Rating: 
Summary: Nice Port in the Storm for Science Fiction readers
Review: Jack Vance has been creating great science fiction for decades, and PORTS OF CALL does not disappoint. The plotline is fairly standard, but it is Vance's tongue in cheek humor and poetic story telling that carry this story through planets of diversity and discovery. You won't find lots of "big science" or tough concepts to wrestle with -- instead there is a romp through the galaxies of Vance's imagination, one of the grandest journeys going! Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: A Lesser Work from the Grandmaster
Review: Jack Vance is now almost 80 years old, and has been writing and publishing fiction for 55 years. (His first story was published in 1945). So it's hardly surprising that this routine space adventure story, while still rich with the inimitable Vance prose and dialogue, is somewhat languid and plotless. The premise is appealing enough, with the standard Vance hero journeying from one exotic locale to another. Unfortunately, this is territory that Vance has explored many times, and it isn't long before the plot runs out of steam, and trails off without any resolution. I'm hoping that Vance's health will allow him to write a sequel that will tie up the loose ends; but Vance has a history of losing interest in some of his stories and either letting them go, or tying them up in a perfunctory manner.Still, Vance is one of the four or five best writers of SF and fantasy, and long time fans will enjoy this one for what it does have to offer. Those who are not familiar with Vance's work I would advise to try the Planet of Adventure series or the Demon Princes novels, two of Vance's most enjoyable works.
Rating:
Summary: A Lesser Work from the Grandmaster
Review: Jack Vance is now almost 80 years old, and has been writing and publishing fiction for 55 years. (His first story was published in 1945). So it's hardly surprising that this routine space adventure story, while still rich with the inimitable Vance prose and dialogue, is somewhat languid and plotless. The premise is appealing enough, with the standard Vance hero journeying from one exotic locale to another. Unfortunately, this is territory that Vance has explored many times, and it isn't long before the plot runs out of steam, and trails off without any resolution. I'm hoping that Vance's health will allow him to write a sequel that will tie up the loose ends; but Vance has a history of losing interest in some of his stories and either letting them go, or tying them up in a perfunctory manner. Still, Vance is one of the four or five best writers of SF and fantasy, and long time fans will enjoy this one for what it does have to offer. Those who are not familiar with Vance's work I would advise to try the Planet of Adventure series or the Demon Princes novels, two of Vance's most enjoyable works.
Rating: 
Summary: you guys are missing the point!
Review: Jack Vance is one of the premier stylists writing in America today, the best in SciFi. Plot is secondary in his stories, merely a minimum requirement of the novel form. If SciFi were not Vances's chosen form, he would win every writing award worth winning. But I am afraid that he doomed to be read by people who can not understand Vance's approach and never to be read by those who can-because of the genre. Vance is always an entertaining read and a thoughtful one. Sign me-just a fan.
Rating: 
Summary: overwritten, overrated and not over soon enough
Review: No characters, no plot - a complete waste of time. Avoid
Rating:
Summary: great vance material, does lack any plot direction
Review: Ports of Call has all the classic Vancean ingredients, interesting travel to a variety of wierd and less than wonderful dystopic worlds where the locals are to say the least idiosyncratic, slippery and all shades on the way to vile. Vance is the master of local colour and characterisation. I particlarly like how he takes out his typical descriptive weapons - detailed descriptions of outre clothing, climate, geography, buildings, the inevitable "Local Bar", local customs and especially the food served at the "local bar" or the hotel that the characters inevitabley book into. Very reminicent of Cudgels Saga and Planet of Adventure. I notice eel is always on the menu somewhere in a vance book. Also inevitably some local huckster it trying to take the hero down.
Its as if Jack has rifled through his entire output and picked up bits and peices, sown them into a verbal quilt and called it "Ports of Call". Thats OK - you get good solid Vance in this book.
Rating:
Summary: Amusing but frustratingly incomplete
Review: Ports of Call is Jack Vance's latest novel. It follows Myron Tany, who is taken by his eccentric Aunt on a space trip searching for a "fountain of youth", but is marooned by his Aunt when he objects to her falling victim to an apparent fortune-hunter. Myron joins the crew of a sort of tramp freighter, and they visit various typically Vancean worlds. There is next to no plot, and what plot there is is thoroughly unresolved. (I'm sure there is supposed to be a sequel.) Vance is usually discursive, but this takes the cake. Still, the novel is always amusing, and the little societies Vance depicts are as interesting as ever. Worth the time, but not Vance's best work.
Rating:
Summary: Amusing but frustratingly incomplete
Review: Ports of Call is Jack Vance's latest novel. It follows Myron Tany, who is taken by his eccentric Aunt on a space trip searching for a "fountain of youth", but is marooned by his Aunt when he objects to her falling victim to an apparent fortune-hunter. Myron joins the crew of a sort of tramp freighter, and they visit various typically Vancean worlds. There is next to no plot, and what plot there is is thoroughly unresolved. (I'm sure there is supposed to be a sequel.) Vance is usually discursive, but this takes the cake. Still, the novel is always amusing, and the little societies Vance depicts are as interesting as ever. Worth the time, but not Vance's best work.
Rating:
Summary: Uneasy feeling
Review: Somehow I had an uneasy feeling about this book. Most of the Master's book I tend to reread at least once a year. This one, I even forgot that I bought it until I rearranged my bookshelf. The language is (how could it be else) elegant, the persons in a way familiar. Somewhere however I miss the strength of the plot as so clearly present in earlier books. But even still, I wouldn't want to miss the book and sincerly hope that this not to be the last book by Mr. Vance, written as a kind of revenge for some bad critics he received as a writer and leave us with a cliff hanger......
Rating:
Summary: Actually its rather good!
Review: There's been a lot of negative comments about this book but I genuinely believe its among his best. Jack Vance doesn't write like any other Fantasy/Science-fiction author today. He's the last of a dying breed. I recently read the Gray Mouser stories and I was struck by how similar in tone these stories were to the stories of Jack Vance. Complex, richly detailed but they paled in comparison. The thing that has always made Jack Vance stand out from the crowd is the beauty of his language and his situations. This book is the epitomy of a Jack Vance novel-dark, macabre, funny and haunting. Not many people still read his books which is a shame because he is the orginal of so many things. I recommend 'Ports of Call' wholeheartedly.
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