Jack Vance

John Holbrook Vance (b. August 28, 1916 in San Francisco, California; various alternative birthdates between 1916 and 1920 have been cited in different sources) is generally described as an American fantasy and science fiction author, though it has been reported that Vance himself objects to that label http://www.vie-tracking.com/cosmo/Vol01No03final.htm#VanceSFAuthor. He writes chiefly under his informal name, Jack Vance. In past years he wrote mysteries under his full formal name and also as Ellery Queen, Alan Wade, Peter Held, and John van See. He has won numerous awards and honors: Hugo Awards — in 1963 for The Dragon Masters and in 1967 for The Last Castle; a Nebula Award in 1966, also for The Last Castle; the Jupiter Award in 1975; the World Fantasy Award in 1984 for life achievement and in 1990 for Lyonesse: Madouc; an Edgar (the mystery equivalent of the Hugo) for the best first mystery novel in 1961 for The Man in the Cage; in 1990 he was named a SFWA Grand Master; and in 1992 he was Guest of Honor at the WorldCon in Orlando, Florida. He is generally highly regarded by critics and colleagues, some of whom have suggested that he transcends genre labels and should be regarded as an important writer by mainstream standards. For instance, Poul Anderson once called him the greatest living American writer "in" science fiction (not "of" science fiction). Frank Herbert and Poul Anderson were among Vance's closest friends in the SF community.

Output and Characteristics

He first ventured into print as a science-fiction author with the story 'The World-Thinker' in 1945. Since then he has written over sixty books. Many fall into series: perhaps the most notable are the four-book Dying Earth series, the source of numerous imitative works by many authors; the powerful five-novel Demon Princes series, considered by some his acme; the four-novel Tschai series (also commonly known as the Planet of Adventure series); the Durdane trilogy; the Alastor Cluster threesome; the Big Planet twosome; and the Lyonesse fantasy trilogy; but there are others. Many of Vance's science-fiction series belong to a large vision of man's future called the Gaean Reach, occurring at various times in that future history, but the connections are not significant to understanding each individual series (though they allow Vance the opportunity to use in one series delightful references to certain persons, such as Navarth, the mad poet, and certain imagined books, such as the multi-volume study Life by Baron Bodissey, mentioned in others).

Related Topics:
Dying Earth - Demon Princes - Planet of Adventure - Durdane - Alastor Cluster - ''Lyonesse'' fantasy trilogy - Gaean Reach - Navarth - Baron Bodissey

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Vance's science fiction and fantasy novels are typically straightforward, linear narratives, which can easily seduce a careless reader into mistaking them for space opera, which they are not. (For Vance's idea of space opera, see his novel Space Opera.) Vance's tales characteristically feature a strong protagonist — sometimes strong by nature, sometimes forced to strength by circumstance — in quiet but tense opposition to an enfeebled society that he eventually redeems, often without its plaudits or even its notice. Others — a minority, but an important one in his oeuvre — display anti-heroes (such as the ironically mistitled 'Cugel the Clever' in his Dying Earth tales) receiving the slings and arrows of what they — but not we — regard as outrageous fortune. Vance's works by and large are, under the hood, morality plays, howsoever subtle. Yet even a cutthroat, robber, and occasional rapist like Cugel, suitably chastised by his vicissitudes, may finally triumph, as Cugel does in the sequel to The Eyes of the Overworld.

Related Topics:
Science fiction - Fantasy - Space opera - Space Opera - Anti-hero

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But the chief attractions of Vance's novels are not their linear plots, but Vance's exquisite and bone-dry ironic language and his rich evocation — often in but a few words — of alien, complex, absurd, yet thoroughly human societies. Vance often creates in what amounts to a throwaway paragraph a world more fully realized than many writers manage in an entire doorstop-thick volume. An example of his inventiveness is his creation of several fictional games which feature in some of his novels, notably Hussade in the Alastor Cluster books and Hadaul, a martial arts sport, in The Face. Vance's prose style probably attains its most perfect form in stand-alone novels such as The Last Castle and Maske: Thaery.

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Another of Vance's special talents is the telling of tales-within-tales by use of chapter-heading quotations (notably, in the Demon Princes books, the adventures of one Marmaduke, quoted from The Avatar's Apprentice, said to be a 'Scroll from the Ninth Dimension') and footnotes (the ability of a novelist to use footnotes as an effective component is rare, indeed close to unique, though it can be paralleled in the work of Flann O'Brien, especially The Third Policeman). Often, Vance exposes the rather arbitrary nature of society by means of linguistic footnotes on untranslatable terms. These terms outline concepts central to the society described, but utterly alien to the reader. Indeed, Vance's ability to "explain" without diminishing the reader's mystification is part of the charm of his works, which are rich in the "Negative Capability" lauded by Keats and essential to fantasy or science fiction. The fact that one never quite figures out what a "deodand" looks like, or has never heard of the Flesh Cape of Miscus, in no way impairs one's ability to follow the story.

Related Topics:
Flann O'Brien - Negative Capability - Deodand

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A commonplace in Vance's works is the village (or planet) whose inhabitants practice with utmost sincerity a belief system which is absurd, repugnant, or both. Besides their picaresque potential, Vance uses these episodes to satirize dogmatism in general and religious dogmatism in particular. Indeed, there is a great deal of the 18th-century philosophe in Vance, who in his Lyonesse trilogy pokes particular fun at Christianity. Where so many peoples over the aeons have held so many disparate beliefs, Vance implies, who has the right to impose his dogma on others?

Related Topics:
Philosophe - Christianity

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This skepticism is tied to Vance's individualism, which is both an ethical and an aesthetic imperative for him and his characters. Thoreau's desire that there be as many different sorts of person as possible seems to be applied in practice in Vance's fiction. His Enlightenment values appear again in his assumption that everyone should be free to realize himself in his own manner, provided that this self-realization doesn't act to the detriment of others. Often Vance's villains are self-artists who violate that principle and destroy the lives or property of others in order to pursue their own visions.

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Consequently, Vance favors aristocratic characters for the scope that status or wealth can undeniably provide, and he enjoys creating freakishly indivdualistic aristocratic societies (such as in the second Alastor novel, or like the Ska in Lyonesse). A favorite theme of his (exemplified in The Last Castle) is the decadent aristocratic society whose pursuit of aesthetic individualism has left it unable to cope with the challenges of reality, which may require cooperation and sacrifice. This tension recurs in Vance, though usually his protagonists find it possible to be both aesthetes and heroes.

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But Vance never assumes that aristocracy automatically confers merit. He is ruthless in his satire of pompous notables who think that noble birth saves them the obligation to be gracious or interesting. Pretension is always a vice in Vance. But he always distinguishes between pretension and actual elevation. One of the many charms of his work is the Shakespearean manner in which scoundrels and princes alike bargain and banter in elegant language.

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His emphasis on individualism prevents Vance from being a relativist. Indeed, his values sometimes have the force of prejudices, as with his disdain for homosexuality: the few homosexuals in Vance's work are all villains, principally King Casimir of Lyonesse, Faud Carfhiliot and the wizard Tamurello, all from the Lyonesse trilogy. This sexual conservatism also manifests itself in male-female relations. Vance can create lively and heroic female characters, such as Glyneth in the Lyonesse books; yet after Glyneth marries, she drops offstage for the last book in that trilogy. A Dying Earth story, "The Murthe," is especially explicit in insisting that women's and men's natures are different and that any deviations from one's gender norm are to be avoided. Whether this genial but undeniable sexism is anything more than an artifact of Vance's generational prejudices is an open question, but hopefully doesn't detract from an enjoyment of his lively style and imagination.

Related Topics:
King Casimir of Lyonesse - Faud Carfhiliot - Tamurello - Lyonesse

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