Jack Vance: A Lost World

cover art by Gino D'Achille

My two favorite authors are Isaac Asimov and Jack Vance... two writers who go together like oil and vinegar. I often search the internet for commentary from readers who enjoy reading stories that were written by Vance and/or Asimov and so I recently came across a "retro review" of a Jack Vance novel (The Killing Machine) by Ken Korczak. Mr. Korczak says:

"In my almost 50 years of reading thousands of science fiction novels and short stories – The Killing Machine is among my Top 5 of all time. It’s just that good."

Lost Worlds
I've previously blogged about some of the "lost worlds" that Vance wrote into his stories. In The Killing Machine, Vance transports us to a lost world called Thamber, but most of the novel is not really about Thamber. We don't even reach the planet Thamber until we are 75% of our way through the story.

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In his famous Foundation Saga, Asimov turned Earth into a "lost world". That trick took some mentalic magic by Daneel because the quadrillions of people who live on the 25 million settled planets of Asimov's imagined galaxy all originated from Earth only a few 10s of thousands of years before the age of the Foundation. How could everyone just forget the location of the home world of Humanity?

If you are a certain type of literal-minded nerd (and I am) then you worry about such things. I once collaboratively wrote a space opera in which Earth was "lost" in plain sight by means of  technological trickery.

In the case of Thamber, Vance just expects us to chill out and not question how the planet was lost.

In the Oikumene Fictional Universe where Vance set his five Demon Princes novels, about 1,500 years in our future, humans are still slowly spreading outward from Earth into the vast galaxy, into the Beyond. Somehow, it is possible for planets to be colonized by humans and then those planets can be "lost" and allowed to develop in isolation for centuries or millennia. Maybe we should blame the mysterious Institute for the ease with which entire planets can be lost.

hormagaunt

In any case, Thamber is the playground of Kokor Hekkus the hormagaunt. Back on page 15 of the story, we get to read a set of instructions titled: "How to become a hormagaunt". The basic idea seems to be that if you obtain certain substances ("the ichore of youth") from the glands and organs of children then you can use that elixir to transform yourself into an immortal hormagaunt.

cover art by Louis S. Glanzman

Hey, if we can have a lost planet, then why not also have lost knowledge like the secret of eternal life? Elsewhere in the Demon Princes Saga, Vance suggests that it might be just a matter of time before space travel itself is banned and it is hinted that the Institute has already "covered-up" many scientific discoveries.

A side-effect of becoming a hormagaunt is that your skin becomes a transparent film across the surface of your head, allowing your facial muscles to show through. This does not bother Kokor Hekkus, who has a set of rubber masks and disguises that allow him to play the roles of several different people. On the planet Thamber, the human population lives in a primitive medieval society, but Kokor Hekkus has a spaceship and access to all the advanced technology of Earth. Thus, Kokor Hekkus finds it easy to rule over the people of Thamber and he secretly lives among them, acting out his preferred roles in a kind of virtual reality.

the origins of gizmo fiction

The Killing Machine
One of the native life forms on the planet Thamber is called a "dnazd", a large animal with many legs and powerful mandibles. Kokor Hekkus owns a mechanical "killing machine" fashioned after the dnazd. Having imported this mechanical monster from off planet, Hekkus can use it to terrorize a tribe of primitive warriors on Thamber (the Tadousko-Oi). Apparently Mr. Korczak is particularly enamored of Hekkus' mechanical dnazd.

One of the originating threads of the science fiction genre is what I like to think of as "gizmo fiction". Probably for as long as humans have existed we've been intrigued by tools and toys. In some sense, you might argue that Asimov's positronic robots are just cool gizmos. However, it might be closer to the truth to say that Asimov's most famous robot, Daneel, became humanity's tribal god: a being that could watch over the human species and guide us into the future.

I've seen multiple commentators describe The Face as their favorite Demon Princes novel. Some prefer The Palace of Love and the Mad Poet, Navarth. I was surprised to see Mr. Korczak rank The Killing Machine so highly without comparing it in any explicit way to other novels by Vance. I was provoked to ask myself: do I have a favorite novel that ranks highly because it contains a cool gizmo?

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I'll admit that I've long had a soft spot in my heart for the space elevator. However, none of the novels that I've read with a space elevator in the story is a favorite of mine. So, upon introspection, I conclude that I love gizmos in science fiction stories, but not for their own sake. No, what I enjoy about gizmos in science fiction is when an author can construct a story that shows how a gizmo would alter human existence.

low-G space Bonding

By inventing gizmos such as the robot Daneel and exploring their impact on Humanity, Asimov proved himself a master of science fiction. Kokor Hekkus' walking fort strikes me as a stage prop that is typical of those deployed in order to support and advance Vance's playful literary style, which he was reluctant to even place within the science fiction genre.

I'm comfortable categorizing the Demon Princes novels within the science fiction genre, but Vance puts much more on our plates than is typical for run-of-the-mill science fiction stories. Mr. Korczak rightly compares Vance's protagonist in the Demon Princes novels (Kirth Gersen) to James Bond. In each of the five Demon Princes novels, Gersen takes time out of his busy life to have a dalliance with a damsel in distress.

Interchange

In The Killing Machine, the damsel is Alusz, the 10,000,000,000 SVU girl from Thamber. Gersen first meets Alusz when they are being held as prisoners at Interchange.

Gersen and Alusz - cover art by David Russell

The relationship between Gersen and Alusz is a strange one. Gersen makes use of Alusz as a way to find the lost planet Thamber and kill Kokor Hekkus. Along the way, he steals 10,000,000,000 SVU from her, money that Kokor Hekkus raised by a string of kidnappings and paid to Interchange in order to gain possession of Alusz.

Although Gersen and Alusz grow fond of each other, their romance has no real prospects for enduring. Alusz can't understand Gersen's single-minded devotion to killing the three remaining Demon Princes. Gersen is only slightly tempted to relax and enjoy his vast wealth in the company of Alusz.

projac and planet

My problem with Alusz is that she irritates me. She's a spoiled princess. On Thamber, she was destined to marry Prince Sion Thumble, one of the secret identities of Kokor Hekkus. Supposedly Sion Thumble captured a spaceship from Kokor Hekkus and then Alusz read the instruction manual and departed from Thamber in order to escape from the evil Kokor Hekkus who demanded that she be turned over to him.

Eventually, Alusz learns about Gersen's background and the reason why he wants to kill the five Demon Princes. She can't really fault his motives, but she endlessly badgers Gersen to change his ways. Eventually, both Gersen and the reader are glad to see her depart from the stage.

bipedal version!

The final 25% of The Killing Machine, which takes place on Thamber, is far less entertaining than the first 75% of the story. As soon as Gersen arrives on Thamber, his flying machine is shot down by a Tadousko-Oi arrow. Then Gersen has to engage in hand-to-hand combat against the Tadousko-Oi hetman, their highest ranking warrior. In fine Hollywood tradition, Gersen never fails to win a fist fight.

After a few encounters with Sion Thumble and Franz Panderbush (another identity of Kokor Hekkus), Gersen notices that they are the same person in disguise, indeed, the same person that Gersen previously met playing the roles of Billy Windle and Seuman Otwal on other worlds of the Oikumene. Gersen unmasks Kokor Hekkus, kills him and liberates the people of Thamber from Hekkus' tyranny.

 

What do you get for a Demon Prince who has everything? I can accept that Vance wanted to explore the idea of an evil mastermind who controlled an entire planet and I accept that Vance did not want to confine his writing to a single defined genre such as science fiction, but my tastes do not run towards the type of sword-and-planet fiction that Vance grew up reading. I purposely avoid some of Vance's work in which he drifts into the domain of fantasy.

I've long regretted that Vance did not put more thought into Thamber rather than just adopting a conventional sword-and-planet culture for Kokor Hekkus' toy planet. I get the feeling that Vance himself was rather bored with the final 25% of The Killing Machine, which reads like it was slapped together in a rush to meet a publishing deadline.

A Hollywood tradition is the evil master-mind who always fiddles around while the hero closes in and ultimately dispatches the bad guy. When Gersen arrives on Thamber, Kokor Hekkus seems to just keep playing his usual masquerade games, even though Gersen clearly represents a serious danger from off planet. Given my biases, the ending of The Killing Machine, with the feel that Vance inserted a fantasy novella set on Thamber, marks this as my least favorite of the Demon Princes books. I suppose that Vance fans who enjoy his fantasy stories might prefer The Killing Machine and its touch of sword-and-planet fiction.
Related Reading: Lost Worlds
Next: a return to Asimov's Foundation

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Jupiter's Aliens

image source

Immortality is a popular topic for many science fiction story writers. In the case of Jack Vance, his first novel (published in 1956), To Live Forever, was about immortality. During the rest of Vance's long and prolific career as a writer, characters who had a desire for longer life showed up in additional Vance stories.

For example, in The Killing Machine, Demon Prince Kokkor Hekkus had found a way to extend his life. On the "lost world" of Thamber, Hekkus could play out his fantasies, living many different lives of adventure and romance over the course of hundreds of years.

At the end of his writing career, Vance published Ports of Call in which the aging Dame Hester's quest for a fountain of youth becomes the driving force for launching Myron's space travel adventures and visits to distant space ports scattered across the Gaean Reach.

1976 edition

I've never read To Live Forever, but according to Jonathan Goodwin, the protagonist of that story, Gavin Waylock, is another one of Vance's "rebellious heroes" (and another of Vance's "G heroes"). Gavin had reached the apex of his society and had been granted immortality, but then his whole life, and, subsequently, his whole culture, began to unravel.

A common theme in stories about immortality is that attaining the ability to live forever is a kind of trap. Mortals might strive for immortality, but once achieved, immortality can have its own problems.

1982 DAW edition

One of the first novels that I ever read (The City and the Stars) depicted Arthur Clarke's version of an imagined future society where humans had achieved immortality. Clarke imagined a rather static society of immortals who were among the last few remaining residents of Earth. They had completely abandoned the use of space travel technology, then, finally, after many millions of years of stagnation on Earth, a new human was brought into existence and he grew up to become the "rebel" who could knock the immortals of Earth out of their rut and make a return to space travel.

Luri was able to use Fru'wu
technology to achieve immortality.

Until this current blog post, I only had one previous post with the label "immortality". That old blog post was about a woman who was possibly just the second (who was 1st?) Earthling to attain immortality, Luri. She was born "too early", so Luri had to wait around a couple of thousand years for the Buld spaceship to arrive at Earth.

The advanced technology that was used to give Luri immortality was not developed by humans. It was provided to Luri by Interventionist agents. The alien Fru'wu, a much more ancient species than we humans, used advanced nanotechnology to immortalize Luri. That was back when time travel was still possible, and Luri's role in First Contact could be known thousands of years in advance.

Immortal Space Aliens

cover art by Rowena Morrill

My favorite kind of science fiction story is one that involves alien beings from distant planets who are much more technologically advanced than we primitive Earthlings. I like stories that explore the implications of immortal aliens coming in contact with mortal humans.

Miners of Earth

However, I despise stories that involve alien beings who "feed" off of human "life forces". I'm not sure which is more annoying, science fiction plots that involve aliens traveling to Earth across vast interstellar distance to take our gold or plots that suggest aliens would in some way eat humans or collect some "elixir of life" from human bodies, a magic potion that would give the aliens eternal life.  

Jupiter Ascending

I've never seen the film Jupiter Ascending and I don't feel like I've stumbled upon an unbiased account of the film and the aliens that are portrayed in it, so what follows, below, is my best-guess understanding of the film based on what I've read. The rest of this blog post is similar in nature to the most popular post of this blog, in which I tried to make sense of the film Prometheus. Are there any interesting space aliens in Jupiter Ascending?

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Mrs. Jones, please DON'T NAME YOUR DAUGHTER "JUPITER".
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Jupiter's Aliens

The human home world: Orous.

Jupiter Jones is taken away from Earth and given a tour of the galaxy. Even before being taken away from Earth by space-traveling humans from another planet, she gets to meet some "space aliens". I put "space aliens" in quotes because it is not clear exactly what the odd creatures are that show up near the start of Jupiter Ascending and start altering Ms. Jone's life on Earth. 

Ms. Jupiter Jones

This is not a science fiction story about space aliens. In fact, the whole story could have been told on Earth with no mention of space travel.  Humans are the dominant critter of this particular fictional universe. According to this wiki, which tries to give a coherent account of Jupiter Ascending, the human species is very ancient and evolved on a distant planet called Orous.

Caine was engineered to have a huge, ahem, gun.

During their long existence on Orous, humans used genetic engineering to create many different types of creatures who have mixtures of human genes and genes from other species. These genetically-engineered hybrids are called "splices".

Size matters.

Urban Fantasy: Caine's bootie call at the UPS store.

Ms. Jones has an insta-romance with Caine, who was genetically engineered to be part wolf, part bird and part whatever came to Lana or Andy in a moment of "inspiration". Ms. Jones likes dogs and Caine has cool gravity boots, so, of course, she instantly wants to grab his huge gun.

RegeneX you're the one
You make bath time so much fun

RegeneX
A major concern of the residents of Orous is acquiring RegeneX. RegeneX can extend a person's life, but the only source of RegeneX is "harvested" bodies of primitive humans such as Earthlings. Supposedly the only reason that there are humans on Earth is because we have been "planted" here and it is our fate to be "harvested" and processed so as to provide a supply of RegeneX for the human "royalty" who live on other planets like Orous.

"I am not Seraphi."

Okay, so if we grant this highly implausible backstory, we are also asked to believe that one particular Earthling (Ms. Jones) is genetically identical to a recently deceased human royal family member (Seraphi) from the planet Orous. This freak genetic concordance thrusts Ms. Jones, who works as a cleaning lady, into the center of an incoherent transgalactic plot with the fate of all we Earthlings hanging in the balance.

Sargorn Gorn

This "new" science fiction story sounds like the result of some Hollywood script-writing hack's rushed effort to mash together plot ideas from old Sci Fi stories like Dune and Soylent Green. But then, why should we expect anything better from writers who were college drop-outs and who got their start writing for comic books such as Hellraiser?

"..... like a supermodel ... when she opens her mouth, you realize there's almost nothing going on, inside. Which is a shame, because so, so pretty."

Did someone mention aliens?

Keepers from Diorite

We are told that in the fictional universe of Jupiter Ascending, humans discovered Earth about 65,000,000 yeas ago, at a time when it was dominated by Sargorns. The Sargorns were eliminated from Earth, but some were genetically modified and kept around as servants on Orous for the House of Abrasax, the family that "owns" Earth and uses it as their cattle human ranch.

The presumed "space aliens" of Jupiter Ascending (shown in the image to the right) serve the royal humans of Orous as "Keepers". These Keepers make sure that the humans of Earth remain ignorant and unaware of their lowly status as livestock.

Princess Jupiter

Members of the House of Abrasax take turns trying to capture or kill or endlessly chase after Ms. Jones because (listen carefully!) she is genetically identical to the former and recently deceased head of the royal family. Ms. Jones eventually gains legal title as the new "owner" of Earth. Yes, this is a fantasy Princess movie.

from Rotten Tomatoes

Based on what I've read about the "Keepers", I'm disappointed in the limited role that aliens play in Jupiter Ascending. I guess the Keepers just do dirty work for royal dicks like Balem Abrasax. But the point of the movie is not to reveal something interesting about space aliens. There is nothing interesting "out there", at all: after eons of human existence there is only a bunch of royal jerks who want to own Earth and process Earthlings into RegeneX so that they continue living their long decadent lives as "royalty". 

shape-shifting Keepers

"...Mass Effect for idiots"

I was motivated to investigate Jupiter Ascending when I learned that it uses some of the same types of Sci Fi plot elements that are in my current writing obsession, the Exode Trilogy. However, as is usual for Hollywood science fiction, this flick seems full of absurd science. I'd hoped that there might be some interesting aliens in Jupiter Ascending, but the only supposed "aliens" (the "Keepers") might not actually be aliens. As far as I can tell, they could just as well be one of the many comic book human variants in this flick that are the result of genetic engineering. 

"Look, the flick makes no sense
so just make sure that everyone
screams really loud."

Balem the bad guy.

In the fictional universe of Jupiter Ascending, the Keepers use super advanced technology to keep we primitive Earthlings trapped in a "Matrix" of ignorance and believing that humans evolved on Earth. This could be interesting, but we must ask: if there are all these fantastic technologies available to the people of Orous, then why do they need to obtain their precious RegeneX from the bodies of Earthlings? That defies logic and ruins the entire Jupiter Ascending story.

"You have to tell them! RegeneX is
made out of people!"

Jupiter Ascending has been nominated for an award in the 2015 Search for Interesting Hollywood Aliens. The award category is "silliest solution to the Fermi Paradox". There are beings who live on other planets, but we don't know that they exist because the Keepers constantly reprogram our memories. We must be kept ignorant because (listen carefully!) the beings who live on other planets (who are very ancient and have super advanced technology including sophisticated genetic engineering) need to grow billions of humans on Earth as the raw material from which they extract a rare maguffin elixir of youth. This makes no sense, but as they say, "That's Hollywood".

The sequel: Jupiter and the RegeneX Factory