Druids vs Mangs

See Grand Crusades.
Original tree art by Tom Kid

Jack Vance's novel Trullion centers on the efforts of Glinnes to earn enough money to buy back part of his family's land. Jack Vance's novel Wyst includes an amusing section in which Jantiff works to earn enough money to buy transport back to his home planet. Jack Vance's novel Marune begins with "Pardero" trying to earn enough money to buy transport to Numenes, the Capitol planet of Alastor Cluster. Vance's 1951 story "Son of the Tree" begins with Joe (an Earthman) trying to earn enough money to get off of the planet Kyril so he can continue his travels across the galaxy.

Jack Vance's writing career was the story of a gifted writer who tried to earn enough money from his imaginative stories about fantasy worlds so that he could spend his whole life writing more stories about imaginary worlds. I read the version of "Son of the Tree" that was published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, in the June 1951 issue.

This scene comes 25 pages into the
story when Joe has departed from Kyril.
interior art, 1951

The interior art that accompanied Vance's story is not attributed to anyone. The image shown to the left on this page might at first seem to have been inspired by the beginning of Vance's story. Joe is inside a space cruiser, newly arrived on the planet Kyril. Based on the illustration, one might have imagined that you were about to read a story about first class travel to the stars with Joe in the middle of a shave and asking for more towels from a stewardess. Think again.

During his trip to Kyril, Joe does not travel in first class accommodations. He has gone from star to star shipped in the hold, like cargo, in some sort of suspended animation. Arriving on Kyril, his only objective is to get a job and earn enough money to move on to another planet.

Elfane

But then he meets the Druidess Elfane and Joe gets side-tracked by the political intrigue that is on-going between the Druids of Kyril and the Mangs, who live on a nearby planet. Two weeks into his stay on Kyril, Elfane asks Joe for help in disposing of the body of a dead Mang ambassador.

I find imaginary politics to be mind-numbing. Vance introduces the idea that there are multiple factions of the Mang. Joe ends up "working with" Hableyat, a member of the Bluewater Faction of the Mangs. The Druids have evolved a weird religion on Kyril with a bloated hierarchy of rulers who include Hierophants, Theoarchs, Presbytes and Ecclesiarchs.

two warriors

There are many similarities between "Son of the Tree" and Vance's novel "The Languages of Pao". Joe has traveled so far across the galaxy that the planet Earth is little more than legend on Kyril. The Druids know very little about technology, and Hableyat, who is from a more industrialized world, can play a few tricks on the Druids.

Isaac Asimov also included the idea that Earth would become little more than a legend in his future Galactic Empire. However, the Asimov's Galactic Imperials of the future galaxy are all pretty similar in appearance. Not so in Vance's imagined galaxy.

original cover art by Earle Bergey
and Edmund Emshwiller

In Vance's future galaxy, enough time has passed for the human residents of far worlds to evolve into new distinct human variants. The Mang have "yellow blood" and we meet another human sub-type (the Belands) with green eyes and white hair.

In Asimov's fictional version of the galaxy, there were no alien creatures of significance. However, Vance included some interesting natives on various exoplanets for his stories such as the alien Star Kings of the planet Ghnarumen. For "Son of the Tree" there is a strange native creature on Kyril that becomes central to the plot of the story.

The version of "Son of the Tree" that I read, as published Thrilling Wonder Stories, has problems and plot holes. I suspect that editor Sam Merwin cut out part of Vance's story in order to fit everything into one issue. 😢

Ifness' aircar, The Asutra

As early Vance, "Son of the Tree" has its fun parts, but it also has rough spots. Both Joe and Elfane are not as well-developed as the other characters that would later be included in the novels written by Vance, but they do end up together; if not in a happy ending, maybe a bitter-sweet ending. The most interesting character is the scheming Hableyat, who has similarities to Ifness, a character who would eventually flow from Vance's pen 20 years later.

Fictional Biology

Weird Tales
In the Ekcolir Reality

Vance had a limited scientific education which was both a blessing and a curse for his fiction writing. Vance grew up reading Weird Tales, and he never let scientific implausibility get in the way of a story. The ever-growing sentient (telepathic?) "tree" imagined by Vance provides the basis for an interesting story, but it degenerates into absurd pseudo-biology. I wonder if Lem ever read "Son of the Tree" before writing Solaris.  

Son of the Tree

Vance often toyed with a type of pan-psychism in his stories. I like the idea that entire planets might have a type of consciousness and display goal-directed behavior. There might be a type of "cosmic justice" that can protect planets from being "spoiled" by bumbling colonists from Earth. If planets can protect themselves, was Joe impelled to travel across the galaxy in order to be at the right place and right time to suggest a chemical solution to the problem posed by a man-killing Tree?

The Sacred Shin
by Anney Fersoni

Cosmopolis

Related Reading: the genetics of luck

More Vance:  August 2019
                        May 2019.
                         August 2018.
                            August 2017.
                                  May 2017.
                                      August 2016.
August 2020
Next: the Vance speed limit

In the Ekcolir Reality. Visit the Gallery of Book and Magazine Covers