Reviews for Planet of Adventure

The average rating for Planet of Adventure based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-05-20 00:00:00 C Huhn hello again Mr. Amazing! it's been a while since I've been in your company. I think not since way back in the summer of '89 when I was house-sitting for a friend's parents. parents who shouldn't have left a 19-year-old alone with so much booze and two highly-prized frozen pheasants hidden deep within the garage freezer's depths. that's when our love affair began. as soon as I cracked open your pages, I was mesmerized. at least two, three, probably more days went by as I began an obsessive quest to read, read, read you all up, then flip to the beginning and start all over again. both booze and frozen pheasant went unmolested, at least until my passion was satiated. and now that I've been seeing you again, I'm delighted to say that the magic is still there! I'm forever yours, Planet of Adventure. this is a collection of four short novels. all very much connected and all very much a part of one long narrative. and yet all delightful in their own specific sort of way. City of the Chasch details the arrival of one Adam Reith to the ancient world of Tschai. this is a world where men live in the shadow of four alien races who have long since made it clear that the human kind is the loser kind. Adam at first just wants to go home, but his burning anger at the injustice of it all means that he finds himself empowering his fellow humans into throwing off their shackles and fighting back for once in their loser lives. summary: Revolution against the Alien Overlords! Servants of the Wankh finds Adam exploring more of this world as he attempts to carry out a rather eye-rolling plan to gain a starship and flee back to Earth. he takes in many sights along the way via various water vehicles, and falls afoul of two cultures: the insanely stylized Yao and the sinister Wankhmen, who may have a very different relationship to their alien masters than outsiders realize. are these Wankhmen actually topping from the bottom? summary: A travelogue featuring haunting journeys along haunting waterways as various communities are noted and often avoided. this is my favorite of the four, and not just because it was hilarious saying "Wankh" and "Wankhmen" and "Servants of the Wankh" out loud. I think that Vance is at his best when he describes relaxed water journeys full of contemplation on the topics of the strangeness of life and the fascinating oddness and diversity of human cultures. The Dirdir has Adam entering two very different hunting grounds at the mercy of one very aggressive alien race. it is full of Adam turning the tables on the bizarrely aggressive Dirdir and various unpleasant human assholes, often using amusingly outside-of-the-box tactics. this novel also has Adam crying with relief after he finds a lost friend, which I thought was just the cutest thing. summary: Hunting grounds built to hunt most humans don't take into consideration that Adam Reith is not most humans. The Pnume features an eerie journey underground and an increasingly amusing journey above ground as Adam finally meets the right girl while desperately racing back to the starship that has at long last been built and is ready for that much-delayed journey to Earth. summary: Creepy creatures dwell below; sunlit love throbs above. these books are wonderful! they have everything I love about Jack Vance: - smooth, elegant prose full of perfectly constructed sentences with not a word out of place. exciting adventures with a cunning, playful, sometimes dark sense of humor. ambiguity and lots of it. an occasional sense of melancholy. a relaxed, even meandering narrative that is still briskly paced. the pricking of egos, the sailing of boats, the coolly composed women and the transparently avaricious men, and other Vancean hallmarks. the restraint. an eye for just the right detail. an ear for sharply ironic dialogue. an appetite for unusual foods. a nose for how exactly a place will smell. a soft but confident touch. - an always witty focus on expenses and bargaining and how to get dat cash. it never ceases to surprise me how disarmingly entertaining he can be when writing on the minutia of exchanging money for goods or services. - a sardonic hero who knows how to get himself out of a jam. Adam Reith is often dryly amused at the behavior of the people around him, just as Vance was himself clearly amused while writing this (and I while reading it). he's masterful but he also makes plenty of mistakes. he's a tolerant and very loyal friend, a gentleman with the ladies, and of course loathes injustice. he's the best. - truly alien aliens. reptilian Chasch that come in three iterations: savage Red Chasch, haughty Blue Chasch, and the possibly senile but still ominous Old Chasch, all prone to ostentatiously byzantine decor and craftsmanship. the lumbering and aloof Wankh, resembling giant upright beetles and hiding their cities behind giant black walls. the fearsome and ritual-obsessed Dirdir, resembling upright cheetahs and making their basic predator nature a key part of their rituals. the sepulchral Pnume and their insane or at least highly eccentric cousins the Phung, in their wide-brimmed hats and long overcoats, living in their tunnels or hiding in shadowy caves and crevices, full of unknowable motivations and inexplicable goals. my favorite moments of these aliens, in scenes full of weird charm and creepy menace: wizened Old Chasch beckoning at travelers to stray from their designated safe area to do who knows what; two scenes of the silent Phung, bizarrely miming attitudes of surprise and consternation before slaughtering everyone around them in a whirling, prancing dance. - interesting human cultures. there are probably dozens described, but key are the races groomed and transformed by aliens: the dowdy and unimaginative Chaschmen, the sinister and secretive Wankhmen, the pretentious and supercilious Dirdirmen, and the robotic, uncanny Pnumekin. I was particularly amused by the various scenes of Pnumekin walking into a room and "conversing" with each other by talking at the air and at walls, never at each other, never making any physical or eye contact, and giving responses as if they were musing to themselves aloud. ha! a whole race of asocial weirdos. I totally get those Pnumekin. - two droll companions. the first a grim and suspicious youth, once the leader of a band of murder-happy nomads. the second a Dirdirman, full of affectation and cynical commentary and sarcastic dismissals. I loved the way these two nonchalantly displayed their loyalty to our hero and, even more, their own growing affection for each other. Adam Reith knows how to bring people together! - two intriguing romantic interests. the first a melancholy and impassive member of Yao royalty, full of mixed emotions and an eventually overriding compulsion to commit bloody mayhem on all those who've wounded her pride. the second a naive resident of the Pnume's underground world, suddenly bereft of her placating drug regimen and finding herself changing from asexual bore to a woman with needs of her own. - one completely fascinating spy who moves from opaque counselor to devious judas to uncertain ally to drug-addled victim to outright villain. one of the most compelling characters that Vance has ever created. - despite the spare quality of the writing, Vance remains a strikingly visual writer. you can see his images perfectly. his descriptions of the dusky-golden light transforming Tschai into a sort of hazy dream-world were an ongoing delight. much like the series itself!

Review # 2 was written on 2016-04-16 00:00:00 Daniel Diego Science Fiction and Fantasy Grandmaster is an impressive title, but just not comprehensive enough. Jack Vance was the Grand Poobah of Speculative Fiction Cool. He was the High Galactic Overlord of SF Writing. Jack Vance was the Tom Bombadil Dean of Fantasy Writing, the most powerful man on the planet but too hip to let it go to his head. He was all that and a bag of chips. In the late 60s, a cool period by most standards, Vance added his unique footprint on the SF/F writing landscape. In the time of Heinlein and Asimov, Vance laid down a simmering riff of Stratocaster JIVE with his Tschai books, collected later as The Planet of Adventure. Campy theme park titles aside, The Planet of Adventure books established Vance's ability to pay tribute to pulp fiction heroes like Edgar Rice Burroughs while transforming the plot heavy, traveling adventurer protagonist tales into something new. Adam Reith, Vance's hero, is edgier and a touch darker than either John Carter or Tarzan. America was bogged down in civil unrest and an unpopular, misunderstood distant foreign war. Vance revisited and recast the fantasy hero mold into something new, something relevant for his time. Vance's writing is witty, well developed and fun. Beneath the surface, though, is a demonstrable observant eye towards human nature and cultural tribulations. Science fiction is best when it is allegory and Vance was too good a writer to beat his readers over the head. His were not the strident messages, but the sidelong glances and the subtle, dry witticism that cast a read-between-the-lines spotlight on shadows. Comprising four books: City of the Chasch Servants of the Wankh The Dirdir The Pnume The Planet of Adventure books demonstrate some of Vance's best work.