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Lurulu [Hardcover]

Jack Vance (Author)
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)

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Book Description

Publication Date: Dec 2004

Myron Tany, rebellious scion of a wealthy family, tours the Galaxy on a very questionable interstellar freighter, in search of his lurulu.

Against the backdrop of the Gaean Reach, first the story of Jaro Fath unfolds: from wildling orphan to spaceship captain, a tale of adventure and discovery wittily told. A boy haunted by memories of his dead mother’s terror, Jaro’s life is directed by an inner voice he can’t account for…until he returns to Kammerwelt, described in The Handbook of the Planets as the fourth world in the entourage of Robert Palmer’s Star, drifting in a far-flung sector of the galaxy known as the Dragon’s Maw.

Then Myron Tany, in thrall to his zany aunt Dame Hester Lajoie, sets off in her space yacht to find a faraway fountain of youth. The captain flatters Hester agreeably, but when Myron points out that the man is a swindler, he is marooned on an inhospitable planet with barely his passage home. Thus he is given the perfect opportunity to live out his childhood fantasies of intergalactic adventure, alien encounters and exotic romance. Or starve to death. Luckily, the tramp cargo vessel Glicca is just then in need of a supercargo, and Myron is it.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 208 pages
  • Publisher: Tor Books (Dec 2004)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0312867271
  • ISBN-13: 978-0312867270
  • Product Dimensions: 20.8 x 14.7 x 2.3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,242,443 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Review

Praise for Jack Vance
‘From a master storyteller…Grand yarn-spinning.’
Kirkus Reviews.

‘Vance at his most effortless and pleasant.’
Booklist

‘Jack Vance is a peerless creator of strange landscapes.’
Financial Times

‘Jack Vance is one of the greatest image-makers of English letters’
Frank Herbert, author of ‘Dune’

‘As a landscape artist, a gardener of worlds, Jack Vance has been for half a century central to both sf and fantasy. He has a genius of place.’
Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

‘Vance is one of the finest writers science fiction has ever known.’
Poul Anderson

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Jack Vance was born in 1916 and educated at the University of California, first as a mining engineer, then majoring in physics and finally in journalism. He has since had a varied career: his first story was written while he was serving in the US Merchant Marine during the Second World War. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, he contributed a variety of short stories to the science fiction and fantasy magazines of the time. His first published book was ‘The Dying Earth’ (1950). Since then he has won the two most coveted trophies of the science fiction world, the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award. He has also won the Edgar Award of the Mystery Writers of America for his novel ‘The Man in the Cage’ (1960). In addition, he has written scripts for television science fiction series.

Jack Vance’s non-literary interests include blue water sailing and early jazz. He lives in California in a house he designed and largely built himself.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Inside This Book (Learn More)
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As a boy Myron Tany had immersed himself in the lore of space exploration. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews

3.9 out of 5 stars
7 reviews
3.9 out of 5 stars
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
46 of 46 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars End of an Era? 3 Dec 2004
By Russell
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I'd given up hope on this one, as the publication date slipped back and back. Not to be morbid, but might this be the last new Vance book we get? If so, it must be read in an interesting light by die hard fans of one of SF's greatest authors.

And it really is a book for die hard fans only. Like Ports of Call, the almost total absence of a meaningful plot or real character development means it must be read for the wit, eccentricity and extravagance of the language. If you're new to Vance, start with the Demon Prince series or Araminta Station.

Lurulu is a whimsical journey through various ports and towns of Gaean Reach. It is beautifully written; it is funny - not 'laugh out loud' but 'wry smile' funny. And it reprises many familiar Vance themes - the footloose lifestyle, repressive relationships with family and tradition, portside drinking and camaraderie, over the top impresarios, strange local customs. Unusually for Vance, the family relationships concern mother/aunt and son, rather than father and son as is usual in his works (Emphyrio, Araminta Station, Wyst).

This is a collection of incidents, vignettes and impressions. No story or character is developed, nuanced or extended. The central character is almost invisible - some of the bit parts are more memorable.

If you have explored the Gaean Reach previously and happily in Vance's many books, then you will enjoy this as a commentary/companion to his more robust stories. Otherwise, you'll probably wonder what all the fuss is about.

If this is the time for a retrospective on Vance's career, what does Lurulu tell us? That quality of language and uniqueness of vision can carry a book in the absence of plot; that the real science behind science fiction is as much anthropology as physics; that certain images, descriptions and impressions can live on long after the last page is turned.

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33 of 37 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Vintage Vance 2 Dec 2004
By H. Beentje TOP 100 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I have been reading Vance for almost forty years; I know he gets sneered at, for writing 'just science fiction', and even within the SF community, for writing space opera. But for me, reading Vance is like drinking a fine wine on the veranda of an inn overlooking a far sea. It is a pleasure that does not pall.
This is a fine writer, who makes whole worlds appear with a pen dipped in many colours, smells and shapes. As soon as I see Excerpts from the Handbook of the Planets heading each chapter, it is like coming home.
This book is vintage Vance; I can't say better than that.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars A Threadbare Tale 23 Jan 2008
By C. S. Junker
Format:Paperback
Jack Vance's 1998 novel, "Ports of Call", started out well but began to run out of plot ideas towards the end, then stopped, literally in mid-air (OK, outer space). The sequel, "Lurulu", took Vance several years to complete, as his blindness has now progressed to the point where he can no longer type, and must use a tape recorder.

This is not so much a sequel to "Ports of Call" as its completion, and the two books are best read as a two-volume story. Vance's ear for language is undiminished after almost 60 years of writing, but there's almost no plot here. The characters rush from one planet to another, not staying long enough for a culture to be developed, so even Vance's famous backgrounds are only hastily sketched in.

For Vance enthusiasts, there are the usual small pleasures to be found, in the absence of a compelling story. Still, there's no denying that Vance sounds fatigued (he was in his early 90s when writing this) and after such a magnificent career, with such a profusion of ideas, he has finally run dry. 1994's Night Lamp is his last satisfying novel; since then he was written only Ports of Call/Lurulu, which is far from his best work.

If you've acquired a taste for Vance, this story will be mildly entertaining; but if you're looking for a good read with a meaty story, look for Vance's earlier work. There's a real treasure trove of the best SF adventure stories ever written waiting for you.
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