Rating: 
Summary: One the best "adventure on other planets" book
Review: I read the four "Tschai" books for, I think, the sixth,seventh time in my life. Mr. Jack Vance writing is fluent, easy but detailed, and catches you full attention. Lush descriptions of the landscapes, perfect pictures of the characters make you "see" what you're reading. Even if I'm not a fantasy fan, but I prefer the classic science fiction, authors like Asimov, Sheckley, Simak, Clarke, Zelatny and so on, I just can't help to keep on reading the Tscahi saga. It should be really great if, one day, someone will make a movie on it.
Rating:
Summary: One the best "adventure on other planets" book
Review: I read the four "Tschai" books for, I think, the sixth,seventh time in my life. Mr. Jack Vance writing is fluent, easy but detailed, and catches you full attention. Lush descriptions of the landscapes, perfect pictures of the characters make you "see" what you're reading. Even if I'm not a fantasy fan, but I prefer the classic science fiction, authors like Asimov, Sheckley, Simak, Clarke, Zelatny and so on, I just can't help to keep on reading the Tscahi saga. It should be really great if, one day, someone will make a movie on it.
Rating:
Summary: Sense-of-wonder like only few can mix with science fiction
Review: I read this book when I was in high school, re-read it in college, and again now, with even greater enjoyment because I know better how rare its magic is. The bizarre world of Tchai unfolds its secrets, a mystery at the time, before the quest of Adam Reith for a way to escape from his interstellar shipwreck. _Planet_of_Adventure_ will bring you otherwhere and otherwhen. It will take you to a dream and a nightmare where technology, exotic invention and barbarism live together in a celebration of narrative excellence. The dialog is sometimes baroque, but who wouldn't forgive to the enchanting storytelling? All main and support characters are masterful, unforgettable: I remembered the _name_ of the hero after almost two decades--what else can I say? When I grow up, I want to be like him
Rating:
Summary: Truly amazing
Review: If you like SF and if you like Jack Vance, then it's probably no use that I'm talking to you here, because you will already own this book. If not: Why not???!!! This is definitely one of the classics of SF, which will also appeal to anyone who is more into Fantasy, as it caters for both. The story is gripping, the details about all the different cultures are fascinating (and there's so many of them!), in short: this book is definitely worth buying. I personally spent years trying to find it...
Rating: 
Summary: A classic science fiction adventure series.
Review: If you're a fan of Jack Vance, this may be his best series. If not, this is an excellent introduction to this master of adventure SF and fantasy. In the first ten pages of the first book, Terran explorer Adam Reith's ship is destroyed by mysterious missiles, and he is stranded on the unknown planet Tschai. Tschai has been colonized by several mutually antagonistic alien races; they have imported primitive humans for use as servants; over millenia, several human subspecies have evolved, symbiotic to the various breeds of alien. Our hero gets to spend the next four volumes criss-crossing the planet from one cliff-hanging adventure to another in search of an intact spacecraft that he can buy, borrow, or steal. Gorgeous prose and intricate, fully realized alien cultures raise this above the level of a simple adventure series. Highly recommended
Rating:
Summary: Two Novels of Vance at his best,two Maybes
Review: It has been more than 20 years since I've read the 4 novels here
at last under one cover. I plan to purchase this book now because
only "The Pnume" my least favorite of these 4 novels is still in my bookshelf. "The City of the Chasch" Adam Reith a soldier and space explorer gets marooned on Tschai, an as yet uncharted world
He finds and befriends a group of pony riders, much like our Afghanis or Mongolians. Their social customs are strange, each man's status is determined not by what he has done or failed to do, but all credit or blame, indeed all social status is
credited to Voodoo-like fetishes. These people called themselves
Chaschmen because they believed that Chasch were a race of Angelic beings who now and then would come and take a human newborn as a "blessing" because the pony people had believed for
hundreds of generations that when a Chaschman died he or she would become a true Chasch in the afterlife, and that an infant
taken away was truly blessed for the child would attain true Chaschood witout ever having had to suffer human degradation, pain death or cares. Adam smells a rat to be put out of its misery and he and a young tribal leader Adam is trying to
recruit away from the Fetishes to be his friend and traveling Companion set out When the young man finally rejects the old ways he buries the wooden spoon with a tiny bit of triangular tin spun together with spinning wool in a very spooky scene. A few miles out from the Chasch Adam take his hi resolution binoculars and looks to see not a beautiful city, but a polluted metropolis with
vile looking Giant Preying Mantises flailing at themselves and at Chaschmen slaves with neural whips. Adam and his friend take care of the situation, let me leave it at that. A good book.
Servants of the Wankh I read in 1977 I clearly remember I enjoyed it, but realizing simultaneously it was not as good as "COTC"
"The Dirdir" I read in 1978, and it's my favorite of the series.
The Dirdir are humanoid stick-men with oddly angular bodies randomly patched with hair or skin. They're ugly.
They were once part of a great Rennaissance of Culture, Science,
Philosophy, Poetry, Astrology and so forth. But now they were a decadent race well down the road to decline. They devote themseves only to man hunting. Man hunting is a sport
wherein a Dirdir decks himself out in finery, mounts his noble
steed, a giant ostritch, and goes about in search of men, when he
finds one, he cruelly stuns him to death with his stun stick as slowly and painfully, always until the death-stun believing he still had a chance. The Dirdir lived in a giant desert valley which, quite understandably, became a place men carefully avoided
This might have ended their sport permanently until a Dirdir suggested a brilliant plan. The Dirdir would hide chests containing vast fortunes in platinum, jewelry etc. all throughout
the valley. Terms? There are no terms. Anyone can come into the valley and find and take away anything he wants. He should be aware though that there is a very good chance that A Dirdir hunter will find him and torture him to death with a stun-stick
out there in the desert. A large number of men tried the treasure
grab. A goodly number would emerge a short time later with a fortune worth a Queen's ransome or more. These men invariably hadn't seen a Dirdir or even an ostritch feather. A much larger number of men were never seen again. Adam and his 2 companions
weren't interested in treasure but for reasons not important here
they had to run the Dirdir desert valley gauntlet on foot. I'll let you find out. Great fun!
"The Pnume" I didn't like this book partly because it pushed the envelope of English reading comprehension skills, and I started
skipping over stuff, etc. My English is tons better now than in 1979, so I'll take my paperback "The Pnume" from my shelf and re-read the novel. Overall, if you already know Jack Vance, this is a must. If you've never read Vance, you'd do best buying "Alastor" and reading first the novel "Wyst:Alastor1716" Goodbye.
Rating:
Summary: A Haunting Novel
Review: It's hard for me to describe Planet of Adventure. The book is in many ways amateurish and below the standards I'm used to from Jack Vance; the editing was poor (there were numerous errors), the names were often cheesy (the "Dirdir" figure prominently), and the plot seemed almost formulaic. His main character, Adam Reith, is the same taciturn hero we saw in Night Lamp, The Demon Princes, or any of his other novels, who for some reason can never be defeated in single combat. These shortcomings nearly moved me to put it down for good after about 40 pages.But despite this, in many ways the mixture of science fiction and fantasy in Planet of Adventure lets Vance shine brighter than in any other book of his which I have read. Planet of Adventure is peppered with ingenious situations and highly entertaining side plots. I found his alien cultures incredibly well conceived - the Emblem men, who pass their personalities intergenerationally via emblems they wear, the Khor, who each own "two souls which come and go with dawn and sunset," and the enigmatic Pnume, who lurk beneath the surface of Tschai. Although Vance always finds some way to mark his supporting characters as unique, if only through their physical description, Vance's characters in Planet of Adventure are even more memorable than usual because they all have a great deal of emotional depth which is further enhanced through Vance's minimalist style. In most of his other books Vance uses sentimental understatement and sparse emotional language to project a sense of melancholy wistfulness onto the reader, but never does it come across more powerfully than in Planet of Adventure. In short, while not perfect, Planet of Adventure is phenomenally imaginative, poignantly dramatic, and altogether a haunting novel.
Rating:
Summary: In the best tradition of ERB.
Review: Jack Vance follows the best tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Basoon series.
He creates a complete world, free of any logic restriction. He populates it with four alien races competing between them, and.... humans.
As the story deploys we'll find how that's possible. Adam Reith travel around this World in a quest to return to Earth. In the meantime he collects friends and foes; tries (successfully) to enhance humans with a better position in their relation with other races; discover exciting cultural structures; defies every alien rule and basically delight the reader with a non-stop exiting adventure.
A very commendable series for sci-fi lovers.
Rating:
Summary: One of my favourites. Re-read 3 times.
Review: Jack Vance is always very detailed and this book is no exception. I just wish that he had written a sequel as I always want the story to continue when I'm finished. Great book.
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece of Planetary Romance
Review: Jack Vance is the master when it comes to the creation of vivid, baroque alien worlds, and in the Tschai series he gives us a grand tour. Reith is one of Vance's most likable protagonists, and (unlike some other still fine works) here Vance manages to keep the plot rolling and eventually gives us a satisfying ending. The real treat, though, is the trip through Vance's exotic, mad, philosophical alien and human cultures, and the marvelous soundtrack of Vancean dialogue. Vance's imaginative power and polished prose is backed up genuine insight--for instance, the power structure on Tschai is complex enough to be plausible, and the equation is not strictly one of "scientific/military might = real power." Reith, in many ways the archetypal SF "man of action" is not without an introspective side, and admits "Logic doesn't always work," while remaining an eminently reasonable man. It's very rare to get this much entertainment out of 500 pages. This is science fiction at its best, as all the 5 star reviews below attest.
|
