The Killing Machine
"My goal is to produce a nightmare quality of fright, and to maintain
it over an appreciable duration... once an apparentlty sensitive area
is located, the operator to the best of his ingenuity employs means to
emphasize, to dramatize this fear, then augment it by orders of
magnitude." – Kokor Hekkus.
Kokor Hekkus was one of the five
Demon Princes who had masterminded the massacre of Kirth Gersten's
parents and his entire home world. As such he was on Gersten's list for
vengeance.
Though Kokor Hekkus, known as the Killing Machine,
was the most dreaded criminal in the universe, wanted and feared by
every law agency existing, Kirth Gersten set out to locate him... and
to prove that this monster in human form could be made to pay in his
own coin for his most heinous atrocity.
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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.
Demon Princes
Five novels by Jack Vance which chronicle the adventures of Kirth Gersen in attempting to avenge the deaths of his parents at the hands of five planet-slaying crime lords, the justly-named 'Demon Princes'.
Demon Princes consists of five primary books, and includes three additional books that complement the series but are not considered mandatory reads. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
Main series Gaean Reach
