I've been holding off on writing my Jack Vance reviews for a while because I loved The Dying Earth stories so much that I'm still struggling with how to write the perfect review to make everyone run out and buy a copy. Since then, however, I've been slowly assimilating many of his other works so I suppose I'll start on a low ebb and review Planet of Adventure.The plot is non-existent, but this is never a problem with this author. Like a lot of his books, it is basically an excuse for a series of travelogues and characters outwitting dangerous situations that they find themselves in. Two Earthmen crash on an unknown planet, only one, Adam Reith, survives the ensuing encounter with their reception party, and a struggle begins to locate a replacement ship and return to Earth.I picked up these books after reading about the breakneck pace, the social commentary and alien anthropology, and vivid setting. All of these things are singularly Vancian, but I have to admit that this felt a bit like he was writing on auto-pilot. I hate to say it, but I began to notice a few JV cliches here, in fact. After a while it became a bit of a game I was playing with myself to see how many times the characters "threw their hands in the air" in exasperation, or pronounced the syllable "Bah!". Another thing which was sorely missing was the humour. In the Cugel stories I was constantly laughing out loud at the archly silly dialogues, the punishing put downs and mean, stingy, backstabbing nature of the characters. In Planet of Adventure the main characters seem like ciphers-yes, Traz is uncivilised and spurns the unneccessary trappings of culture, and yes Anacho is a foppish twit. Now what? They are thrown together to make an odd couple and then almost forgotten about. As for Adam Reith, he is so bland as to basically not even be there. This maybe down a deliberate use of the "Tintin" principle, where the main character just acts as a vessel for the reader to experience another world through, but I'm not so sure. The unscrupulous, conniving and bloated Woudiver is about as close to interesting as they get here, and you won't experience him until halfway through.Now, the good aspects of the books! As always, Jack Vance effortlessly constructs his settings, cultures and customs, even down to the meticulous details of the meals his characters eat (for some reason I can never get enough of this...) This series is no exception, especially in the last two books. Reith's infiltration of the underground tunnels of the Pnume were particularly great. Marketplaces, docks, deserts, hunting grounds, stadia, cities-it's all convincingly rendered in brightly coloured Vance-o-vision.The way that an Earthman systematically disrupts ancient alien systems of government or slavery in each book is also very well done, and the authors knowledge of anthropology comes to the fore here. Systems of exploitation from both sides are overthrown, untruths are exposed and so on. Each alien race in the books "breeds" mankind for it's own uses, and they way they have been conditioned is probably the most interesting part of the books. It could be argued that it's a bit morally dubious, as Adam Reith basically contemptuously murders and denounces various ancient races for the way they live their lives-it's all a bit Robinson Crusoe shooting the "cannibals"-but to do so is probably to overlook the fact that these are adventure stories. Knowing how deeply Vance explores ideas of social custom in his other books, it's probably a deliberate exploration of these themes.Sadly though, I finished all four thinking the books never got started. It's absolutely worth a read, and not a difficult one at all but I just wish the characters were a bit more solid and things became a little more developed.Many others seem to rank this as top of their Vance reading lists, so I'm not sure what I'm missing. I read all of the volumes separately, so perhaps that's the problem, but I'd definitely say that there are much better places to start with this marvellous, overlooked author.
Cerco qui di recensire un "must have" delle saghe fantascientifiche, di un autore che sicuramente ai più risulterà sconosciuto, rispetto ai più famosi Asimov, Bradbury, etc... Ma chi è davvero appassionato di science-finction sicuramente riconoscerà, che invece è appassionato di letture del futuro e non ha mai letto questa saga di Jack Vance, cercherò di convincerlo a rimediare subito. Questa è un'opera di ampio respiro, sembra quasi una fantascienza del periodo di quel "sense of wonder" degli albori, dove la parte avventurosa in questi libri era preponderante rispetto alle tecnologie. Consentitemi un paragone al famoso "Lucky Starr" Asimoviano, anche se qui parliamo di un ciclo forse più ingenuo che si svolge tutto nel nostro sistema solare, con un pizzico di giallo.La saga planetaria di Vance invece ha luogo sull'immaginario pianeta Tschai orbitante attorno alla stella Carina 4269, a 212 anni luce di distanza dalla Terra dove fa naufragio l'astronauta Adam Reith, il protagonista umano, unico sopravvissuto di una spedizione terrestre in risposta ad un messaggio d'aiuto di oltre duecento anni prima. Il ciclo, pubblicato tra il 1968 e il 1970, si compone di quattro volumi ed è uno degli esempi tipici di planetary romance, un filone della fantascienza avventurosa in cui l'ambientazione è un pianeta sconosciuto, lontano dalla Terra.La trama ricorda molto, se lo confrontiamo con le sale cinematografiche, alla saga con Vin Diesel "Pitch Black" e "Le Cronache di Riddick"; non ho potuto fare a meno di immaginarmi Adam Reith come il protagonista dei sopracitati film. La storia è semplice, un uomo naufraga su un pianeta alieno e fa di tutto per lasciarlo alla svelta, solo che tra il dire e il fare c'è di mezzo... l'alieno. Molti alieni in questo caso, tutti diversi, tutti perfettamente descritti nella loro ambientazione, nel loro contesto e nella loro cattiveria. Unica nota dolente è probabilmente la reperibilità di tale volume, in quanto facente parte di uno speciale di "Urania Collezione" e dunque uscito unicamente nelle edicole. La versione della "Nord" è impossibile da recuperare nelle librerie, ma se amate le bancarelle degli usati o volete esplorare il web, troverete sicuramente il modo di leggere questo ciclo.Vi consiglio caldamente dunque, anzi vi sprono, se siete appassionati di fantascienza, di mettervi sulle tracce di questa saga, non ve ne pentirete di certo.http://kelanthsblog.blogspot.com/
What do You think about Planet Of Adventure (1993)?
Ho letto solo il primo dei quattro romanzi del ciclo di Tschai e devo confessare che durante la lettura della prima parte la delusione ha preso il sopravvento.D'accordo sulla fantascienza avventurosa e senza troppe pretese, ma Vance mi sembrava che stesse chiedendo davvero troppo alla mia sospensione dall'incredulità.Troppe le inverosimiglianze nelle azioni e reazioni dei personaggi e nei loro dialoghi per poter lasciar correre.Solo dopo la metà, ho cominciato timidamente ad apprezzare l'inventiva fuori dal comune di Vance, finalmente espressa all'interno di una trama più coerente.Ma non è bastato per un buon giudizio finale, né per invogliarmi a leggere gli altri romanzi del ciclo.
—pierlapo quimby
“Planet of Adventure” is a science-fiction tetralogy written by Jack Vance in the early 1970s and consisting of the novels City of the Chasch, Servants of the Wankh, The Dirdir and The Pnume. It was originally commissioned as a young adult series, but through the addition of some sex and violence, it became more suitable for an adult readership. This Orb omninus collects all four novels into a single volume.As the first novel opens, space explorer Adam Reith is stranded on the distant world of Tschai after an unknown adversary has blown up his ship and killed all of his companions. Tschai is home to four alien-races, the Chasch, the unfortunately-named Wankh (Vance was unaware of how silly this would sound to English speakers outside the US, and would change the spelling to "Wannek" in a later printing), the Dirdir and, indigenous instead of later arrivals like the others, the mysterious Pnume. Intriguingly, Tschai is also home to a large amount of human beings, scooped up from Earth in some prehistoric era. Though many live free, each of the four alien spaces has its own population of human servants, which sets Reith's blood boiling.In this adventure much in the tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Adam Reith fights his way across Tschai to liberate his fellow men from alien domination and searches for a spaceship to get back to Earth. The plot is generally ridiculous: book by book, Reith encounters warriors who have spent their whole lives training and fighting, and instantly dispatches them with his kung fu skills; he is captured time and time again by foes who are, unlike him, familiar with this alien world, but he always manages to outsmart them and escape.Quite a lot of bodies pile up over the course of the tetralogy, and in one episode Reith commits what can be fairly called genocide, but our hero is never shaken by post-traumatic stress. Nor does he have any qualms about seducing the beautiful women in distress that he rescues. Planet of Adventure is very much of its time, written just before science-fiction would examine more deeply issues of morality towards alien races and gender equality. What makes Planet of Adventure interesting and worth reading for any fan of science-fiction is Vance's interest in the diversity of human culture, which is his real concern here (unlike much of the genre, there's not much focus on advanced technology, and even the means by which Reith crosses hundreds of light years from Earth is never specified). The human servants of the alien races have conformed to their masters in their thought processes and sometimes (though prosthetics or clothing) in their physiology and appearance. The myriad free human races are each described in depth, each with its peculiar tradition, taboos, food and economy.
—Christopher
It was a long time ago since I read this trilogy. It might be that some of the original thrill I got when first read it is gone, but the quality is still there. It is Jack Vance whom we talk about.The title forecast what you find inside, so you will not be disappointed. And in the usual unique Vance style, which makes every conversation a match of wit, every day a challenge to be overcome and at the end a more than remarkable story.At every page a new community/society is described and presented to cause you enjoyment. And it never fails.It is characteristic in Vance that the day-to-day trivia is brought up to be the first thing to be solved: what I eat today? how can I secure income to allow me going on? And then, spiced with some of, how can I prevent to be murdered? swindled? eaten?... which put the book quite afar from the standard SciFi ones, in which some other more noble or imposing objectives are the mainstream. Here the objective is simple and straightforward. What makes the thing truly interesting is what lies in the middle.
—Malquiviades
