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The Demon Princes series Jack Vance


vodkafan

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(This review is copied from my reading blog)

 

The Demon Princes series     4.8/6 (averaged score!)
 

Jack Vance
 

The Star King             6/6

The Killing Machine     5/6

The Palace Of Love     4/6

The Face                    4/6

The Book Of Dreams   5/6 


 

 Sorry, have to have a quick stroll down memory lane  before I can write this review, as I found this series originally when I was in my teens. Back then there was no amazon or central place where you could buy books easily, and after being hooked by the first one I read it was a case of hunting them down in bookshops in neighbouring towns and collecting them one by one over many months, none of them in the proper order . Can you imagine the excitement  of finding another one, knowing I would soon be transported into a totally strange world of fantastic imagination for a day or two ? I wanted to be Kirth Gerson so bad.

Anyway,  this time around I have read them all in the proper order. I was a little worried that after the dull Durdane Trilogy the Princes would not be as good as I remembered them.

 

It also gave me a chance to dissect Vance's storytelling style in a way I had not thought to do before.
 

I need not have worried though, this series is classic Vance. The plot is very simple and linear, which suits the dogged temperament of the main character, but with enough clever and unusual turns to always hold the interest . Character development is limited, and physical descriptions are short, but Vance seems to enjoy describing colours, clothes and food in more detail. But  he gives full rein to imagining utterly fantastic, breathtaking  alien worlds and  the human cultures that live on them, and that is Vance's complete charm; and you will either like that or you won't. He writes about these worlds with a lot of humour and each one seems crazier than the next; but they are so well thought out (in the original books they always had copious added footnotes throughout the story) that they do seem completely plausible. 

There is also just a bit of romance.

 

 It is set in the future approx 1500 years after man has populated  a swathe of the galaxy and settled on a couple of hundred planets.  A faster than light drive called the Intersplit  allows travel between worlds as we would for instance travel between continents . Vance doesn't trouble himself with problems of relativity and time dilation that would ruin a story. The story throughout all 5 books is a simple one of revenge.  Kirth Gerson as a small child watched the complete destruction of his home planet as it was ransacked and the entire population enslaved and taken into space by an unholy coalition of five notorious space pirates.  All evil in their own rights, they had joined together for this heinous crime and thence became known as the Demon Princes: 
 

Attal Mallegate (Mallegate the Woe)

Kokor Hekkus

Voile Falushe

Lens Larque

Howard Alan Treesong.
 

The only survivors of their depredations are Kirth Gerson and his grandfather who can only watch from hiding. Consumed by hatred, Grandfather Gerson devotes the rest of his life to training Gerson into becoming an implacable assassin with a single purpose in life; to hunt down and kill each one of the Demon Princes.
 

The first book begins after the death of his grandfather and Gerson just starting out on his mission. Each book cocerns a different Demon Prince. Some of them are mad, some are just bad. All are dangerous.

 Although the basic plot is unchanged , each book is different enough to keep the interest high.

I can say that enjoyed these immensely and they remain some of my favourite Jack Vance stories.


 

Edited by vodkafan
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They do sound like books that teenage boys would love VF and maybe slightly older men too, but just on the reveiw alone, I think these books may not appeal to women [or  women over 30 shall we say. :D ]The revenge theme alone is off putting, and for me, the exotic names too.Do you find that on re -reading [as you say you read them as a teenager] you like them as much?We do all change our opinions of books as we get older, sometimes liking them more and sometimes less.They do seem like good old escapism books though, as there is no reality [well, our own reality I mean] a bit like the Spider World series by Colin Wilson that I read years ago [i would need to re-read it to see if I still thought it was any good.]Jack Vance sounds like an engaging' hero '

maybe a bit like an intergalactic Lovejoy, I will try to find the first Jack Vance book and give it a go.I wonder if these books are still in print though?

Edited by gardengirl
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Hi gardengirl, I suspect that none of Jack Vance's books are in in print right now. He cut a deal with Gollanz last year before he died (or his son did) and they are all available now as ebooks.  I do have quite a few still as paperbacks  which I will keep , I am  recollecting them again but they are hard to find now. Haven't seen a Demon Princes in paperback for years.

 

I did like them even more on re-reading, because I was able to appreciate them more as a piece of crafted writing as well as a story. The revenge theme is actually not overstated; there is actually loads of humour and romance in the books. But yes they are FULL of exotic names , that is one of Vance's trademarks . Like I say, some people like that and some do not.

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I saw a Jack Vance book in the window of the Oxfam bookshop this morning, and thought of you James!  I think it was Emphyrio looking through the covers on the internet, but I'm not 100% sure.  They weren't open so I couldn't go in and investigate further, but their whole window display was science fiction books.

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I saw a Jack Vance book in the window of the Oxfam bookshop this morning, and thought of you James!  I think it was Emphyrio looking through the covers on the internet, but I'm not 100% sure.  They weren't open so I couldn't go in and investigate further, but their whole window display was science fiction books.

 

 

ARGH! Emphyrio again! That seems to be the only Jack Vance book that is still extant anywhere.  It's not my favourite but other people do seem to like it. That is a stand alone book.  It's not bad...I have a copy I can send you as a loaner if you want  Claire. Poppyshake might possibly still have The  Blue World....

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It's good to know that the books are available as ebooks, though I do prefer paperbacks. That way I could always buy them electronically. I've been wanting to read a Jack Vance book for quite some time now, but I haven't seen any physical books so I haven't bought any.

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It's good to know that the books are available as ebooks, though I do prefer paperbacks. That way I could always buy them electronically. I've been wanting to read a Jack Vance book for quite some time now, but I haven't seen any physical books so I haven't bought any.

 

The way the physical publishing world is at the moment they are most likely gone for good, like a lot of old authors. Ya can't stop progress :banghead:

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Right, well I know I can get a J Vance book on my Kindle then if I want one, so good to know that. I do read most of my books this way these days, but I prefer any non-fiction as an actual book [i like to look through and check things a lot and find that easier with an actual book.] Novels are fine for my Kindle though.I used to be a 'doubter' about the usefulness of e-readers but am fully convinced by them now, and take mine everywhere.

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