books in order

Jack Vance Books In Order

The Dying Earth Books In Publication Order

  1. The Dying Earth / Mazirian the Magician (1950)
  2. Cugel’s Saga / Cugel: The Skybreak Spatterlight (1966)
  3. The Eyes of the Overworld / Cugel the Clever (1966)
  4. A Quest for Simbilis (1974)
  5. Morreion (1978)
  6. The Seventeen Virgins (1979)
  7. The Bagful of Dreams (1979)
  8. Rhialto the Marvellous (1984)
  9. The Laughing Magician (2006)
  10. Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honour of Jack Vance (2009)

Big Planet Books In Publication Order

  1. Big Planet (1952)
  2. Showboat World (1975)

Demon Princes Books In Publication Order

  1. The Star King (1964)
  2. The Killing Machine (1964)
  3. The Palace of Love (1967)
  4. The Face (1979)
  5. The Book of Dreams (1981)

Nopalgarth Books In Publication Order

  1. Son of the Tree (1951)
  2. The Houses of Iszm (1954)
  3. The Brains of Earth (1966)

Magnus Ridolph Books In Publication Order

  1. The Many Worlds of Magnus Ridolph (1966)
  2. The Complete Magnus Ridolph (1985)
  3. Magnus Ridolph (1985)

Tschai, Planet of Adventure Books In Publication Order

  1. City of the Chasch (1968)
  2. The Dirdir (1969)
  3. Servants of the Wankh (1969)
  4. The Pnume (1970)
  5. The Chasch (2011)
  6. Tschai (2012)

Durdane Books In Publication Order

  1. The Anome / The Faceless Man (1971)
  2. The Brave Free Men (1973)
  3. The Asutra (1973)

Alastor Books In Publication Order

  1. Trullion (1973)
  2. Marune (1975)
  3. Wyst (1978)

Gaean Reach Books In Publication Order

  1. The Gray Prince (1974)
  2. Maske (1976)

Lyonesse Books In Publication Order

  1. Suldrun’s Garden / Lyonesse (1983)
  2. The Green Pearl (1985)
  3. Madouc (1989)

Cadwal Chronicles Books In Publication Order

  1. Araminta Station (1987)
  2. Ecce and Old Earth (1991)
  3. Throy (1992)
  4. The Cadwal Chronicles (2012)

Ports of Call Books In Publication Order

  1. Ports of Call (1997)
  2. Lurulu (2004)

The Early Jack Vance Books In Publication Order

  1. Hard Luck Diggings (2010)
  2. Dream Castles (2012)
  3. Magic Highways (2013)
  4. Minding the Stars (2013)

Miro Hetzel Books In Publication Order

  1. The Dogtown Tourist Agency (1975)
  2. Freitzkea s Turn (1977)
  3. Miro Hetzel (1980)

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

  1. The Five Gold Bands / The Space Pirate (1950)
  2. Vandals of the Void (1953)
  3. To Live Forever (1956)
  4. The Languages of Pao (1957)
  5. Slaves of the Klau / Gold and Iron (1958)
  6. Man in a Cage (1961)
  7. The Dragon Masters (1962)
  8. Monsters in orbit (1965)
  9. Space Opera (1965)
  10. The Blue World (1966)
  11. The Last Castle (1966)
  12. Emphyrio (1969)
  13. Bad Ronald (1973)
  14. Galactic Effectuator (1980)
  15. Night Lamp (1996)
  16. The Magnificent Showboats (2011)
  17. The Wannek (2011)
  18. Clarges (2011)
  19. The Domains of Koryphon (2011)
  20. Bird Isle (2012)
  21. The Dark Ocean (2012)
  22. The Flesh Mask (2012)
  23. The Fox Valley Murders (2012)
  24. The House on Lily Street (2012)
  25. The Pleasant Grove Murders (2012)
  26. Strange People, Queer Notions (2012)
  27. The View from Chickweeda s Window (2012)
  28. Deadly Isles (2012)

Short Stories/Novellas In Publication Order

  1. The Kragen (2007)
  2. Sjambak (2009)
  3. The Rapparee (2011)
  4. The Miracle Workers (2012)
  5. Dodkin’s Job (2015)

Short Story Collections In Publication Order

  1. Future Tense / Dust of Far Suns (1964)
  2. Eight Fantasms and Magics (1969)
  3. The Worlds of Jack Vance (1973)
  4. The Moon Moth (1976)
  5. The Best of Jack Vance (1976)
  6. Fantasms and Magics (1978)
  7. Green Magic (1979)
  8. Nopalgarth (1980)
  9. Lost Moons (1982)
  10. The Narrow Land (1982)
  11. The Demon Princes (1985)
  12. Light from a Lone Star (1985)
  13. The Augmented Agent (1986)
  14. The Dark Side of the Moon (1986)
  15. Bird Isle and Take My Face (1988)
  16. Chateau d’If and Other Stories (1990)
  17. When the Five Moons Rise (1992)
  18. The Jack Vance Treasury (2007)
  19. The Jack Vance Reader (2008)
  20. The Men Return and Others (2009)
  21. Wild Thyme, Green Magic (2009)
  22. The World-Thinker and Other Stories (2011)
  23. The Dragon Masters and Other Stories (2011)
  24. The Golden Girl and Other Stories (2012)
  25. Sail 25 and Other Stories (2012)
  26. Wild Thyme and Violets and Other Unpublished Stories (2012)
  27. Desperate Days (2012)
  28. Big Planet / The Blue World / The Dragon Masters and Other Stories (2013)

Non-Fiction Books In Publication Order

  1. The Jack Vance Lexicon (1983)
  2. This Is Me, Jack Vance! a | Or More Properly This is “I” (2009)
  3. This Is Me, Jack Vance! (2009)

Star Science Fiction Books In Publication Order

  1. Star Science Fiction Stories No. 2 (By:Frederik Pohl) (1953)

Anthologies In Publication Order

  1. Star Science Fiction Stories 3 (1955)
  2. Galaxy Science Fiction, December 1963 (1963)
  3. The Science Fiction Century (1997)
  4. A Magic-Lover’s Treasury of the Fantastic (1998)
  5. The Furthest Horizon (2000)
  6. Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honour of Jack Vance (2009)
  7. Science Fiction Gems, Vol. One (2011)

The Dying Earth Book Covers

Big Planet Book Covers

Demon Princes Book Covers

Nopalgarth Book Covers

Magnus Ridolph Book Covers

Tschai, Planet of Adventure Book Covers

Durdane Book Covers

Alastor Book Covers

Gaean Reach Book Covers

Lyonesse Book Covers

Cadwal Chronicles Book Covers

Ports of Call Book Covers

The Early Jack Vance Book Covers

Miro Hetzel Book Covers

Standalone Novels Book Covers

Short Stories/Novellas Book Covers

Short Story Collections Book Covers

Non-Fiction Book Covers

Star Science Fiction Book Covers

Anthologies Book Covers

Jack Vance Books Overview

The Dying Earth / Mazirian the Magician

The stories included in The Dying Earth introduce dozens of seekers of wisdom and beauty, lovely lost women, wizards of every shade of eccentricity with their runic amulets and spells. We meet the melancholy deodands, who feed on human flesh and the twk men, who ride dragonflies and trade information for salt. There are monsters and demons. Each being is morally ambiguous: The evil are charming, the good are dangerous. All are at home in Vance’s lyrically described fantastic landscapes like Embelyon where, The sky was a mesh of vast ripples and cross ripples and these refracted a thousand shafts of colored light, rays which in mid air wove wondrous laces, rainbow nets, in all the jewel hues…
. The dying Earth itself is otherworldly: A dark blue sky, an ancient sun…
. Nothing of Earth was raw or harsh the ground, the trees, the rock ledge protruding from the meadow; all these had been worked upon, smoothed, aged, mellowed. The light from the sun, though dim, was rich and invested every object of the land…
with a sense of lore and ancient recollection. Welcome. The Dying Earth and its sequels comprise one of the most powerful fantasy/science fiction concepts in the history of the genre. They are packed with adventure but also with ideas, and the vision of uncounted human civilizations stacked one atop another like layers in a phyllo pastry thrills even as it induces a sense of awe at…
the fragility and transience of all things, the nobility of humanity s struggle against the certainty of an entropic resolution. Dean Koontz, author of the Odd Thomas novels. He gives you glimpses of entire worlds with just perfectly turned language. If he d been born south of the border, he d be up for a Nobel Prize. Dan Simmons author of The Hyperion Cantos.

Cugel’s Saga / Cugel: The Skybreak Spatterlight

‘Vance sees himself in the tradition of popular fantasy writers, but his classic writing style is also comparagle to Homer’s Odyssey, and Cervante’s Don Quixote. Though the Cugel tales may lack the scope and pathos of the greatest adventure yarns, in the twenty-first century, they may be as close as one gets to the celebration of epic human perseverance.’–editor, Brilliance Audio Cugel’s Saga, published 17 years after Eyes of the Overworld, is the second novel that features the scoundrel and trickster, Cugel. Again, Cugel tests wits with Iucounu and acquires rudimentary powers himself. ‘Cugel the Clever [is a rogue so venal and unscrupulous that that he makes Harry Flashman look like Dudley Do-Right. How could you not love a guy like that?…
. Judging from the number of times that Cugel has come back…
you can’t keep a bad man down.’ -George R.R. Martin, author of A Song of Ice and Fire. ‘Cugel the Clever [is a liar and thief in a doomed world of liars and thieves…
. Probably the least attractive hero it would be possible to find, struggling through a universe like a Hieronymus Bosch painting, a hero only in that nearly everybody else he encounters in that universe is on the make too, and yet the Cugel stories are howlingly funny.’ -Kage Baker, author of Empress of Mars.

The Eyes of the Overworld / Cugel the Clever

The Eyes of the Overworld is the first of Vance’s picaresque novels about the scoundrel Cugel. Here he is sent by a magician he has wronged to a distant unknown country to retrieve magical lenses that reveal the Overworld. Conniving to steal the lenses, he escapes and, goaded by a homesick monster magically attached to his liver, starts to find his way home to Almery. The journey takes him across trackless mountains, wastelands, and seas. Vance s career began when he was in the merchant marine and continued through extended stays in exotic cities. Through cunning and dumb luck, the relentless Cugel survives one catastrophe after another, fighting off bandits, ghosts, and ghouls stealing, lying, and cheating without insight or remorse leaving only wreckage behind. Betrayed and betraying, he joins a cult group on a pilgrimage, crosses the Silver Desert as his comrades die one by one and, escaping the Rat People, obtains a spell that returns him home. There, thanks to incompetence and arrogance he misspeaks the words of a purloined spell and transports himself back to the same dismal place he began his journey.

Rhialto the Marvellous

Rhialto the Marvellous takes up the personal and political conflicts among a conclave of two dozen magicians of Ascolais and Almery in the 21st Aeon. The shocking appearance of the Llorio the Murtha, a powerful female force from an earlier aeon threatens to unbalance nature by ensqualming or feminizing the magicians. This triggers a tremendous struggle for power and the other mages turn against Rhialto. Hoping to reestablish his rightful place, Rhialto travels to other aeons to restore the missing Perciplex which projects the Mostrament, the constitution of the association. In his final adventure, Rhialto must, ultimately, travel to the very ends of time and space to confront an old adversary whom he had wronged and must commit further misdeeds to restore order. Out of this welter of exotic politics, values systems, personal eccentricity, and magic, the figure of Rhialto slowly comes into focus and takes on dimension. He is a vain, apparently superficial man, not ashamed to demonstrate his melancholy to enhance his reputation. But he is courteous, patient, and subtle, even kind. He is self aware and introspective as Cugel never could be the wisest and most sympathetic of all of Vance’s wizards.

Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honour of Jack Vance

Thank You, Mr. Vance, by Dean Koontz. 2009 by Dean Koontz. Preface, by Jack Vance. 2009 by Jack Vance. The True Vintage of Erzuine Thale, by Robert Silverberg. 2009 by Agberg, Ltd. Grolion of Almery, by Matthew Hughes. 2009 by Matt Hughes Company Ltd. The Copsy Door, by Terry Dowling. 2009 by Terry Dowling. Caulk the Witch Chaser, by Liz Williams. 2009 by Liz Williams. Inescapable, by Mike Resnick. 2009 by Mike Resnick. Abrizonde, by Walter Jon Williams. 2009 by Walter Jon Williams. The Traditions of Karzh, by Paula Volsky. 2009 by Paula Volsky. The Final Quest of the Wizard Sarnod, by Jeff VanderMeer. 2009 by Jeff VanderMeer. The Green Bird, by Kage Baker. 2009 by Kage Baker. The Last Golden Thread, by Phyllis Eisenstein. 2009 by Phyllis Eisenstein. An Incident in Uskvesh, by Elizabeth Moon. 2009 by Elizabeth Moon. Sylgarmo’s Proclamation, by Lucius Shepard. 2009 by Lucius Shepard. The Lamentably Comical Tragedy or the Laughably Tragic Comedy of Lival Laqavee, by Tad Williams. 2009 by Tad Williams. Guyal the Curator, by John C. Wright. 2009 by John C. Wright. The Good Magician, by Glen Cook. 2009 by Glen Cook. The Return of the Fire Witch, by Elizabeth Hand. 2009 by Elizabeth Hand. The Collegeum of Mauge, by Byron Tetrick. 2009 by Byron Tetrick. Evillo the Uncunning, by Tanith Lee. 2009 by Tanith Lee. The Guiding Nose of Ulf nt Bander z, by Dan Simmons. 2009 by Dan Simmons. Frogskin Cap, by Howard Waldrop. 2009 by Howard Waldrop. A Night at the Tarn House, by George R. R. Martin. 2009 by George R. R. Martin. An Invocation of Incuriosity, by Neil Gaiman. 2009 by Neil Gaiman.

The Palace of Love

In the midpoint novel of the ‘Demon Princes’ series, Kirth Gersen sets his sights upon the mysterious Viole Falushe. Vance describes this murderous creature as a ‘sybarite.’ ‘Sad*istic pervert’ would probably be a more apropos phrase. After several false leads, Gersen backtracks the villain to his point of origin Earth, of all places! Then the trail moves outward again, to the starworlds and a place back of beyond where there is actually a physical Palace of Love!

The Brave Free Men

Book 2 of the battle of survival in the world of Durdane.

Trullion

A collection of three works follows the adventures of the Connatic, the Alastor world’s vengeance seeking ruler, and includes the classic novels, Trullion: Alastor 2262, Marune: Alastor 933, and Wyst: Alastor 1716.

The Gray Prince

When Schaine Madduc returned to Koryphon after five years in space, her home planet was not as she left it. The several intelligent species that had lived so long in a sort of symbiotic harmony were at each other’s throats. The humanoid Uldra were united in rebellion against the human land holding community of which Schaine was part. The Uldra revolutionary leader and catalyst The Gray Prince Jorjol was actually an Uldra fostered in Schaine’s own home, and upon whom Schaine had exerted a profound influence. An influence far more profound than Schaine would have thought possible. An influence possibly powerful enough to smash her home, her family, and her entire way of life!

Maske

There is a Hole at the eastern fringe of the known universe. Deep within it hangs a lost star, Mora, with twin planets, Maske and Skay. On wild Maske there is a rocky peninsula inhabited by a clan of warlike dreamers, the Droads. The eldest son, Trewe, is by birthright Droad of Droad. The second son has no choice but to turn his face toward adventure. His name is Jubal Droad…

Suldrun’s Garden / Lyonesse

A monument of fantastic literature to stand beside such classics as DUNE and THE LORD OF THE RINGS, LYONESSE evokes the Elder Isles, a baroque land of pre Arthurian myth now lost beneath the Atlantic, where powerful sorcerers, aloof faeries, stalwart champions, and nobles eccentric, magnanimous, and cruel pursue intrigue among their separate worlds. In this first book of the trilogy, Suldrun’s Garden, Prince Aillas of Troicinet is betrayed on his first diplomatic voyage and cast into the sea. Before he redeems his birthright, he must pass the breadth of Hybras Isle as prisoner, vagabond, and slave, an acquaintance of faeries, wizards, and errant knights, and lover to a sad and beautiful girl whose fate sets his bitter rivalry with the tyrant Casmir, King of Lyonesse. This eBook was assembled from the definitive Vance Integral Edition text, which was re edited from its original publication under the supervision of Mr. Vance himself. World Fantasy Award nominee.

Madouc

The World Fantasy Award winning third volume of the LYONESSE trilogy brings attention to the faerie changeling Madouc. Where princess Suldrun once meekly endured the proprieties of Castle Haidion, Madouc defends herself with rotten fruit. Vexed, King Casmir arranges a contest to marry her off, but Madouc has other ideas, and enlists the stableboy ‘Sir Pom pom’ on an impromptu quest to find her father. During their travels, they encounter swindlers, faeries, trolls, ogres, a knight in search of his youth, and a relatively pedestrian item known as the Holy Grail. As the sorcerers Shimrod and Murgen investigate portents of cataclysm in the world of magic, Casmir plans a murder that will bring all the lands under his iron rule; however, his ambitions will be complicated by one small but important oversight he’s failed to allow for Madouc!

Ecce and Old Earth

Glawen Clattuc, scion of one of the scientific houses of Cadwal, must discover which humans are sabotaging his planet, protected by law and covenant against colonization and exploitation.

Throy

In the conclusion of the Cadwal Chronicles, the swirling plots and intrigue surrounding the House of Clattuc and the Conservancy of Cadwal could culminate in an interplanetary incident toppling a dozen powerful families. By the author of Araminta Station.

Ports of Call

Myron’s parents insisted that he study economics, and Myron dutifully applied himself. But Myron had an aunt his great aunt Hester Lojoie, a woman of great wealth inherited from a dead husband, and even greater flamboyance of nature. And when Dame Hester came into possession of a space yacht, Myron suddenly saw his long supressed dreams of adventure bloom into new life.

Lurulu

Rejoin Myron Tany and the crew of the space freighter Glicca as they ply their way from planet to planet, star to star, and adventure to adventure. Each of them is there by chance, and each has a secret quest. From one world to the next, they will chase their dreams of revenge and fulfillment.

Hard Luck Diggings

A legend has to start somewhere…
As so many writers have said, it’s in the shorter and mid length work that the storytelling craft is best learned. Hard Luck Diggings brings together fourteen such pieces from the first twelve years of Grand Master Jack Vance’s genre defining career, from back when he first worked to pay the mortgage, buy the groceries, travel the world, eventually building his own private ‘dream castle’ and starting a family. Like any writer serious about staying in the game, we see him targeting the markets of the day, doing what was needed to meet the tastes of editors and their readerships while at the same time perfecting his own special way of doing things so that his name, his distinctive voice, stood a chance in modern marketing parlance of becoming a viable ‘brand.’Hard Luck Diggings brings that fascinating process to life in fine style. As well as serving up vintage entertainment from one of the field’s genuine masters, it provides an illuminating armchair tour of how the Jack Vance enterprise came to be, full of zest and life, the thrill of the upward climb and of so much more to be done. This is a book to be savoured with a twinkle in the eye, a knowing smile, but most of all, with a love of adventure and high romance firmly in place.

Dream Castles

Jack Vance, MagicianLike the professional wizards and sorcerers he so often writes about, Jack Vance has long been a master magician when it comes to storytelling, turning out marvelous tricks with words, using his wonderful knack for names, detail and dialog, his fine eye for rendering the vagaries of the human condition to deliver high adventure set on fascinating worlds and in fabulous realms that are second to none. In a career spanning nearly sixty years, this peerless F&SF Grand Master has taken us from the Dying Earth to Lyonesse, from the Oikumene of the Demon Princes to the farthest corners of the Gaean Reach, Alastor Cluster and beyond, bringing alive on the page magical places we can only dream about. Dream Castles presents a generous serving of this celebrated magician’s ‘performances,’ ten fascinating tales from his long and influential career, among them his two Miro Hetzel adventures, ‘The Dogtown Tourist Agency’ and ‘Freitzke’s Turn’, the intriguing ‘The Narrow Land,’ a second outing for Jean Parlier in ‘Cholwell s Chickens,’ and the classic space opera of ‘Son of the Tree.’Dream Castles shows a true magician storyteller perfecting his craft, one moment as journeyman finding a voice all his own, the next as fully fledged maestro intent on exploring worlds and delivering adventure and wonder in equal parts, the very stuff that dreams are made of.

The Languages of Pao

The Panarch of Pao is dead and Beran Panasper, his young son and heir, must flee the planet to live and avenge his father’s death. It is at the secret fortress on the planet Breakness that Beran discovers the dreaded truth behind the assassination of his father and much more. The people of Pao are a docile lot, content to live in harmony with the rest of the cosmos, but the scientists at Breakness seek to alter the psychology of the Paonese for their own purpose and Beran holds the key to their audacious plan. Beran will return to Pao, transforming his home world beyond his teacher’s wildest dreams. But though he has been fashioned into a man of Breakness, Beran’s heart is of Pao. And he brings to his world the seeds of change that will save Pao…
or destroy it.

The Blue World

This is classic Vance: a carefully thought out world, a stratified society, and a man in conflict with its rules. During the space of twelve generations, the descendents of a crash on a water covered planet have managed to adapt to the marine culture. But they are always at the mercy of the kragen, giant, squidlike monsters. The colonists can communicate with the biggest of these, King Kragen, and must appease him. But finally, one man has had enough of this life of slavery and sacrifice. Can he convince his fellow citizens that they must kill King Kragen? But…
how can they do it in a world without weapons?

Emphyrio

Halma, a world where humans were ruled by a race of effete and arrogant lords; where a neo feudal system banned all work by machines; where a mock welfare state rewarded painful hand labor with a pitiful dole. Young Ghyl Tarvok was a rebel. In a pirated spaceship, he began his search through the civilizations of the galaxy, hunting the elusive key to the time shrouded secret that could free his people. Inexorably he moved toward his last desperate hope: the place his ancestors had left many thousands of years before, the mysterious and terrifying planet called Earth.

Night Lamp

Found as a child with no memory of his past, adopted by a scholarly couple who raised him as their own, Jaro never quiet fit into the rigidly defined Society of Thanet. When his foster parents are killed in a mysterious bombing, Jaro Fath sets out to discover the truth of his origins a quest that will take him across light years and into the depths of the past.

The Kragen

Subterranean Press is pleased to announce a small limited edition of the rare novella by Jack Vance that was eventually expanded into his novel Blue World. The Kragen has been out of print for nearly twenty years, with the exception of its appearance in the Vance Integral Edition, a set of volumes published over the past few years that carried a cover price of $1500, for the least expensive edition alone. Here’s your chance to acquire a Vance limited at a bargain price, and cast your eyes upon a novella rarely seen since its original appearance in 1969.

Sjambak

Wilbur Murphy sought romance, excitement, and an impossible Horseman of Space. With polite smiles, the planet frustrated him at every turn until he found them all the hard way! A classic science fiction story originally published in the ‘If Worlds of Science Fiction’ in July, 1953. Includes a detailed ‘About the Author’ and a selected bibliography.

The Moon Moth

A classic science fiction tale finds new life in this graphic novel adaptation. A fascinating blend of murder mystery and high concept science fiction, The Moon Moth has long been hailed as one of Jack Vance’s greatest works. And now this intricately crafted tale is available in glorious full color as a new graphic novel. Edwer Thissell, the new consul from Earth to the planet Sirene, is having all kinds of trouble adjusting to the local culture. The Sirenese cover their faces with exquisitely crafted masks that indicate their social status. Thissell, a bumbling foreigner, wears a mask of very low status: The Moon Moth. Shortly after Thissell arrives on Sirene, he finds himself embroiled in a an unsolved murder case made all the more mysterious by the fact that since everyone must always wear a mask, you can never be sure who you re dealing with.

The Demon Princes

Kirth Gersen carries in his pocket a slip of paper with a list of five names written on it. Theses are the names of the five Demon Princes who led the historic Mount Pleasant Massacre, which destroyed not only Kirth’s family but his entrire world as well. He roams the universe, searching the endless galaxies of space, hunting down The Demon Princes and exacting his revenge. Three princes will fall before Kirth’s work is done, and two more await their doom…

The Jack Vance Treasury

Nebula and World Fantasy Grand Master Jack Vance is one of the most admired and cherished writers of science fiction and fantasy in the world, and is one of the truly important and influential storytellers of the 20th century. From his first published story ‘The World Thinker’ in 1945 to his final novel Lurulu in 2004, Vance has shown an astonishing range of inventiveness, versatility and sheer storytelling power, as well as a gift for language and world building second to none. Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy and Edgar awards, his acclaimed first book The Dying Earth and its sequels helped shape the face of modern heroic fantasy for generations of readers and writers! In more than sixty novels, he has done more than any other author to define science fantasy and its preeminent form: the planetary adventure. Born in San Francisco in 1916, Vance wrote much of what you’ll find between these covers both abroad and at home in the hills above Oakland, either while serving in the merchant marine or traveling the world with his wife Norma, all the while pursuing his great love of fine cuisine and traditional jazz. Now, at last, the very best of Vance’s mid length and shorter work has been collected in a single landmark volume. With a Preface by Vance himself and a foreword by long time Vance reader George R.R. Martin, it stands as the capstone to a splendid career and makes the perfect introduction to a very special writer.

The Jack Vance Reader

Jack Vance is science fiction’s world builder par excellence, a multi award winning Grand Master and much loved doyen of the art of the planetary adventure. In a career spanning 59 years, Vance has been responsible more than any other writer in the field for creating exotic alien cultures and living, breathing worlds, among them Tschai, Durdane and Big Planet, Trullion, Cadwal and Wyst, Aerlith, Fader and Dar Sai. Now, in a single impressive volume, The Jack Vance Reader brings together three of the master’s very best planetary adventures: the internationally acclaimed Emphyrio, the classic interplanetary whodunnit, The Domains of Koryphon, and the provocative and unforgettable The Languages of Pao.

Wild Thyme, Green Magic

When Jack Vance decided to become a writer, a million word a year man as he put it so pragmatically at the time, he also gave fantastic literature one of its most cherished and distinctive voices. Though primarily a novelist throughout his long and distinguished career, this Hugo, Nebula, Edgar and World Fantasy Award winning Grand Master also produced many short and mid length works. Wild Thyme, Green Magic collects an alien’s handful of these wondrous tales, among them the author s first ever sale, The World Thinker, the unforgettable Chateau D If, the stylish Green Magic, the macabre, gothic Seven Exits from Bocz, and The Seventeen Virgins, a rousing adventure with Cugel the Clever set in the author s acclaimed far future Dying Earth.

This Is Me, Jack Vance!

Living in interesting times Jack Vance has long been one of the most influential, admired and imitated writers in science fiction and fantasy literature, the award winning author of such widely acclaimed works as The Dying Earth, the Lyonesse trilogy, the adventures of Cugel the Clever, the Demon Princes series, and many other masterful tales set among the stars, in exotic fantasy realms or on our own Earth. For much of his career, Vance has also been one of the field’s most private writers, an author who preferred to let his work speak for him. Now, at last, to coincide with the release of the tribute anthology Songs of the Dying Earth, Jack gives us this intimate and fascinating glimpse into his rich and eventful life, and a valuable insight into how he went about practicing his craft. For fans of the Grand Master’s work, these memoirs are something to be treasured.

The Science Fiction Century

‘Science fiction is the characteristic literary genre of the century. It is the genre that stands in opposition to literary modernism.’ So says David G. Hartwell in his introduction to The Science Fiction Century, an anthology spanning a hundred years of science fiction, from its birth in the 1890s to the future it predicted. David G. Hartwell is a World Fantasy Award winning editor and anthologist who has twice before redefined a genre first the horror field with The Dark Descent, then the subgenre of hard science fiction with The Ascent of Wonder, coedited with Kathryn Cramer. Now, Hartwell has compiled the mother of all definitive anthologies, guaranteed to change not only the way the science fiction field views itself but also the way the rest of literature views the field. The Science Fiction Century includes stories from the founding fathers of the field, such as H.G. Wells, C.S. Lewis, Jack London, and Rudyard Kipling; beloved mainstays of the genre, such as Philip Jos Farmer, Roger Zelazny, Jack Vance, and Poul Anderson; noted female writers, including Connie Willis, Nancy Kress, and James Tiptree, Jr.; and writers who have hit their stride in the last two decades, such as Bruce Sterling, William Gibson, Michael Swanwick, and James Morrow. Hartwell has also included writers widely recognized outside the genre, such as E.M. Forster, Michael Shaara, and John Crowley; and translations of foreign writers’ formative works, including Dino Buzzati and Wolfgang Jeschke. This is must have anthology for all literary interests.

A Magic-Lover’s Treasury of the Fantastic

In this text Margaret Weis has gathered together a collection of twenty fantasy stories by top authors including Ray Bradbury, Katherine Kurtz and Jack Vance.

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