Where I Enjoy an Author I Have Long Overlooked

Eight Fantasms and Magics by Jack Vance
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is another cast-off book I picked up from the school library years ago. I left it on my shelf for a long time--in class and at home--before I opened it up, and it turns out it's pretty good. A very even collection.

Vance has kind of a dark view of our future, both for earth and for people, and some of the stories are kinda sad and dreary for that reason, though I still found them satisfying and interesting. Others are a tad more hopeful and just very cool. All of them are deeply original and creative.

My favorite is the one called "Telek," set in a future where a fraction of humanity develops telekinesis to the point that they become wealthy rulers--able to bring back treasures from anywhere in the universe--and they live in a cloud city from which they control the entire population. It kinda reminds me of humans and fairies, but it still feels more like science fiction than fantasy. Told from the perspective of downtrodden common humans trying to take back some control over their lives, plotting a one-shot-at-this-thing uprising, it is compelling and engaging and a little frightening. It has a great ending, too. I recommend hunting this one up. (It's found in several other collections, so it's not that obscure.)

"The New Prime" starts out like a series of dream stories, especially with the first scene being a man waking up naked in a wedding, trying to figure out how he got there and how to proceed. It slides into the story of a platoon of soldiers going up against a hive of giant aliens, then slips into a search through a long-abandoned ruins in the desert, then leads us into a disorienting art competition, with contestants creating images and movies on giant screens for an audience using only their minds, before taking the reader to another kind of battle with the first person protagonist being captured and tortured without end. All of these vignettes make sense in the final portion of the story, when we see how they were all the same person, somehow, and his performance has a score attached. Wildly inventive.

I have never read Jack Vance, though I've seen his books all over for decades. Having enjoyed his short stories, guess it's time I try some of his greatest hits. I'll gladly accept recommendations.

This is a fun collection. Still exists on eBay, for those who enjoy SF of the 50s and 60s.

View all my reviews