysteries 2, a book not just for the true connoisseur of the master s distinctive blend of intrigue and derring-do, but for anyone who relishes a good, well-told detective yarn set in an unforgettable time and place.
