Ecce & Old Earth

I've always been a Jack Vance fan sice I was a teenager. His mannered SF novels such as this one, even seem like a Jane Austen type of understated language which gets to the heart of the human condition even though it may be set on a world far removed from the English counties of Austen. I had volume one of the Cadwell Chronicles, which I read long ago. As he had died, I thought there were no more. Even though this one is not exactly up to his work in volume 1, it is still great. Thank you to the publisher for reissuing it. RMS

This book is a continuation of Araminta Station. It is somewhat less complex, and more introspective and episodic. Some of its episodes are classic Vance set-pieces. I love the sequence on Madame Ottilie and her nasty little dogs. If you love Vance, you'll read this with alacrity. If you read the first book, don't miss the second, or the third (Throy).

"Ecce and Old Earth", sequel to the thunderous "Araminta Station", is actually more like two novels screwed together than a single work. The first hundred pages take us back to Cadwal, where we last saw Glawen Clattuc battling Kirdy in the waves of Deucas. Now he has the last letter from Floreste, which tells him where his father is being held. With Chilke bound by bureaucracy and Bodwyn Wook unwilling to act, Glawen is left mounting a one-man rescue mission through the steaming jungles of Ecce, battling exotic wildlife, severe weather, and the machinations of the dreaded Simonna and Spanchetta. That part of the story is wrapped up quickly, and we then shift to Old Earth, where we find Wayness Tam intrepidly hunting for the Charter and the Grant-in-Prepetuity that together confer ownership of the entire Planet Cadwal. This is the meat of the novel. Plotwise this book is not nearly as complicated as "Araminta Station". The entertainment comes from watching the bizarre lifestyles that have developed on Earth during the inervening millenia. Here we see progress and stagnation side by side, inbred monarchs, modern artists, fusty scholars, fraudulent treasure-hunters and many more all bumping around on a planet that's gradually sinking into useless oblivion. As we expect, Vance provides each member of this eclectic cast with a unique voice and overriding personality. The result is a feast of wit as they bounce off each other: "Kiev is like a great laboratory where reverence for poast aesthetic doctrine crashes headlong into utter contempt for the same doctrine - sometimes in the same indvidual - and the collision produces a coruscation of wonders." (p. 190) "Countess Ottile lives in seclusion, seeing no one but doctors for herself and veterinaries for her dogs. She is said to be extremely aravicious, though she commands great wealth. There is a hint or two that she is, let us say, eccentric. When one of her dogs died, she beat the attending vertinary with her walking stick and drove him away. The veterinary seems to have been of philosophical disposition. When the journalists asked if he intended to sue, he merely shrugged and siad that both beating and biting were accepted hazards of his profession, and there the matter rested." (p. 206) "Peace returned to Pombareales - but not for long. A few days later it became known that the collectors had all paid very large sums for doubloons stamped from lead, then plated over with a thin wash of gold. Their value was negligible. Collectors are not a fatalistic lot. Consternation gave way to outrage and fury even more intense than the previous enthusiasm." (p. 289) I will give props to the ending, which is probably the funniest scene in the book while also being the most emotionally satisfactory - no mean feat. The story is resolved in style, though with the nausea-inducing Julian Bohost still active, we're guaranteed much more action and amusement in the final volume of the trilogy.

After reading "Araminta Station", you can guess what this one will be about: the rescue of Scharde Clattuc (on Ecce) and the search for the original Charter (beginning on Old Earth). The "Old Earth" bit occupies most of the book. It's a fine hunt, with who knows how many people following who knows how many scents to the Charter; the momentum builds slowly but surely; and we get a classic Vance travelog on the way; but I am bound to say that the very end of it all - the actual discovery of the Charter - is disappointing. Were it not for the stumble at the end I would prefer this even to "Araminta Station".

Vance writes in a very eloquent almost poetic style. His characters are nicely developed and interesting - although he tends to drop them rather abruptly. The plot was quite simple in this one, as our heroes wander through space searching for some lost documents.