New Jack Vance collection by Subterranean Press!

[Connavar]

Hard Luck Diggings: The Early Jack Vance

Vance, Hard Luck Diggings (preorder): Subterranean Press

Anyone else interested in this ?
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[dask]

I'm always interested in Vance I don't have. Of the fourteen stories here I only have seven which is an outrage considering I have at least seven Jack Vance short story collections, one a specialty item from Underwood Miller. What's so upsetting is the mass market paperback collections tend to reprint the same fistful of stories over and over, overlooking surefire gems like "The Masquerade Of Dicantropus", "When The Five Moons Rise", and the bizzare sounding "The Phantom Milkman." I have a bunch of uncatalogued sf mags from the fifties stacked in the garage. Maybe some are hiding their brilliant light of genius in them. I'll check sometime. As of now, I can't swing a new copy, but if I come across this book second hand I'll buy first and not worry about any silly questions later.

 

[Connavar]

I have only two short story collections of his so these stories are brand new to me.

The stories have been descriped to me in Jack Vance message boards, i was sold when i heard a Wierd crime story by JV.

I buy his collections as new when they come out simply because he is worth much more than 40 bucks to me and the shipping as international reader plus the books cost as second hand would cost way more than 40 bucks.

 

[dask]

Scored one, Connavar. Out of forty sf mags I found a Vance story I didn't know I had: "Where Hesperus Falls" (Fantastic Universe, Oct. 1956). When you find out which story is the weird crime story could you let me know. I'd be very interested. By the way, did you Vance wrote a semi-horror short novel, "Parapsyche", a life-after-death ghost story with a bizarre fight scene at the end. As far as I know it's never been reprinted outside of it's original appearance in Amazing Stories (August, 1958). Don't know why no one's done it yet. (Well, they could have and I just didn't hear about it.)

 

[Connavar]

Yeah i know about Parapsyche, i have heard its theme wise close to stories like World-Thinker which is the only 40s Jack Vance story i have read. It was very cool seeing JV do a true pulpy sf and with his own spin. It did start like any 40s sf but end like a JV story.

• [FONT=Arial, Helvetica][SIZE=-1]The Temple of Han (1951) - florid space adventure. Think C.L.Moore
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• [FONT=Arial, Helvetica][SIZE=-1]The Masquerade on Dicantropus (1951) - prospectors encounter an alien
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• [FONT=Arial, Helvetica][SIZE=-1]Abercrombie Station (1952) - aka Monsters in Orbit. Novel-length weird crime caper
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• [FONT=Arial, Helvetica][SIZE=-1]Three-Legged Joe (1953) - alien encounter (with prospectors)
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• [FONT=Arial, Helvetica][SIZE=-1]DP! (1953) - stands for Displaced Person. It's about troglodyte refugees
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• [FONT=Arial, Helvetica][SIZE=-1]Shape-Up (1953) - space-going villainy! Actually, it's a job interview.
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• [FONT=Arial, Helvetica][SIZE=-1]Sjambak (1953) - making a tv show of alien culture
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• [FONT=Arial, Helvetica][SIZE=-1]The Absent-Minded Professor (1954) - infighting among astronomers
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• [FONT=Arial, Helvetica][SIZE=-1]When the Five Moons Rise (1954) - lighthouse chiller, reminiscent of Noise
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• [FONT=Arial, Helvetica][SIZE=-1]The Devil on Salvation Bluff (1955) - people get confused in a multi-sun system.
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• [FONT=Arial, Helvetica][SIZE=-1]Where Hesperus Falls (1956) - an immortal gets bored
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• [FONT=Arial, Helvetica][SIZE=-1]The Phantom Milkman (1956) - minor ghost story
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• [FONT=Arial, Helvetica][SIZE=-1]Dodkin's Job (1959) - neat little satire of how society works[/SIZE][/FONT]

Novel lenght means i guess a novella, my fav Jack Vance story shorter than a novel is the novella Chateau D'If.

 

[dask]

Thanks for the descriptions. You certainly got your money's worth. "Abercrombie Station"---okay, read it years ago, then reread it last year after I stumbled across the sf mag it first appeared in at an antique shop downtown. Really liked the creature (ape-like I think) with the poodle face. Rest of the mag was good too. Read a lot of it in Starbucks. Kind of cool, while others were reading the latest Oprah book of the month or playing with their laptops, I was absorbed in the Feb. 1952 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories. Time well spent!

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

I bought the Wild thyme Green Magic and Songs of the Dying Earth from Subterranean Press so I may give this one a miss for now.

 

[Connavar]

Wont be hard for you to get the second hand anyway.

I got a brand new Jack Vance Treasury as a second hand a few months ago.

This is why i didnt spent money on Songs of Dying Earth i was waiting for this

 

[GOLLUM]

I'm happy enough with my Treasury and Dying Earth anthology. Too many other excellent author to check out for moi.

 

[Connavar]

Thats why i limit my tryouts of the new authors. I gotta read 90% of the greatest authors i like reading before giving the others a chance.


This one isnt so important if you arent a hardcore fan but you have to read Green Magic,Wild Thyme collection from last year which has his best SF short stories.

Those two collections you have are too much fantasy side of him.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

It's good to see that the stream of re-released Vance continues to flow, at whatever rate. Vance is one of my favourite SF authors, but something like 80% of the Vance books I own are the fruits of scouring used bookshops.

 

[Connavar]

I prefer new editions because of the VIE texts that Jack Vance approve unlike his old edited works. I get my second hand only from online cause of the language barriar.

I got 3 Vance books just a few days ago from a fellow fan where i had to pay only the shipping.

Have you read his famous sf short stories ?