Deserted
By My Enemies: Vengeance as a Theme in the Writings of Jack Vance
part 1 - Introduction and the Demon Princes novels
to part 2 - Other Science Fiction by
Vance
to part 3 - Vance's Fantasy
version of
August 29, 2006:
all links checked on January 22, 2005, or later. When any one of these documents is revised, I
change the date.
Warning: The last changes to this document were because I discovered that Firefox, now a widely used browser, didn't show a number of the characters properly. In rectifying that, I may have removed some ellipses. It is possible that some of the quotations have words omitted, and should have ellipses. I'll check that as soon as I can.
If you haven't read a Vance
book, but plan to, and don't want to know what happens in advance, perhaps you
should stop reading. However, I don't think Vance is much read for his plots,
and you can read all of these documents without getting much of Vance's
wonderful way with words, or his wit. Read on, then, if you wish!
This is an
unfinished document. It could stand re-writing, and it doesn't treat all of
Vance's fantastic fiction. I am working on a comparison with Patricia A. McKillip, another
important writer of fantastic fiction who uses vengeance as an important theme.
I am also in the process of comparing Vance with Robert
Silverberg, also an important writer of fantastic fiction. More could certainly be done with the
philosophy and theology of vengeance, including trying to categorize what
happens to Vance's characters when confronted with a provocation to carry out
vengeance. Notwithstanding these deficiencies, the
document, as it is, may be of value to someone, so I am posting it in its present form.
I intend to revise it from time to time. I thank Southern
Wesleyan University, where I was a Professor of Science, (not literature!)
for computer facilities, and for obtaining an important reference for me through
inter-library loan. SWU is not responsible for the ideas presented, the
accuracy of the document, or the content of the hyperlinks. I would appreciate any suggestions or corrections.
(to
links on Vance)
John Holbrook Vance
has been an important writer of fantastic fiction for many years. According to
"Jack Vance: Science
Fiction and Mystery Writer," Vance was given a well-deserved Grand
Master Award from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 1996.
Vance won the Nebula Award, an award from the Science Fiction Writers of
America, for the best short novel in 1966 for The Last Castle, and the Hugo Award, from the World Science
Fiction Society, for the same work in 1967. He also won the Hugo Award for The
Dragon Masters, another short novel, in 1963. With these awards, he is one
of the few writers of fantastic fiction to have won both the Hugo and the
Nebula, and one of the few to have won two
Hugos.
An interview
with Vance in French by by Henri Loevenbruck and Alain Nèvant, in Science
fiction Magazine (January-February 1999; emphasis in original.) touches on
his use of the theme of vengeance:
SF-MAG : Comme chez Dumas, le
théme de la vengeance à l'air d'être un moteur pour vos histoires ?
J.V. : Oui et non. En fait,
la vengeance est plutôt ce qui anime mes personnages. Il faut une motivation au
protagoniste pour qu'il s'implique dans l'histoire. Cela peut être le jeu,
l'argent, tout et n'importe quoi. Or la vengeance est l'un des moteurs
les plus simples et les plus pratiques qui existent. Mais je ne suis pas obsèdè
personnellement par ce théme. Je suis beaucoup plus intèressè par le
théme de l'Aventure en gènèral.
Vance said that vengeance, or revenge, is one of
the simplest motivations, and he recognized that he used it that way a lot, but
he claims not to be obsessed by revenge, but to be more interested in the idea
of adventure.
The best treatment of revenge in Vance, which is,
unfortunately, not widely available, is David Langford's "Growing Up, Striking
Back: Revenge in the Work of Jack Vance," pp. 99 - 114 in Jack Vance:
Critical Appreciations and a Bibliography, edited by A. E. Cunningham.
(Boston Spa and London: 2000). (The entire book is a must for Vance scholars. It
has, among other items, articles by fantastic writers Gene Wolfe and Dan
Simmons.) I will use this work a little at the end of this essay.
Jack Rawlins (Demon Prince: The Dissonant
Worlds of Jack Vance. San Bernadino, CA: Borgo, 1986, also in a paper in Extrapolation,
24:356-369, 1983) has argued, at considerable length, that Vance seldom worries
much about plotting, although plotting is certainly not beyond Vance's powers.
He is right, but Vance has to have some excuse to hang a book on. As Rawlins
says, it is often a journey through strange lands, with strange cultures.
However, the excuse for such a journey is often to take revenge.
Jack Vance's five
Demon Princes novels (Star King, 1964;The Killing Machine, 1964;The
Palace of Love, 1967;The Face, 1979;The Book of Dreams, 1981,
all published by DAW, New York) are, together, the most extensive examination of
vengeance in fantastic literature. They portray the Kirth Gersen's quest to find
five secretive arch criminals, Attel Malagate, Kokor Hekkus, Viole Falushe,
Lens Larque and Howard Alan Treesong, across the sweep of the galaxy and kill
them. Gersen's parents were killed in a slave raid on Mount Pleasant, executed
by these five when he was nine. (Killing Machine, 5) He and his
grandfather survived, and the grandfather taught Gersen to live for revenge,
teaching him "to crave the blood of these men more than the flesh of woman."
(Star King, 28) As Gersen explained it:
"I've been trained to a certain function. It's all I know"
"Are you then just a mechanism? This is mindlessness, to be the instrument
of someone else's hate! Is revenge all you want from life?"
"Revenge? I don't think so. I have only one life to live and I know what I hope to
achieve."
"But why not try to achieve the same goals through a lawful agency? Isn't
this a better way?"
Gersen had no rational counterarguments. (Palace, pp. 6-7.)
The Demon Princes
novels are not simply adventures about how Gersen achieves vengeance. Gersen
does not always kill the Demon Prince involved himself, others may take their
vengeance, and Gersen is continually wondering about the effect of vengeance on
himself, as in these passages:
Gersen mused upon the vagaries of fate that had molded him into a--ruefully he
supplied the word--a monomaniac. What if, by some fantastic set of
circumstances, he succeeded in avenging the Mount Pleasant cataclysm up all five
of the Demon Princes--what then? Would he be able to retire, to buy country
land, to woo and wed, to bear children? Or would the role of nemesis have become
such an ingrained element in his nature that never could he draw back, never
could he know of evil men without wanting to take their lives? It was all too
possible. And, sadly, the impetus would come not from indignation or moral
outrage, but from reflex, a passionless reaction; and the only satisfaction to
be derived would be that of fulfilling a minor physiological need, such as
belching or scratching an itch. (Killing Machine, 60):
Where would he be without his
clear purpose? If he were less artificially motivated, he might not show so well
in comparison with the easy men around him, with their pleasant manners and
fluent talk. Turning the thought over, back and forth, Gersen began to feel
spiritually deficient. No phase of his life had occurred by his own free choice.
(Star King, 67)
By ordinary
standards he was a fortunate man, wealthy beyond the grasp of the mind. What of
the future? Suppose that by some freak of fortune he was able to achieve his
goal, with the five Demon Princes destroyed, what then? Could he integrate
himself into the normal flow of existence? Or had he become so distorted that
always, to the end of his days, he must seek out men to destroy? (Palace,
21-22)
Gersen is also
beset by qualms about the effect of his vengeance on other, innocent bystanders.
The first killing by Gersen described in the books is of a former henchman of
Malagate's. As he accomplishes this deed, so necessary to his life's goal,
"Gersen wondered if every such occasion would cause him so much nausea,
misgivings and misery." (Star King, 31).
He refuses to take
the wealth of this man, but tells the dead criminal's young son how to find
it. His conscience bothers him. (Star King, 32)
In the same book,
Pallis Atwrode is captured by an associate of Malagate, simply because she has
been sitting innocently with Gersen. Gersen feels "obliged to this young
woman; she is suffering through no fault of her own, but merely from
Malagate's desire to punish or intimidate me." (Star King, 128)
In the denouement
of Star King, Gersen identifies Attel Malagate by bringing the three
persons he suspects of being Malagate to a primeval planet, where Malagate is
used as fertilizer by a strange form of life, rather than Gersen killing him.
The closest that Gersen comes to vengeance on Malagate is that he pulls up the
seedling that grows from his body. It appears that this is at least as much to
preserve the innocent, pristine quality of the planet as to exact revenge. A
lesser character gets vengeance on an associate of Malagate. His vengeance is
prolonged, as the victim (his former persecutor), is caged in isolation on the
primeval planet, totally dependent on his former victim. ". . . daily I
demonstrate to Hildemar Dasce the tricks and conceits he taught me long ago."
(Star King, 160) That vengeance, and the events surrounding the detection
and death of Malagate, have cast a shadow: "This world was no longer innocent;
it had known evil." (Star King, 160).
The death of
Malagate is made less personal by the fact that he is a Star King, not a human.
"He looked back over his shoulder, and his face was no longer that of a man;
Gersen wondered how he could have been fooled even for an instant." (Star
King, 155)
In the second book,
Gersen swindles Kokkor Hekkus out of a large sum of money, and later kills him.
At a previous opportunity, Gersen does not attack, because "Kokor Hekkus must
know why he died and who killed him. To shoot him down in the dark was good, but
not good enough." (Killing Machine, 86) Gersen does, indeed, tell
Hekkus who is going to kill him, and why. (Killing Machine, 157)
Killing Hekkus can
be seen as an act of beneficence, for he is a hormagaunt. These are creatures
who resemble humans, and "who soak up other folk's lives." (The Killing
Machine, 13) His death takes place as follows:
The man on the floor had no face. The scalp, the face muscles showed pink and
red through a film of transparent tissue. The eyes glared lidless under a bare
forehead, above a black nostril gap. The lipless mouth grimaced, white with its
suddenly conspicuous teeth.
"Who--what is that?" asked
Alusz Iphigenia in a hushed voice.
"That," said Gersen, "is a hormagaunt. It is Kokor Hekkus. Kokor Hekkus--recall
the raid on Mount Pleasant? I have come to bring you retribution. You have
lived the most evil of lives. I should kill you with the utmost terror and
pain--but it is sufficient that you die." He pointed his projac. Kokor Hekkus
gave a wild hoarse sound, flung forward with arms and legs wide, to be met by a
gush of fire. (Killing Machine, 177)
It is almost as if
Gersen has killed a slug or a rattlesnake. Vengeance is achieved only in the
death of Hekkus. There is no attempt to terrorize the victim or have him plead
for mercy.
Gersen's killing of
Hekkus is in contrast to the philosophy of Hekkus himself:
To produce the maximum effect, one must identify and intensify those basic
dreads already existing within the subject. My goal is to produce a
"nightmare" quality of fright, and to maintain it over an appreciable
duration. Once an apparently sensitive area is located, the operator to the best of his ingenuity employs
means to emphasize, to dramatize this fear, then augment it by orders of
magnitude. (Killing Machine, 67)
The downfall of
Hekkus would not have been possible if Alusz Iphigenia had not refused his hand
in marriage. The villain in The Palace of Love has also been thwarted in
love.
The vengeance
attempted, and taken, in The Palace of Love, comes not so much from
Gersen's quest for the death of Viole Falushe, but much more from Falushe
himself. As a boy, living in Europe, he had been a homely, odd character, who
fell in love with the beautiful Jheral Tinzy, a schoolmate. She, of course,
cared nothing for him. Falushe decided to kidnap her and possess her, so he
kidnapped the school's entire female chorus, taking them off into space,
finding out too late that the object of the crime had been absent. Falushe then
became a monomaniac, desiring "more than love: he wanted submission, abject
quivering abasement derived from a mingling of love and fear." (Palace of
Love, 166) In pursuit of this, he later successfully kidnapped Jheral, and,
finding her attitude not satisfactory, had her "autofertilized" so as to
bear six children like herself. Each of these is raised by Falushe's servants in
a different manner. He hopes that one of them will be satisfactory to his
tastes. "Thus it shall be, forever and ever, until finally there is expiation,
until I can feel soothed and whole." (Palace of Love, 158)
Other, less
monumental revenges were carried out on his former schoolmates. A boy who made
fun of his pimples was inflicted with carbuncles. A girl who made fun of
Falushe's runny nose has her nose removed. (Palace of Love, 103)
Having first
identified Falushe, a difficult task, Gersen tells Falushe who he is, and why he
is being killed. As Gersen is about to kill Falushe, who is tied to a chair, by
throwing him out the door of an airship, the latter struggles to break his
bonds, succeeds in doing so, and falls to his death in the process. (Palace
of Love, 172-173)
The only Demon
Princes that Gersen actually kills himself are Hekkus and Larque.
In the
fourth book
in the series, The Face, after telling him who he is, and why he is killing him, Gersen
poisons Lens Larque, a Darsh, then, after his death, decides to finish
Larque's own scheme for revenge. Larque attempted to purchase a house among
the dwellings of a different culture, but was refused. As one of the Methlen
said, he didn't want a "great Darsh face hanging over the garden wall." (Face,
p. 224) Larque planned to modify the moon of that planet, so that it would look
like himself, so that all the Methlen would have to see a "great Darsh face"
permanently. Gersen poisons Larque. As he is dying, he tries to reach the
trigger of the system that will cause the necessary explosions all over the
moon, but Gersen prevents him. He begs Gersen himself to set off the trigger.
Gersen refuses. After he dies, Gersen reflects. Then he sets off the explosions
himself, and finally calls the Methlen who had rebuffed Larque, and, separately,
Gersen as well, to tell him to look up into the sky. Thus, even though Gersen
kills Larque, he carries out Larque's own grandiose scheme for revenge.
The Book of
Dreams is similar to The
Palace of Love. In both, a boy with dreams of glory is thwarted, then takes
deliberate and drastic vengeance on those who have thwarted them. Howard Alan
Treesong attends his high school reunion, accompanied by an armed force, and
begins to take his revenge:
I subscribe to the Doctrine of Cosmic Equilibrium: in simple terms, for every
"tit" there must be a "tat." Now for tonight's program. It is a little
pastiche called "A Noble Schoolboy's Daydream of Justice!" How fortunate
we are to have on hand many principals to the seminal circumstances. (Book of
Dreams, 158)
Treesong begins by
making the orchestra director, who was his former teacher, drunk, because the
director had accused Treesong of playing like a drunken squirrel. Then, because
a schoolmate had told him to "cool your arse," Treesong has his trousers cut
away, and the former classmate strapped to a block of ice. Gersen stops Treesong
before he is able to carry out his entire program of restoring cosmic
equilibrium, but is unable to kill Treesong at this time. He continues to seek
for an opportunity to do so, but Gersen's own revenge is preempted by the
parents of another of Howard Alan Treesong's victims, who have cooperated with
Gersen to lure Treesong into a position where he may be killed. They capture
him, and prevent Gersen from killing him, thinking that they have him under
their power for torture, when Treesong thwarts them, and Gersen, by drowning
himself. However, in spite of being thwarted by his compatriots, and by Treesong
himself, Gersen is able to tell Treesong why he is involved in retribution on
him. The series ends thus:
"You're so quiet and subdued! You worry me. Are you well?"
"Quite well. Deflated, perhaps. I have been deserted by my enemies. Treesong
is dead. The affair is over. I am done." (Book of Dreams, 235)
After
writing most of this page, I discovered that
Patrick Hudson had written
on the Demon Princes series, and had quoted exactly the same passage that I
quoted above in his essay on these books.
Although the books
are rich in details, taking Gersen through the variegated cultures that are
features of all of Vance's books, they are tied together by the single plot:
seeking the murderers for revenge. Obviously, Vance writes about vengeance. As a
matter of fact, the Demon Princes novels are not the only books that he has
written that deal with the subject. It is central to most of his writing.
Perhaps this is to be expected in an author who has been not only a writer of
fantastic literature, but is a prize-winning author of detective fiction.
In The Grey
Prince, (New York: Avon, 1974), Jorjol, or Muffin, is a human of a
subservient caste. The plot of the book revolves around his revenge for his
treatment at the hands of the Madduc family. His treatment was not willingly
maleficent, they simply did not allow him to eat with them, even though he
played with his contemporaries in the family. As Schaine Madduc, one of Vance's
few leading female characters, puts it: "How he hates us! . . . And think! We nurtured this hate by our own deeds. We were so vain and proud that we
refused to admit an Uldra waif into our Great Hall; think of the tragedy it
brought to all of us! I wonder: have we learned our lesson?" (Grey Prince,
173)
Not only is Jorjol
bent on vengeance, but a whole species, the Erjins, most of which work as slaves
or servants, almost succeed in wiping out the human population in a long-planned
act or revenge.
Wyst: Alastor
1716 (New York: DAW, 1978)
and Trullion: Alastor 2262 (New York: DAW, 1981) involve justice, as well
as vengeance, through the agency of Ryl Shermatz. Shermatz masquerades as a
journalist, but is actually an agent of the Connatic, who rules the Alastor
Cluster, or, more probably, is himself the Connatic. In Wyst, Jantiff Ravensroke,
who is visiting Wyst in an attempt to find himself, becomes the victim of a
group of unscrupulous persons who plot to kill the leaders of the government and
replace them. They steal his belongings, and attempt to have him killed. In the
process of trying to secure their hold on the government, they invite everyone
they can think of who might recognize that they are not actually the governors
to a public ceremony to be killed. Another unrelated group steals his money and
his ticket home, and chases the girl he loves off into the woods. They also ruin
Jantiff's eyesight. By appealing to the local office of the Connatic, Jantiff
has made the Connatic's forces aware of the plot against the government, which
brings Shermatz to the scene. Jantiff warns Shermatz of the impending mass
murder, which was meant to include the Connatic. Shermatz has Jantiff's eyes
and his intended restored, and all those who have acted wrongfully against him
are also punished, although there is difficulty in finding a proper retribution
for the plotters. This conversation between Shermatz and Jantiff takes place:
Jantiff shook his head in perplexity. "They have committed awful deeds. No
penalty seems appropriate. Merely to kill them is an anticlimax."
"Exactly! The drama of retribution should at least equal that of the crime: in this case an impossible
undertaking." (Wyst, 212)
In Trullion:
Alastor 2262, Glinnes Hulden has most of his inheritance taken from him. The
plot is too involved to relate here, but suffice it to say that by the end of
the book, those who have done the deed, and several other criminals, are
punished by Shermatz and Glinnes. Glinnes takes a more active role than Jantiff
did,
and, in fact, ends up with a fortune far in excess of his material losses.
Marune: Alastor
933, (New York: Ballantine,
1975) is similar in plan. Efraim of Benbuphar Castle has been deprived of his
memory, and sent off-world, in hopes that he will be unable to trace his
origins, and thus claim his inheritance. An agency of the Connatic helps him
locate his planet of origin, and return to it. He is recognized, and takes up
rule of his castle. In the end, with the help of nonhuman primitives, who are
themselves threatened by the the plotters, he regains his memory, and, using it,
is able to identify those who have deprived him of it, and see that they are
punished appropriately.
In some of Vance's
writing, society itself is the criminal, and vengeance is taken on it. To
Live Forever (New York: Ballentine, 1976) is an example of such a situation.
The society is set in a culture where striving to achieve sufficient "slope"
to be made virtually immortal is the central feature. The "immortals" are
cloned, and regularly impress their clones with their personalities and
experiences through advanced neurological techniques. Thus, if there is an
accident, the original is replaced by a person with an almost identical
personality. Failure to achieve this status within a limited number of years,
however, results in death. The result is to deprive most of the people of an
existence equal to the immortals, if only because the society cannot support but
so many. It also tends to suppression of real creativity, as any truly
unorthodox achievement will probably not result in gaining "slope." Space
travel is dangerous, so few will undertake it. Immortals won't, because they
want to impress their personalities on their surrogates frequently, so that
their personalities are not lost.
Garvin Warlock is a
new immortal who kills another immortal before his own surrogates are
established. He is to be executed, but escapes. In the process of trying to
reestablish himself in immortal society, he kills several people. He finally
precipitates the complete overthrow of the society by releasing 1762 surrogates.
As these are each given immortal status, this means that a corresponding number
of those who are in the caste below immortal are deprived of immortality, and so
on down the strata of the society. The resulting unrest causes a riot which
leads to the destruction of the agency which keeps the records of each person's
status. People are outraged, and demand Warlock's death, not knowing that a
reincarnation of one of Warlock's victims has killed him. The immortals know.
One of them says: "It is not enough that this man has been executed, he should
be executed and destemporized Nomad-style; then again; and again!" (To Live
Forever, 171) However, the
justice finally done on Warlock's surrogate is not that he is killed, but
that, in recognition of the real service he has done by destroying the system,
he is allowed to become a space explorer, finding new homes for the society to
expand to.
Unlike Warlock, the
hero of Emphyrio (New York: Dell, 1969) has not committed murder. He
upsets forever the structure of Halma, where an alien race has kept humans in
economic servitude for two millenia. In the end, the aliens are made to begin
restitution. The whole society is punished for a gross injustice. (Leon J.
Janzen's
longer
restatement of the novel mentions vengeance.)
The Durdane trilogy
(The Anome, The Brave Free Men, and The Asutra, all
published by Dell of New York, in 1971, 1972 and 1973, respectively) tells
another story of injustices against humanity. The Ka and the Asutra, two alien
races, have engaged in various attacks on Durdane. At the end, both are
repulsed, and the slaves they have taken are repatriated, through the agency of
off-planet humans.
Kirth Gersen is not
the only Vancean creation who does not always get personal vengeance.
Retribution is not the major theme of The Dragon Masters, (New York: Ace,
1963), but Joaz Banbeck has been wronged aplenty by Ervis Carcolo. He knows that
Carcolo must be killed, but finds this difficult:
Joaz took a deep breath. Why could it not come easier for him? Carcolo had twice
sought his life, and, had positions been reversed, would have shown him no
mercy. He forced himself to act. His duty to himself, to his people, to his
ultimate goal was clear.
He called to those of his knights who carried the captured heat guns. They
approached.
Joaz said, "Take Carcolo into Clybourne Crevasse. Execute him. Do this at
once."
Protesting, bellowing, Carcolo was dragged off. Joaz turned away with a heavy
heart. (Dragon Masters, 136)
Galactic
Effectuator (New York: Ace
Books, 1980) features Miro Hetzel, a cosmic private investigator. Several
unsavory characters, and an entire tribe of extraterrestrials, receive their
just deserts in the first of two stories in the book, "The Dogtown Tourist
Agency." The second, "Frietzke's Turn," offers a particularly
bizarre and fitting set of retributions. Faurence Dacre, like Viole Falushe and
Howard Alan Treesong, has grown up with unhappy childhood memories, because of
his exalted ideas of himself. He becomes a surgeon, and, one day is called to
operate on one Sabin Cru, who has been almost completely eaten by a sea
creature. Dacre uses this challenge to avenge himself for no less than six
fancied slights. He has taken the legs, the arms, (one from each of two men) the
nose, the jaw, and the external reproductive organs from six different men and
used them in rebuilding Sabin Cru, replacing them with various prostheses. (Each
of the organs taken is taken in specific vengeance. For example, the last man
married a woman whom Dacre also wanted, so Dacre vowed that this man would never
himself have children by her.) In the confrontation which exposes Dacre, Hetzel
suggests that, since none of this is Sabin Cru's fault, those wronged (one of
which was a medical educator) obtain surgical expertise, and reclaim their
organs from Sabin Cru, replacing Cru's removed parts with those of Faurence
Dacre. This is done.
Vance wrote
the "Tschai, Planet of Adventure" series, four books with Adam Reith as their
protagonist. Tschai is a planet where humans were brought, apparently as slave
labor, thousands of years ago. Many of them are either marginalized tribes or
villages, or slaves and mimics of, and subservient to, one of three non-human
races who have colonized different parts of Tschai long ago, the Chasch, the
Wankh, and the Dirdir, or an indigenous species, the Pnume. In City of the
Chasch, (New York: Daw Books, 1968) the first volume, Adam Reith, is the only
survivor of a Terran mission of exploration, which was shot down by someone from
the surface Tschai. As Reith labors mightily to try to find a way to get back to
Earth, he finds himself brining about great change on Tschai, a sort of massive
vengeance, by the introduction of a radical idea--the truth. The Chaschmen have become modified so as to somewhat resemble the Chasch, who
are reptilian bipeds with prominent foreheads. The Chaschmen wear attachments to
their bodies so that they resemble the Chasch even more than they naturally do.
The Chasch have not only enslaved these humans, but they have convinced them
that they will metamorphose into actual Chasch. At death, they tell their
slaves, their heads will split open, and a Chasch imp will emerge. Reith frees the Chaschmen from
one city of their masters, by leading a war against them, and freeing them from
their delusion.
In
Servants of the Wankh (New York: Daw Books, 1969), the revolution that Reith
brings about is a change in the relationship between the Wankh and their
imitators, the Wankhmen. It seems that the Wankh language is so alien to humans
that the only non-Wankh who have learned more than a smattering of it are the
Wankhmen, and the Wankh know nothing of the language spoken by all other species
on Tschai. The Wankhmen have been systematically deceiving the Wankh, to their
own advantage, and Reith finds a way to communicate this to the Wankh.
In The
Dirdir (New York: Daw Books, 1969), Reith and his companions carry out
vengeance on the Dirdir. The Dirdir are a hunting race--they hunt and kill
humans with cold-blooded efficiency, then eat them. The main arena for this is
the Carabas, a large area where the geology is such that sequins, the currency
of Tschai, are formed naturally. Humans come seeking wealth. Some achieve this,
but many are hunted and eaten. Reith wants funds to build a spaceship, and goes
to the Carabas. His scheme for obtaining sequins is simple but
revolutionary--capture hunting parties of Dirdir who have killed humans, and
take the sequins from them. In other words, no longer treat the Dirdir as
overlords, but as fair game, just as they do humans.
Throughout these books, Reith and the associates who have
attached themselves to him occasionally bring about vengeance on individuals.
They don't just bring about changes in the structure of the societies of Tschai.
Reith states his philosophy of vengeance: "Vengeance is not the most noble
activity, but submissiveness is worse." (Servants of the Wankh, p. 45)
In the final
Tschai book, The Pnume (New York: Daw Books, 1970) Reith commits
non-retaliatory crimes of violence. He ambushes two humans of the Khor stock,
and takes sequins and a boat from them. He does have a pang of conscience--"I
regret becoming a thief," said Reith, "but my need is greater than yours." (p.
70). He shows, in another way, that he has morals. He and his traveling
companion are being trailed by two human spies for the Pnume, who live in
tunnels under the ground. She suggests that Reith kill them, but he "refused to
waylay the old women in the dark and strangle them." (p. 131.) Not every revenge
is taken by Reith. Woudiver, one of Vance's worst villians, is finally punished
as a common criminal by the Dirdir.
Reith finds
that the Pnume have, like the Chasch, enslaved humans to constricted underground
lives for their purposes. One of the constrictions is that they have fed many of
them hormones, thus depriving them of the normal change to sexual maturity.
Reith happens to find, and take, an object of great importance to the Pnume, a
book of charts, showing all their secret tunnels. He makes copies, and threatens
to give them to the other races, who do not love the Pnume, unless they agree to
revolutionary changes. They must free their slaves, and stop giving them hormone
treatments. The Pnume have no choice. They agree.
Reith's
primary vengeance is to change the cultures of Tschai, making them more just and
truthful. As one of the characters puts it, "A new feeling is abroad across
Tschai: the sense that change is on its way." (p. 104) In the end, he never
finds out who shot down the spaceship he came in, but he has taken revenge for
humans, freeing some of the Chaschmen from their enslavement, and their
delusions about the relationship between Chasch and humans, freeing humans from
some of their fears of the Dirdir, freeing humans from enslavement by the Pnume,
and freed humans from lies about human origins--they are from earth. He also
freed the Wankh from the lies told them by humans. In the end, he and his
companions start back to earth.
Araminta
Station (New York: Tor, 1988) is the Book One of the Cadwal Chronicles. Most
Vance novels examine a strange culture, or, more likely, many such. There is,
indeed, more than one culture in this book, but that isn't really the emphasis.
As usual, there is a young man, Glawen Clattuc, beset by many troubles, and by
many enemies. The main culture is that of the title--a small colony, about 240, of humans on
a world which has been declared a nature preserve by the Charter, a universally
recognized document that declares Cadwal to be a nature preserve, off-limits to
humans, with exceptions, such as those living at Araminta Station. The Charter
grants title to Cadwal to The Naturalist Society, an earth-based organization.
The administration of the planet is undertaken by the Conservator, which, during
this book, is Egon Tamm, and the bureaus based at Araminta Station, including
Bureau B, which handles police and security matters. Bodwyn Wook heads Bureau B.
Glawen and his father are part of Bureau B. There is another human enclave, at
Stroma, a town built on a steep cliff over a fjord, so that it will have little
effect on the ecology of the planet.
Another culture is the Yips, humans of
mongrel racial background who serve as servants and temporary help--temporary
because the Charter doesn't allow anyone but a fixed number of humans to
establish any permanent dwelling on Cadwal. Yips normally are hired for six
months, then return to Yipton, an enclave on an island, not one of the three
continents, with permanent residences that those
who enforce the Charter overlook, because, they think, they need more than the
specified number to do the work of Araminta Station. A number of characters are
characterized with more depth than Vance usually does. This is one reason for
the book's length. The edition indicated runs to 554 pages, which is nearly as
much as the four Tschai books together. Many of those living at Stroma hold the
views of the Life, Peace and Freedom Party, which argues that the Yips should be
allowed to live permanently on one of the continents. Their reasons for desiring
this are suspect, as they seem to want to establish estates for themselves on
territory now forbidden, with Yips for servants. If the Charter were declared
null, or were missing, or were modified, they could do these things.
One
vengeance is for murder: Sessily Veder, Glawen's first love, is murdered early
on, and the murder isn't exposed until the end of the book, when Glawen fights
the murderer and lets the surf take him to a watery death. The murderer, Kirdy Wook,
supposedly Glawen's partner in the Araminta Station police, tries to get Glawen
killed by informing some other criminals, which Glawen is trying to investigate,
of his presence on another planet. Another vengeance, realized, this time by
colleagues from the police, is for arranging the death of the brother of Wayness
Tamm, the Conservator's daughter, who has become Glawen's love interest, in a seeming tourist accident that
could have killed Glawen, Wayness, and Julian Bohost, from Stroma, as well. This
killing would not have been possible without a science fiction setting. It is
carried out by mount animals, with properties the product of Vance's fertile
imagination, and exploited so that they are not controlled, as they are supposed
to be, by the four riders, but incited to attack whatever they can.
Two other
acts of vengeance are not
taken in this book. Glawen's mother drowned under suspicious circumstances. Two
Yips were witnesses, but did not try to save her, and Glawen and his father, Scharde Clattuc,
believe that she was murdered by these Yips. At the end of the book, Scharde is kidnapped. In a twist
like the one in The Face, one of the criminals apprehended by Glawen and
his colleagues asks Glawen to finish a project that he has been working on for
many years, namely building a new theater for Araminta Station. He realizes that
his own associates aren't trustworthy, but believes that Glawen can be trusted
with the money, and, before his execution, tells Glawen where his father is
kept.
Ecce and
Old Earth (New York: Tor, 1991) continues the Cadwal books. It is nearly as
long as Araminta Station, and one unusual feature, for a Vance novel, is
that most of the book deals with Wayness Tamm's search, on Old Earth, for the
original Charter, which has disappeared. At the beginning, Scharde and others
are rescued from a prison on the continent Ecce by Glawen. Again, Glawen himself
takes vengeance, this time on Benjamie, a Yip who was apparently involved in
Scharde's kidnapping, and has been involved in trying to capture the Charter,
which would give whoever possessed it control over Cadwal, and, among other
things, allow exploitation of the planet's land, regardless of the ecological
consequences. Benjamie is killed when he attempts to kill a man that both
Wayness and Glawen have been separately searching for, because he might be able
to tell them what happened to the Charter. (He has killed others, because they
were unable to help him find the Charter.) At the end of the book, Glawen and
Wayness return back to earth, and find the Charter, and sell title, for a
nominal sum, to the Cadwal Conservancy, in other words, Egon Tamm and the
Bureaus of Araminta Station.
The final
work in the Cadwal trilogy, Throy (New York: Tor, 1992) is shorter, but ties up
almost all of the loose ends. No one dies at the had of Glawen Clattuc. Instead,
either the evil characters kill each other, or the justice system executes them.
Indeed, Glawen doesn't revenge himself on anyone in the entire trilogy, except
for the two occasions specified above, when his own life is attacked. Vance,
therefore, is about more than vengeance, in these books and in his other
writings.
