Jack Vance – författare

The Elder Isles - an ancient land where chivalry and the realm of fairie exist side by side. A land of mystery, strange beauty, high adventure and arcane magic. Kings are at war, opposing magicians devise ever more cunning stratagems. It is a land where princesses and changelings both can become embroiled in political rivalries and the quest for the grail.The Gollancz Black Books have proved to be an immensely successful formula for getting well loved stories into the hands of people who also love well made books. Jack Vance''s Complete Lyonesse is a perfect addition to the series and contains Madouc the novel for which Vance won the World Fantasy Award.

New races of man had evolved, new species of beast; science had vanished and magic had arisen to dominate the twilight of our world as it dominated the earth''s morning. The Dying Earth is Jack Vance''s finest work - a stunning evocation of a world peopled by wizards, witches, demons, monsters, dashing princes and forlorn maidens. A bejewelled gallery of strange and wonderful beings in the eminent tradition of Tolkien and William Morris.Jack Vance''s preferred title for this collection is Mazirian the Magician, but while we have elsewhere deferred to his wishes, in this case the book is so famous under a title of which he apparently strongly disapproves that we concluded it would be absurd to change it.All Jack Vance titles in the SFGateway use the author''s preferred texts, as restored for the Vance Integral Edition (VIE), an extensive project masterminded by an international online community of Vance''s admirers. In general, we also use the VIE titles, and have adopted the arrangement of short story collections to eliminate overlaps.

The Rapparee is Jack Vance''s preferred title for the novel previously published as The Space Pirate and The Five Gold Bands.Five gold bracelets imprinted with cryptic messages were the clues that set Paddy Blackthorn off on a riotous galactic treasure hunt. But Paddy found himself not only the hunter but also the hunted for the armbands had been left to him by his would-be killers, the Rulers of the Five Planets.All Jack Vance titles in Gateway use the author''s preferred texts, as restored for the Vance Integral Edition (VIE), an extensive project masterminded by an international online community of Vance''s admirers. In general, we also use the VIE titles, and have adopted the arrangement of short story collections to eliminate overlaps.

Big Planet is Jack Vance''s first major sf novel, and in the words of the Encyclopedia of SF, "provided an sf model for the planetary romance which has been of significant use for forty years". The huge world of the title is home to a range of colourfully detailed and imaginative human societies, which Vance explores with the zest and humour which are hallmarks of his work.All Jack Vance titles in the SFGateway use the author''s preferred texts, as restored for the Vance Integral Edition (VIE), an extensive project masterminded by an international online community of Vance''s admirers. In general, we also use the VIE titles, and have adopted the arrangement of short story collections to eliminate overlaps. Big Planet was cut almost in half for its first publication, but sadly the excised pages are lost.

The gigantic world known as Big Planet had become a wilderness of strange peoples and weird cultures as a result of having been the dumping ground for every crackpot and malcontent that ever emigrated from the Earth. Somewhere in its unmapped vastness a plot was being hatched to disturb the peace of the mother world''s civilization.This novel was previously published under the titles Planet of the Damned and Slaves of the Klau.All Jack Vance titles in the SFGateway use the author''s preferred texts, as restored for the Vance Integral Edition (VIE), an extensive project masterminded by an international online community of Vance''s admirers. In general, we also use the VIE titles, and have adopted the arrangement of short story collections to eliminate overlaps.

The city of Clarges is a near-utopia, surrounded by barbarism throughout the rest of the world. Abundant resources and the absence of political conflict lead to a pleasant life that should be stress-free. However, nearly everyone is obsessed with a perpetual scramble for status, called slope. Medical technology has led to a great lengthening of the human lifespan, but, in order to prevent the Malthusian horrors of over-population, it is awarded only to those citizens who have made notable contributions.The Grayven Warlock was one of those accomplished few, but he has become a fugitive after a feud with another Amaranth resulted in the latter''s death. Masquerading as his own relict, using the name Gavin Waylock, he lives in obscurity, looking for the accomplishment that will reinstate him among the immortals. However, Waylock''s dramatic stratagems may result in changes to society far beyond anything he had intended...

In the dim far future of Earth, when the sun had shrunk to a small red disk in the dark sky and the race of man lived in isolated cities that echoed with the vastness of the world''s history, science, myth and magic had become one. Sorcerors who read the books of ancient times held great power, and fearsome monsters created in ages long forgotten stalked the land. In this world of mystery and danger, the adventurer known as Cugel the Clever was forced to undertake a quest for Iucounu the Laughing Magician - a quest that was to take him to lands stranger than any he had dreamed of, and pit his wits and his sword against powers from beyond time itself.Previously published as The Eyes of the Overworld, this is the second of a quartet of titles sharing the same far-future setting first introduced in The Dying EarthContents: The Overworld, Cil, The Mountains of Magnatz, The Sorcerer Pharesm, The Pilgrims, The Cave in the Forest, The Manse of Iucounu.All Jack Vance titles in the SFGateway use the author''s preferred texts, as restored for the Vance Integral Edition (VIE), an extensive project masterminded by an international online community of Vance''s admirers. In general, we also use the VIE titles, and have adopted the arrangement of short story collections to eliminate overlaps.

A space opera is what science fiction readers call an adventure in outer space and on alien planets. But a space opera could also be an opera, a musical work, that originated in outer space...Jack Vance''s unique novel SPACE OPERA fits both definitions marvelously! Because it starts with the mysterious opera company from the equally mysterious planet Rlaru that arrives on Earth to astonish and infuriate music-lovers - and then disappears without trace!And when Roger Wool''s wealthy aunt determined to reciprocate by bringing an Earthly operatic team into space and to the unknown world Rlaru, there unwinds a complex and surprising space opera of the first kind ...filled with enigmatic aliens, weird worlds, and all the special color and cunning that is the hallmark of the best Jack Vance.

Far in the future, the craftsmen of the distant planet Halma create goods which are the wonder of the galaxy. But they know little of this. Their society is harshly regimented, its religion austere and unforgiving, and primitive - to maintain standards, even the most basic use of automation is punishable by death. When Amiante, a wood-carver, is executed for processing old documents with a camera, his son Ghyl rebels, and decides to bring down the system. To do so, he must first interpret the story of Emphyrio, an ancient hero of Halman legend.All Jack Vance titles in the SF Gateway use the author''s preferred texts, as restored for the Vance Integral Edition (VIE), an extensive project masterminded by an international online community of Vance''s admirers. In general, we also use the VIE titles, and have adopted the arrangement of short story collections to eliminate overlaps.

Tschai, the setting for the quartet of novels which commences with The Chasch (originally City of the Chasch), is a planet inhabited by a variety of alien species coexisting uneasily with humans - the Chasch, the Wannek, the Dirdir and the Pnume.All Jack Vance titles in the SFGateway use the author''s preferred texts, as restored for the Vance Integral Edition (VIE), an extensive project masterminded by an international online community of Vance''s admirers. In general, we also use the VIE titles, and have adopted the arrangement of short story collections to eliminate overlaps.

Kirth Gersen, having brought arch-villain Malagate the Woe to justice, sets his sights on Kokor Hekkus, another of the Demon Princes. The name Kokor Hekkus, which means "killing machine" in the language of the planet Thamber, does not refer to Hekkus''s own predilection for homicide, but to his fondness for horrific and murderous devices, including the giant robotic executioner that first gained him his nickname.As a boy, Kirth Gersen survived a raid on his home planet masterminded by five interstellar crime lords known as the Demon Princes. This five-novel sequence recounts his carefully-planned and implacable revenge. In this, the second volume, his target is Kokor Hekkus, better known as the Killing Machine.All Jack Vance titles in the SFGateway use the author''s preferred texts, as restored for the Vance Integral Edition (VIE), an extensive project masterminded by an international online community of Vance''s admirers. In general, we also use the VIE titles, and have adopted the arrangement of short story collections to eliminate overlaps.