Big Planet

This was the first Jack Vance fiction I'd ever read. Nearly twenty years ago, my parents bought me a stack of "notched" sci-fi paperbacks, and this was one of them. It sat around for a while, but eventually one bored Saturday I sifted through the stack and pulled this one out to give it a chance. It was like finding a hidden gem. There's so much adventure, character and creativity packed into a mere 217 pages. Modern writers of fat 1000-page books and never-ending series could learn a lot from Jack Vance. His writing is brisk, clever and most of all colorful and lively. A LOT HAPPENS every few pages! Also, Vance's fiction holds up well over time because he does not rely so much on hard science and the theory of his day, but focuses instead on characters, invented cultures, humor, and the engaging interaction of many personalities. Check this book out, it's an enlightening contrast to just about everything else out there.

This book, written in the 1950's, shows flashes of the brilliance of the later works of Jack Vance. The use of language (readers new to Vance would be advised to keep a LARGE dictionary by you, or else just let the flow of the language envelope you), the exotic settings, and the realization that the most alien and unknownable creatures that mankind will ever meet, will always be us.

This was the first Jack Vance novel I read, thirty or so years ago, and I've been a fan ever since. Vance is one of the great masters, and perhaps had the best use of the language of any SF writer before (at least) Zelazny. I'll always have a fond place in my heart for this one. It probably has more truly intriguing cultures tossed off in a couple of hundred pages than most authors manage in a lifetime, and on top of it all, it is a fun read.