Eight Fantasms and Magics
Eight Fantasms and Magics: A Science Fiction Adventure (short stories), Macmillan, 1969, published as Fantasms and Magics, Mayflower (UK), 1978.
FANTASMS AND MAGICS – AND THE ART OF JINXMANSHIP
On the desolate world of Pangbom, the violent descendants of marooned starship-captains battle constantly for supremacy – in a medieval super-future where magic is as important a weapon as the axe and the broadsword. No warlord will fight without his jinxer, the martial magician whose powers must sway the battle where brain and muscle fail.
But now, as the mighty and ruthless Lord of Faide comes within reach of his goal of planetwide domination, Pangborn begins to fight back. And the jinxer stands impotent before beings that existed long before Man came searching for conquests among the stars...
Here is the very best of cosmic adventure from Nebula and Hugo Award winner Jack Vance, incomparable master of Science Fantasy.
Jack Vance
John Holbrook "Jack" Vance (1916–2013) was an American mystery, fantasy and science fiction writer. Though most of his work has been published as by Jack Vance, he also wrote 11 mystery novels using his full name John Holbrook Vance, three under the pseudonym Ellery Queen, and once each using the pseudonyms Alan Wade, Peter Held, John van See, and Jay Kavanse.
Vance won the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 1984 and he was a Guest of Honor at the 1992 World Science Fiction Convention in Orlando, Florida. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America made him its 14th Grand Master in 1997 and the Science Fiction Hall of Fame inducted him in 2001, its sixth class of two deceased and two living writers.