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This is a nice little anthology of a wide range of Jack Vance short stories - although the best, Chateau d'If, is almost a novella. D'If is a enterprise promising the jaded unforgettable adventure - for a price which is a lot higher than it seems at first. It's a science fiction tale set in "our" future - perhaps not that far off. The other stories are sci-fi, fantasy (such as Green Magic) and one (The Augmented Agent) is James Bond spy fiction in high style. There is the rogue Cugel, private investigator Magnus Ridolph, and a host of others of varying degrees of morality and sophistication.
This covers almost the whole range of Vance's short fiction career - from 1945's The World Thinker to stuff written in the 70's, when as far as I can tell, novels took over the Vancian output. The only thing universal about the various stories is the sly commentary on human nature in greater or lesser degree. There are a lot more short stories than those here - this is not the complete works, by any stretch - but for a lover of Vance's work, this is a must-have, for all it may merely put hard covers around stories otherwise only available in aging paperback.
I'd read a few of these stories already in other collections, but this is a worthy addition to any shelf. Sub Press have a few Vance works out now, with the Treasury, Hard Luck Diggings, and Dream Castles being the other short fiction collections.
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- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 April 2012Format: Hardcover
