Edited by Terry Dowling and Jonathan Strahan. Dust jacket illustration by Tom Kidd.
Avenues into the Future...
“Truth to tell, we’re tourists, out to see the wonders of the universe.”
— Paddy Blackthorn, The Rapparee
Grand journeys among the stars — pursuits, quests, explorations and
encounters. These were very much science fiction and fantasy Grandmaster Jack Vance’s stock in trade, whether to have Kirth Gersen roam the
Oikumene and Beyond tracking down his five Demon Princes or to strand
Adam Reith on far-off Tschai. Or, as in this present volume, to take
Earth-style opera to the non-human folk of distant Rlaru, to study the
much coveted tree-pod dwellings on Iszm, to follow the clues in five
gold bands to the knowledge that lets a handful of races control all
space travel in the universe, or to endure servitude at the hands of
ruthless alien overlords.
Just as Vance sought adventure and the joys of a fulfilled life by
travelling the highways and byways of his own beloved Earth, so he had
his heroes and heroines do the same on other worlds. The five early
tales featured in Grand Crusades: The Early Jack Vance, Volume
Five take us on a fascinating selection of such journeys, showing us how the future was in the earlier years of his writing career.
And inevitably, as with storytellers from Homer to Shakespeare, Dickens to Austen, Tolstoy to Twain, our Grandmaster also used his craft as
something on which to hang personal preoccupations, fascinations and
longings. For as with any good writer, the completions and pay-offs of
these otherworldly travels often deliver more than just a satisfactory
conclusion to the affairs on hand and a few hours’ pleasant diversion
for the reader. Vance also put us in touch with things beyond the page,
delivering an awareness of a universe and a future for humanity filled
with possibility, leaving us — as the best writers, artists and makers
always do — with feelings of connection with something larger.
Contents:
- Introduction
- The Rapparee
- Crusade to Maxus
- Gold and Iron
- The Houses of Iszm
- Space Opera
