Araminta Station
Cover art: Boris Vallejo.
The planet Cadwal is forever set aside as a natural preserve, owned and administered by the Naturalist Society of Earth, and inhabited by a very limited number of skilled human scientists and their families. But this simple, straightforward plan has been complicated by the passing centuries, and has become a Byzantine culture where every place in the Houses of Cadwal is the object of Savage competition.
In Araminta Station, the first volume of The Cadwal Chronicles, Jack Vance has constructed a brilliant, complex tale of revenge and murder, of love and alien intrigue, and set it glittering among the stars of the Purple Rose System.
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.
The Cadwal Chronicles
The Cadwal Chronicles consists of three books. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
Main series Gaean Reach