Rating: 
Summary: A couple of classics form the master of S.F.
Review: Both of the novellas including in this book are great. I actually enjoyed the Last Castle a little more than The Dragon Masters.. I think that's just because of the characters and comical interactions among them. These honorable princes of Earth are so full of being dignified that they refuse to dirty their hands even when it comes to saving their own skins! Finally a couple of them see that the benefits of living make up for any damage a man's reputation might take by doing labor. Also, the genetic engineering of alien races for the benefit of humans(which is a common theme in both stories) is a cool concept, although it is hard to believe that humans might become so completely dependent upon their slaves as they have in the Last Castle. This is a really easy book to read and very enjoyable so I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: A couple of classics form the master of S.F.
Review: Both of the novellas including in this book are great. I actually enjoyed the Last Castle a little more than The Dragon Masters.. I think that's just because of the characters and comical interactions among them. These honorable princes of Earth are so full of being dignified that they refuse to dirty their hands even when it comes to saving their own skins! Finally a couple of them see that the benefits of living make up for any damage a man's reputation might take by doing labor. Also, the genetic engineering of alien races for the benefit of humans(which is a common theme in both stories) is a cool concept, although it is hard to believe that humans might become so completely dependent upon their slaves as they have in the Last Castle. This is a really easy book to read and very enjoyable so I highly recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: I enjoyed this book
Review: I admit it. . .this book is not much into details and I was left with the feeling of wanting more. However, there is a lot crammed into a small number of pages that can be easily read in one sitting. I enjoyed the inability of two completely different races trying to comprehend each other. Each thinking the other is superior. Each enslaving the other. Dragon's breeding humans into war machines and vice-versa. All very interesting.
Rating:
Summary: I enjoyed this book
Review: I admit it. . .this book is not much into details and I was left with the feeling of wanting more. However, there is a lot crammed into a small number of pages that can be easily read in one sitting. I enjoyed the inability of two completely different races trying to comprehend each other. Each thinking the other is superior. Each enslaving the other. Dragon's breeding humans into war machines and vice-versa. All very interesting.
Rating:
Summary: A Fantasy roller-coaster ride that leaves you breathless
Review: Joez Banbeck is the cool headed leader of Banbeck Vale. Ervis Carcollo is his brash nemesis. On a world far from home, leading an army of battle hardened dragons, Joez must defend his people from the ambitious Carcollo, and the threat of alien invasion.If anyone knows where I can get a copy email me.
Rating: 
Summary: Not worth a book by itself
Review: Science-fictional dragons were popular in the 1960s. The decade also saw the first of Anne McCaffery's Pern stories, and Avram Davidson's "Rogue Dragon". The dragons of Davidson and McCaffery are very different from each other, and Vance's dragons are different from either again. To be honest, their connection to the dragons of mythology is minimal, which is fine, because they're solid enough beasts in their own right: frightening, murderous juggernauts which ... but I touch upon a plot point. -And Vance's world of Aerlith is as substantial as McCaffery's Pern or Davidson's Earth. It certainly shows off Vance's fecund creativity: in one short novella we are introduced to two utterly different human civilisations, a genuinely alien race of aliens different again from either, plus the beasts, and behind it all we feel the weight of the centuries and centuries and centuries with millenia in between that separate these people from us. If anything their is too much background for the story. But I don't think that's it: I think there's too little story for the background. There's almost constant warfare; and while I wouldn't want any of it removed, I would have liked something else besides, such as humour, and the feeling that behind the warfare there is such a thing as everyday life, two things which are easy to find elsewhere in Vance's writing. I think Vance could have included this and *reatained* the feeling of relentless savagery that is one of the novella's strengths. Worth more than three stars if you find it collected with something else; and if you like anything else at all by Jack Vance, you shouldn't hesitate before reading this, as well.
Rating:
Summary: two great stories from a great writer
Review: The Dragon Masters is great reading. you never know how is going to end. The battle sequences are presented with ability and you feel like you are in the middle of the action. Like always with Vance, he manages to create human and alien cultures wich are believable and at the same do not resemble or copy any culture we know. The thing about this story is the sense of decadence and fatality of humanity. It is suppose to be in the far away future after a great and destructive war, and it appears like the once powerful humans wich controlled a lot of planets under their rule are now just a group of a few tribes living in the small valleys of a harsh planet. An alien race comes to this planet every time its home planet orbits near, and they use its technical superiority to enslave humans. What to do? How do we face such an enemy? Is it true there are no humans elsewhere? But besides the alien menace, the tribes engage in war between them. Are doomed the humans because they can not stop fighting each other? This is a story about hope, about defeat and about the uncertainty of the future.
Finally I want to make a WARNING: if you have not read this book and you do not know any specific details about the story, avoid reading the backcover. I can't understand why, but the publisher reveals the greatest plot twist in the story. I never read this kind of information because I want to be surprised in my reading. After I finished reading this book I read the backcover and I couldn't believe what they said.
Also in this book is another story: The Last Castle. I'm only going to mention one thing. You've got to read this because of the human culture depicted here. To see those men handle the extreme situation in which they are is at the same time hilarious and stressful.
One last thing. It is true that after you finish reading these two stories you wish they were longer, but not because there is a lack of charachter development or because something is missing, but because they are so damn good.
It is good to know that in the middle of all the garbage fantatstical stories that are published today (Jordan, Eddings, etc) there is great SF and F to be found, there is always Jack Vance.
Rating:
Summary: Quick Read, (but worth it)
Review: Two small nations of humans make war with one another in the rocky wastelands and valleys of an isolated planet. The bulk of their armies are made up of different classes of genetically engineered dragons. The Dragon Masters is really too short to be called a novel. Vance only took time to develop two characters, and even these lacked much depth. The premise of the story will be remembered in this reader's memory long after the characters are forgotten. The story itself was very interesting, and made me wish Vance had taken more time with this one.
Rating:
Summary: Quick Read, (but worth it)
Review: Two small nations of humans make war with one another in the rocky wastelands and valleys of an isolated planet. The bulk of their armies are made up of different classes of genetically engineered dragons. The Dragon Masters is really too short to be called a novel. Vance only took time to develop two characters, and even these lacked much depth. The premise of the story will be remembered in this reader's memory long after the characters are forgotten. The story itself was very interesting, and made me wish Vance had taken more time with this one.
Rating:
Summary: Also includes "The Last Castle"
Review: Why the publisher, and Amazon, omit this fact I don't know, but this book includes TWO classic Vance tales. "The Last Castle" is archetypal Vance: the refined, even effete, society forced to choose between its ideals and the harsh danger of reality. The tension between Vance's aesthetes and his action heroes is a constant in his books. This text is, if I recall aright, published with the aid of the Vance Integrated Edition project; in other words, the text is cleansed of the annoying typos that too often mar Vance's work. (Exhibit A, "Tales of the Dying Earth," which no one appears to have edited before publication. Or if they did, they need to stay anonymous.) I prefer Vance's fantasy myself, but this book is a must-have if you appreciate Vance.
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