What If?

Star Wars: Wirwans invade Fortinone.
June 1969 issue of Fantastic

This blog post is a 50th aniversary celebration of the science fiction novel Emphyrio by Jack Vance. It was first published in Fantastic magazine, in the June and August issues of 1969.

WHAT IF

Mr. If

Before discussing Emphyrio, I must mention that the June issue of Fantastic included a fun short story called "What If" by Isaac Asimov. There is the illustration of Mr. If, to the left, drawn by David Stone. Mr. If has a Viewer, that allows people to View alternate Realities. The Viewer is used to show two lovers that they would still be together as a couple even if they had not accidentally met one day on a street car.

Ghyl Tarvoke

Ghyl Tarvoke

What if alien genetic engineers created artificial humans, infiltrated them into human society and took over a planet? That is the basic plot of Emphyrio. The main character in Emphyrio is Ghyl Tarvoke. There is Ghyl (image to the left) as depicted by Bruce Jones in Fantastic. At the start of the story, Ghyl has had his skull opened so that his brain and memories can be probed.

That opening scene of Emphyrio inspired the beginning of my  story "The Dancing Earth" which I wrote back in 2015. I like to imagine that the stories of Jack Vance reflect actual events in the Asimov Reality. For "The Dancing Earth", I imagined that Vance's character Ghyl was "re-animated" as an Interventionist agent in the Ekcolir Reality.

Chapter 2 of "The Dancing Earth"

When I wrote "The Dancing Earth", my intention was to write it as a fantasy story. However, I was a failure at writing fantasy. My imagined characters, such as Obsidia, always seemed to arrive with a perfectly valid Sci Fi backstory at the ready.

For Emphyrio, Vance imagined a religion (Finukan) in which children were indoctrinated with ritualistic dance steps. For "The Dancing Earth", I tried to depict dance moves as a means to invoke magical spells, but I could not present that fantasy concept with a straight face.

cover by Gino D'Achille

A few pages into Emphyrio, we learn that Ghyl is to be "expelled" from his homeland. He grew up in the city of Ambroy within the land of Fortinone, on the planet Halma. His "expulsion" into Bauredel is the scene that was depicted by Gino D'Achille for DAW books (see the cover to the left). The first few adjacent inches of the land of Bauredel is at the end of a stone courtyard on the border with Fortinone. That stone yard is only a few feet wide, with high walls, and just large enough to hold a machine that efficiently grinds all exiles to pulp, pushing the corpse into Bauredel.

After the introductory scene in which Ghyl is condemned to death by "Lords", the story of his life is told in flashback. Ghyl was raised by his father and Ghyl has no mother.

No duplicating here

Emphyrio is not a happy book. I read it in my late teens and thoroughly disliked its gloomy tone. One amusing "bright spot" is found in the Fantastic magazine version where there is a discussion of the fact that craftsmen such as Ghyl's father cannot use duplicating equipment (see the image to the right on this page). A few pages later (on page 25), the two columns of text in the story are interchanged. Vance's story is full of typos... for example, on page 54, the religiously important "Glyph" of the god Finuka is misprinted as "Blyph". Ug.

Ghyl and Floriel Huzsuis

The history of Fantastic magazine seems to have been rather chaotic, so I guess we need to be satisfied with the fact that it even existed as a publication platform for Emphyrio.

Ghyl and his boyhood friend, Floriel, sneak into the spaceport and are caught looking inside the spaceship of a Lord. Later, through his friendship with Floriel, Ghyl comes in contact with a group of people at the fringe of proper society. At a drunken party, a silly plot is hatched to elect Emphyrio, a legendary figure, as Mayor.

"Many people will be disturbed and distracted". -Schute Cobol

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Readers learn that Ghyl's father, Amiante, is a "corespondent" of the Historical Institute on Earth and he has access to duplicating equipment. Amiante works as an artistic carver of wooden screens. Eventually, when Ghyl's name is placed into the running for the position of Mayor, an obsolete elected office, Amiante prints election posters and is punished. Ghyl feels that his father did no wrong: the Ambroy Charter states that candidates for Mayor may use printed materials during their campaign. However, Schute Cobol and other city officials know nothing of the ancient Charter. So ends Part 1.

with Part 2 of Emphyrio

Part 2 of Emphyrio was published in the August issue of Fantastic magazine. In that issue is an editorial by the new Fantastic editor, Ted White. He wrote about the decline of science fiction magazine publishing, mentioning competition with television. While he wrote, I was a 10-year-old who had no idea that science fiction magazines existed... I became intrigued by Star Trek, which was beamed right into my home. White does not mention the horror that authors such as Vance must have felt upon seeing their work so carelessly printed in Fantastic.

interior art

On page 22, when Ghyl again meets the Lady Shanne at a dance (the County Ball), the text of the story is scrambled and the plot becomes nearly indecipherable because of the abysmal type-setting. Ghyl had seen her twice before: once at a puppet show when they were children and once when he and Floriel had walked into the spaceship of a Lord at the spaceport.

The Space Pirate
Ghyl becomes a "pirate" and helps hijack the spaceship of Shanne's father. Eventually he returns to Ambroy, planning to break the trade monopoly for Ambroy hand-crafted goods. He is captured and subjected to the interrogation of the opening scene of the novel. Sadly, the interior art by Bruce Jones (image to the right) does not add much to Vance's novel.

cover art by Nick Bantock

Ghyl manages to escape execution, rob an Ambroy warehouse of priceless goods and escape from Halma. The goods are sold on Earth for a huge cash sum. On Earth, Ghyl visits the Historical Institute and learns the location on the planet Damar where Emphyrio was killed, thousands of years in the past. While visiting Damar (the sister planet of Halma) Ghyl realizes that the Lords of Ambroy are synthetic humanoids, crafted by the Damarans and used as the means to collect the wealth generated by Ambroy's artists (such as Amiante).

The end of the novel becomes much more pleasant than the beginning. After decades of adversity, now everything works out well for Ghyl. He needs only speak the truth of the puppet/puppet master relationship between Damar and Halma and the people of Ambroy are suddenly liberated from hidden tyranny of the Damarans.

Vance's aliens

Puppets
In his editorial, Ted White described Vance's Emphyrio as science-fantasy. How did Vance account for the ability of the Damarans to make humanoid "puppets"? According to Vance, the alien Damarans need only sample the DNA of a species and then they can manufacture a large number of "copies". At first, (2,000 years before the lifetime of Ghyl) the Damarans manufactured an army of radio-controlled alien warriors (called Wirwans) that attacked Halma and destroyed the human cities such as Ambroy. When humans (the mythical Emphyrio) learned how to counter the Wirwan army, the Damarans then manufactured the Lords and secretly took control of Fortinone. For 2,000 years nobody could figure this out until Ghyl came along.

Star King

I love the idea of aliens who can manufacture new variants of human beings; human "copies" that are so good they can live among real humans without being recognized as being copies. Vance never provides a scientific account of how the Damarans manufactured the Lords of Ambroy. Also, there is no discussion of a scientific means for detecting molecular differences between the "puppets" and real humans. This same deficiency exists in Vance's novel Star King, where the alien Star Kings can live undetected among humans. Vance was never all that concerned with the boundary between science fiction and fantasy, so I am comfortable categorizing Emphyrio as science-fantasy. In my own Exode Saga, I concern myself with the imaginary alien technology that allows aliens to "manufacture" human variants. Vance never bothered with such fine details.

Spock

Star Wars
In the 1970s, when I first read Vance's 1964 novel Star King, I was amused to find that one of Vance's characters is named "Spock". By then, the character Spock of Star Trek was well known around the world.

Similarly, Vance's Emphyrio makes reference to "Star Wars" and "Empire Wars". It would be interesting to know if George Lucas read an early edition of Emphyrio. Lucas says that he began writing his Star Wars saga in 1971. For Emphyrio, Vance set the era of the Star Wars about 2,000 years in Ghyl's past... those ancient wars are the stuff of legends for Ghyl.

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Starting in 1973, Vance published his Durdane Trilogy, which is set during a "Star War" between parasitical aliens and humans on the frontier of galactic human civilization. Even if Lucas was inspired by the "Star Wars" and galactic empires found in stories by other authors, he went in his own direction that is distinct from Vance's vision of galactic warfare.

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I've previously complained about the kinds of aliens included by Vance in his stories. Any reader of Emphyrio or Vance's other stories will come to the conclusion that Vance was a better story teller when he was writing about humans than when writing about his imagined aliens. Vance is writing at his best when mysterious aliens are only part of the background of his imagined exoplanets, not when the aliens are at center stage.

It is not possible to recommend that anyone read Emphyrio as published in Fantastic magazine. The interior artwork is not good and the printing job was a disaster. I also would not encourage anyone who is new to Vance to start with Emphyrio. For someone who wants to begin exploring the stories of Jack Vance, I recommend staring with Trullion.

in the Ekcolir Reality

There is nothing wrong with Emphyrio as a story, but my (negative) feelings about the story were formed during the Cold War when it was all too easy to draw parallels between real world places like East Berlin and East Germany and the fictional city of Ambroy in the land of Fortinone.

Telepathy
When Shanne meets Ghyl at the dance/costume party, she says to him, "Did you know that I can read minds? I like yours." One of my favorite things about many Vance stories is the subtle suggestion that some of the characters have telepathic abilities. I like to imagine that the alien Damarans were experts at technology-assisted telepathy and maybe in the Ekcolir Reality, John Vance wrote a story that expanded on that idea.

at the County Ball

At the County Ball, Ghyl sees Shanne and has a sense of deja-vu, even though it has been 8 years since he last saw her and Shanne's face is covered. Ghyl feels like he was predestined to be Shanne's lover. However, they seem to be forever separated by the fact that Shanne in not a real human, only one of the artificial Lords created by the alien Damarans. They dance and drink wine and then Ghyl takes Shanne out of the dance pavilion, along the riverbank to a quiet place where they make love on the grassy shore.

Next: more Sci Fi from 1969... "Feminine Intuition" by Isaac Asimov

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Escape from a Bitchy Obitus

cover art of the DAW edition
Can Ghyl escape?

I've previously commented on the rather gloomy and dismal setting of Emphyrio. In this science fiction story by Jack Vance, we tag along with Ghyl as he grows up on the planet Halma and discovers that his people are economic slaves of alien masters.

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According to John Dolan, there is only "one truly sad Vance novel": Emphyrio. In the legends of Halma, Emphyrio is a long-dead hero who resisted an alien invasion and for his trouble he ended up having a spike driven through his head. Nothing is quite as it seems to be in Ghyl's world, and he must rediscover the lost and obscured history of his people's past.

I first read this story in the format of the DAW paperback shown to the right (2019 update: another format). That's poor Ghyl about to get run over. Vance often seemed to have fun with the pulp fiction plot device of introducing a horrible and complex way of killing the hero, fortunately so complex that it might not actually work.

The Killing Machine

Execution
On the planet Halma, if you are a convicted criminal you might find yourself exiled to the country next door, only to discover that rival "nation" is very small, no bigger than a small stony courtyard. Worse still, periodically a set of grinding wheels roll the length of that courtyard, flattening out all residents.

In Vance's Alastor Cluster novel, Trullion, the mentor Akadie is awaiting "justice" and fearing that he fill be executed upon the prutanshyr along with a gang of pirates. However, it is his lucky day and the executioner's machinery jams. "Sixty-two pirates to be killed, and yesterday the thing managed to grind asunder only a single man." Glinnes shows up and is able to spring Akadie from jail, revealing that he had been imprisoned on the basis of false claims by the scheming Lord Gensifer.

Kedidah the sexivationist

In both Wyst and Araminta Station, Vance depicted entire industries grown up around suicide. In Wyst, the lovely Kedidah is seduced into a stint as sheirl for the Ephthalotes. Her pathetic adventures in sexivation end with the team's loss and her being defiled by a mechanical demon. She slinks off to the Pier of Departure in Disjerferact and loses herself in the golden prisms of Halcyon House.

However, in Emphyrio, Vance allows us to escape the dismal tone of the story's beginning when Ghyl escapes from his killing machine and goes on to liberate his people.

A Bitchy Obitus

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I was rather startled by the tone of Dolan's obituary for Jack Vance. I'm particularly surprised by the suggestion that Emphyrio was written for "his son, the one person he seems to have loved". As far as I can tell, his wife Norma was Vance's loving muse and partner through his entire writing career.

More Cover Art

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Through the years, I've seen some strange cover art for Emphyrio, perhaps none more shocking than the dance scene shown to the left.

Yes, within the story, Ghyl does attend a dance, but this seems like a strange scene to select for the cover. This ballroom cover art makes it look like Emphyrio is a Broadway musical!

Recently I've seen new cover art for some foreign language books such as  Emphyrio et autres romans.

I like the alien-looking creature that appears in this cover art (image to the right).

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The guy with the gun on his shoulder (shown to the left) seems out of place and does not adequately transport us into an alien setting.

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Thank you, Jack, for so many great stories where the aliens lurk for so long, just off stage...and there is always the young hero who will defend us.....

"To me it seems to be important to believe people to be good even if they tend to be bad, because your own joy and happiness in life is increased that way, and the pleasures of the belief outweigh the occasional disappointments. To be a cynic about people works just the other way around and makes you incapable about enjoying the good things."  -Isaac Asimov

Exode

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A reader of the Exode Trilogy might wonder if we humans are nothing but slaves to the alien Huaoshy. As discussed in my next blog post, although we can rightfully think of the Huaoshy as having created the human species, the aliens are rather indifferent towards we Earthlings.

As shown in the image to the left, I like to poke fun at the idea that Huaoshy and their robot-like pek might come to Earth and enslave humans for some mundane purpose like mining gold.

The Exode Saga (image credits)

However, I have no interest in "alien invasion" stories beyond the fact that readers might, because of their long exposure to the alien invasion literature, wonder about the motives of the pek.

I bundle up this human tendency towards xenophobia and put it right into Exode, allowing Parthney's handlers at Lenhalen to fret endlessly about the fate of we Earthlings.

Related reading: a quick summary of Emphyrio

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Jack Vance

The Moon Moth

In 1977 I read The Moon Moth and I have not stopped reading Vance's fiction since. At that time, The Moon Moth was an effective gateway drug since it was in story collections that could be slipped into a university curriculum without a "pulpish" cover to get in the way.

Star King

I'm not a big fan of short fiction, so after reading The Moon Moth I was pleased to come across several of Vance's science fiction novels including Trullion, Emphyrio and Star King.

Alastor Cluster

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Of course, Trullion and Star King were gateways to the hardcore Vance....they were just the first novels in the Alastor Cluster and Demon Princes series. With time the Cadwal Chronicles also came along. Those three series of novels are my favorite Vance works. Today I found out that Jack Vance died this week at the age of 96. I was thinking he might last an entire century here on this world, but...no. 😢

click map to enlarge (source)

I have a love of maps and I was thrilled to open up my copy of Trullion and find a map of the Fens. It is always a pleasure to think of the parade of Vance's characters traversing the waterways of the Fens:

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"Squire" Glinnes Hulden of Rabendary island, the golden Karpoun sheirl Farero... marooned on an island off shore from Welgen with Glinnes, pirates like Sagmondo Bandolio, Lempel and Alonzo "Ice Devil" Dirrig....the later pretending to be Lord Ambal, freakish Fanschers like Junius Farfan, gypsy-like Trevanyi such as Duissane Drosset, the Connatic -ruler of Alastor Cluster- in the guise of journalist Ryl Shermatz, Janno Akadie the mentor at his fine five-towered manse on Rorquin's Tooth, Chief Constable Filidice compliantly doing dirty work for the scheming lord "Tammi" Gensifer and young girls like Sharue...one wrong step away from being dragged under water by the merlings.

When Glinnes reaches the frustrating and futile end of his struggles he is assisted by the mysteriously appearing and reappearing Shermatz. Sitting across the central square in Welgen from the executioner's prutanshyr, Glinnes complains to Ryl, "Akadie may well be inserted into the cogs of yonder mincing machine."

Shermatz, puzzled by the lack of evidence against Akadie suggests, "A few words with Chief Constable Filidice might be worthwhile."

"Return to your seat," said Glinnes. "He won't see us." Glinnes has already been thwarted by Filidice who is corruptly wielding the force of Trill law and bureaucratic obstruction in support of lord Gensifer.

Trullion

Finally Shermatz reveals his secret..."I think he will. I am something more than a roving journalist, as I hold the commission of Over-Inspector in the Whelm." After long fruitless effort, suddenly all of the many problems facing Glinnes are resolved and he walks off into the a bright new future with Duissane. Or does he?

Marune

In Marune: Alastor 933, Efraim, the young Kang of the House of Benbuphar in the Rhune Realms, is drugged senseless and sent off across space. To recover his memories and learn his own identity he visits the Connatic's Hospital on the planet Numenes. Efraim also visits the Connatic's "palace" -a soaring tower built upon foundations set within five islands- where upon seeing the display chamber for the planet Marune he begins to recall some of his past on his own home world.

Most of the story takes place in the Rhune Realms of Marune where almost always at least one of the suns is in the sky. About once a month darkness falls. During the dark of Mirk strange events often occur. Efraim survives a murder attempt, but his friend from Port Mar, Lorcas, dies at the hands of the vicious Destian and Agnois, First Chamberlain.

Efraim, still struggling to recover his damaged memories, renews his acquaintance with his childhood friend Maerio -daughter of the scheming Kaiark Rianlle- and falls in love again. With the help of the mysterious native Fwai-chi, Efraim regains his memories and control of his kingdom. But have his off-planet experiences destroyed is ability to fit in with Rhune society?

Wyst
The third Alastor Cluster novel begins and ends on Zeck, the home planet of Jantiff Ravensroke, but most of the story unfolds on the planet Wyst where Jantiff befriends a Wierdlands Witch who he calls Glisten. He saves her from the witch-hunting Booch and his dogs, but then she is lost in the forest along the shore of the Moaning Ocean.

Ryl Shermatz, again appearing in the role of "the Connatic's agent", ultimately finds the lost waif Glisten and reunites her with Jantiff on Zeck.

The bulk of the story concerns the odd culture of the vast cities of Wyst and how Jantiff's presence stimulates a vile plot by the devious Esteban aimed at taking control of the planet. Ultimately Jantiff helps Shermatz diffuse the plot and he save's Ryl's life, earning an offer of a position in the Connatic's service.

In all three Alastor novels the protagonist gets the girl and survives great travails, but we are left wondering what happens next in their lives.

The Demon Princes

In a recent blog post I reflected on some of the people and places in The Star King and other novels in the Demon Princes series. Last year I counted up the number of evil-doers that Kirth Gersen must kill and the number of damsels in distress that he rescues.

Gersen faces the rather grim work of murdering the five Demon Princes who had killed and enslave his family. The bloodshed is off-set by the many ingenious tricks that Gersen employs to thwart the plans of his adversaries. 

The Palace of Love
In the pages of book three in the series, Vance paraded the clones of Jheral Tinzy before our "eyes". These clones were created and manipulated by the nasty Vogel Filschner in attempt to produce a copy of the adorable Jherel who would return Vogel's love. To hunt down and approach Vogel, Gersen buys the magazine Cosmopolis and plays the role of a journalist.

Of course, Vogel's great plan never works out. The mad poet Navarth's ward "Zan Zu" instinctively dislikes Vogel even when he is disguised as Henry Tanzel of London. Clone Drusilla IV was kept in isolation until rescued by Gersen. Gersen is the first man she has ever seen and she calls him "wonderful". She later sees Vogel and comments on his foolish wicked face. Drusilla III was trained to worship a statue of Vogel, but she did not like the face and chipped it away.

The Killing Machine
In The Killing Machine, Gersen and Kokor Hekkus trade sly tricks. Hekkus imprisons Gersen at Interchange, but then Gersen escapes with 10,000,000,000 SVU of Hekkus' money and leaves Hekkus holding counterfeit cash that is worthless.

Hekkus has long been tricking the entire population of the planet Thamber, using that world as his fantasy playground. When Gersen arrives on that hidden planet it takes him a while to penetrate Hekkus' disguises, but Gersen ultimately tricks Hekkus into exposing his true identity as a hormagaunt. Hekkus is destroyed and Gersen rides off into the sunset with Alusz Iphigenia Eperje-Tokay.

The Face
In The Face, the Darsh rachepol Husse Bugold plays a devious trick on Gersen. Before blowing up a spaceship, Bugold takes out insurance from a company that Gersen owns.

While in pursuit of Bugold, Gersen falls in love with the endearing Jerdian Chanseth. However, Jerdian's father Adario is a wet blanket on the flames of their ardor. Jerdian realizes that as a Methlen, there can be no future for her with Gersen. However, in the end, after long struggles to get his hands on Bugold, Gersen gets the last laugh.

At the climax, after telling Bugold that he takes pleasure in preventing his greatest trick from being realized, and after Bugold dies a horrible death, Gersen realizes that he shares the same motivations to implement Bugold's fantastic trick. Gersen triggers the explosives that Bugold has planted inside the moon Shanitra, transforming it into a great copy of Bugold's face, a face that will now shine down over planet Methel and, particularly, over the garden wall of Adario Chanseth.

The Book of Dreams
In The Book of Dreams, the last book in the series, Gersen has achieved mastery of his trickish ways. He devises an Extant magazine contest that draws Howard Hardoah into the open. Gersen sneaks into the high school reunion of Howard and, disguised as a musician, he manages to shoot Howard, unfortunately the injury is not serious.

After obtaining Howard's beloved Book of Dreams, Gersen uses it to lure Howard to his doom. Along the way to Howard's demise, Gersen falls in love with Alice Wroke. In Alice, Gersen has finally found a woman who shares his motivations for destroying evil men. Alice, Gersen and the Cleadhoes, two more of Howard's victims, trap Howard on the wild planet Bethune Preserve for a final showdown. In the end, his own "inner demons" finish off Howard.

Cadwal

Doug Beekman cover art

The Alastor Cluster and Demon Princes series came to rather unsatisfactory conclusions...I want to know what happens next to Jantiff, Glisten, Efraim, Maerio, Gersen and Alice. The Cadwal Chronicles seemed more complete. I can imagine Glawen and Wayness living out their days in relative calm after their travails as young adults during the epic struggle to preserve the Cadwal Conservancy. It might be fun to know what trouble Chilke and Flitz get into while roving around the galaxy.

Before Glawen Clattuc ever meets Wayness Tamm, his young heart has been entangled with the charming Sessily Veder. That Glawen and Sessily are under a lucky star is revealed when they go into the wilderness of Cadwal to collect butterfly wings for her Parilia costume. Sessily is to play the role of a butterfly and she wants to decorate her costume with real butterfly wings.

While out collecting the insect wings they are nearly killed by a Muldoon tangle-top. Their terrifying escape leads to discovery of a plot against Araminta Station, timed to occur during the Parilia celebration. General tragedy is averted, but Glawan is devastated by the mysterious murder of Sessily minutes after her on-stage performance. Sadly for Sessily, the lucky star was only actively shielding Glawan.

Only years later does Glawen learn the identity of Sessily's murderer: Kirdy Wook, who played Glawen false, leading to his imprisonment by the perverse Zadine Babbs at the Monomantic seminary on the planet Tassadero. When Gersen escapes and returns to Araminta Station, he is attacked by the murderous Kirdy, but Kirdy drowns in the ocean during the attack.

After their dangerous search across space for the lost Cadwal Charter, Glawen and Wayness can finally turn their attention to the satisfying task of constructing their new home on a plot of land granted to them under the new Charter. Who knows what tales of adventure they will hear from Chilke and Flitz when they gather for the opening of Lewyn Barduys' new Bainsey Castle Lodge on the planet Rosalia.

John Holbrook Vance

John Holbrook Vance, who often publishing his writings and science fiction as Jack Vance, was born in 1916. He became a published author after World War II, his work ranging from mystery to horror to fantasy and science fiction. Assisted by his wife Norma Ingold Vance, his output of stories was prolific and much appreciated by his many fans. We can still wonder what other worlds he might have shared with us had we a better way of supporting our artists and promptly and efficiently treating, or better yet, preventing conditions like glaucoma.
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His blinded eyes registered a watery gray blur...Shermatz spoke to Jantiff: "I have specified a treatment to restore a certain fraction of your vision."

Jantiff felt a cool sensation across the front of his eyes...the blur before his vision began to dissipate as if a wind blew through the optic fog. Jantiff once more could see, with almost the old clarity. Jantif thought: In later years, when I look across my life, I will mark well this moment in the Old Groar Tavern at Balad on the planet Wyst...

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More commentary on the science fiction of Jack Vance.....

The death of Jack Vance: One Year Later, Two Years Later, Four Years Later
The origins of Jack Vance
Vale of Xian
Jean Parlier
Emphyrio

Cadwal Saga
     Araminta Station
     Ecce and Old Earth
     Throy
The Demon Princes
    Smade's Planet (Star King), Llalarkno and Brinktown
    The Face
   The Book of Dreams
   Evil Henchmen and Damsels in Distress
   Kirth Gersen: the 6th Demon?
  The Palace of Love
  The Killing Machine

Fleharish Broad

Alastor Cluster
     Trullion (see also) (and)
     Wyst
     Marune
The Languages of Pao
The Durdane Trilogy
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Related Reading: re-reading the novels of Jack Vance 
A tribute to Vance by Fernando Salazar
New to Vance? Start here.

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