Author | Jack Vance |
---|---|
Language | English |
Genre | Science fiction |
Publisher | Avalon Books |
Publication date | 1957 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (Hardback) |
Followed by | Showboat World |
Big Planet is a science fiction novel by American writer Jack Vance. It is the first novel (the other being Showboat World ) sharing the same setting, an immense, but metal-poor and backward world called Big Planet.
Big Planet was first published in Startling Stories (vol. 27 no. 2, September 1952), then cut and reissued in 1957 by Avalon Books. It was later issued as part of Ace double novel D-295, paired with Vance's Slaves of the Klau . It was further cut in 1958. The text was restored in 1978.
Big Planet had been colonized hundreds of years prior to the start of the novel by misfits, faddists, cultists and anti-government advocates from Earth. The environment is Earth-like, including the surface gravity; even though the planet is much larger than Earth (hence the name), it is much less dense, resulting from a scarcity of metal. As a result, a large number of technologically backward societies have developed, many of them ruled by petty tyrants and prey to lawlessness, murder, and mayhem.
Commissions from Earth have visited Big Planet at irregular intervals for 500 years to little effect; the majority of them are never heard from again. The latest, headed by Claude Glystra, arrives to try to stop the illegal importation of arms from Earth and halt Big Planet's slave trade, especially targeting Charley Lysidder, the ruthless, expansion-minded Bajarnum of Beaujolais. However, their starship is sabotaged by Lysidder's agents and crashes near a quaint village called Jubilith, near Beaujolais.
The survivors attempt to reach Earth Enclave, 40,000 miles away, armed with little more than their wits and a few modern hand weapons. A Jubilith resident, Natilien-Thilssa, whom they call "Nancy," insists on tagging along, despite Glystra's opposition. The team begins to dwindle as Lysidder's efforts and the dangers of Big Planet take their toll. Nevertheless, by sheer tenacity, resourcefulness, and some luck, Glystra manages to triumph over Lysidder, despite the presence of Lysidder's agents within his own small group.
Among the many societies, benign or bizarre, that Glystra and his companions encounter along the wind-driven monoline (their version of the yellow brick road), is the quasi-utopian society of Kirstendale. At first, it appears to be based on snobbish principles, but an odd twist reveals it to be surprisingly egalitarian.
According to science fiction scholar Nick Gevers, Big Planet
was instrumental in the development of the planetary romance form...perhaps the first attempt at a convincingly complete imaginary world in genre s-f....[T]he conviction persists that it is not the characters who serve as the book's protagonists, but rather Big Planet itself.
John Holbrook Vance was an American mystery, fantasy, and science fiction writer. Though most of his work has been published under the name Jack Vance, he also wrote several mystery novels under pen names, including Ellery Queen.
John Stewart Williamson, who wrote as Jack Williamson, was an American science fiction writer, one of several called the "Dean of Science Fiction". He is also credited with one of the first uses of the term genetic engineering. Early in his career he sometimes used the pseudonyms Will Stewart and Nils O. Sonderlund.
Planet of Adventure is a series of four science fiction novels by Jack Vance, published between 1968 and 1970. The novels relate the adventures of the scout Adam Reith, the sole survivor of an Earth ship investigating a signal from the distant planet Tschai.
Planet Stories was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published by Fiction House between 1939 and 1955. It featured interplanetary adventures, both in space and on some other planets, and was initially focused on a young readership. Malcolm Reiss was editor or editor-in-chief for all of its 71 issues. Planet Stories was launched at the same time as Planet Comics, the success of which probably helped to fund the early issues of Planet Stories. Planet Stories did not pay well enough to regularly attract the leading science fiction writers of the day, but occasionally obtained work from well-known authors, including Isaac Asimov and Clifford D. Simak. In 1952 Planet Stories published Philip K. Dick's first sale, and printed four more of his stories over the next three years.
The Gaean Reach is a fictional region in space that is a setting for science fiction stories written by Jack Vance. Those of his works that are set in a universe evidently including the Gaean Reach, whether within it or near it, have been catalogued as the Gaean Reach series or super-series.
Nick Gevers is a South African science fiction editor and critic, whose work has appeared in The Washington Post Book World, Interzone, SciFi.com, SF Site, The New York Review of Science Fiction and Nova Express. He wrote two regular review columns for Locus magazine from 2001 to 2008, and is editor at the British independent press, PS Publishing; he also edits the quarterly genre fiction magazine, Postscripts.
The Dying Earth is a collection of science fantasy/fantasy short fiction by American writer Jack Vance, published by Hillman in 1950. Vance returned to the setting in 1965 and thereafter, making it the first book in the Dying Earth series. It was retitled Mazirian the Magician in the Vance Integral Edition (2005), according to Jack Vance's expressed preference.
The Palace of Love (1967) is a science fiction novel by American writer Jack Vance, the third in his Demon Princes series. It is about a wealthy man, Kirth Gersen, who is obsessed with seeking vengeance on the remaining Demon Princes who killed his family many years ago. To get access to the elusive and secretive Viole Falushe, one of the Demon Princes, Gersen poses as a journalist and wrangles a rare invitation to Falushe's hedonistic Palace of Love.
Showboat World is a science fiction novel by American writer Jack Vance, first published in 1975. It is the second, stand-alone novel in a pair of novels that share the same setting, a backward, lawless, metal-poor world called Big Planet. The plot structure which involves a series of dramatic presentations, often with humorous consequences, has parallels with Vance's 1965 novel Space Opera.
Trapped is a science fiction novel written by the Canadian author James Alan Gardner and published in 2002 by HarperCollins Publishers under its various imprints. The book is the sixth installment in Gardner's "League of Peoples" series of novels, set in the mid-25th century. While the majority of the novels in the series take place in outer space, Trapped is set on "Old Earth", and does not feature the series' continuing character Festina Ramos.
"The Moon Moth" is a science fiction novelette by American author Jack Vance, first published in Galaxy Science Fiction.
The Last Castle is a science fiction novella by American writer Jack Vance published in 1966. It won the 1966 Nebula Award for Best Novella and the 1967 Hugo Award for Best Novelette. It is about a future civilization of wealthy nobles who live in high-tech castles, which are maintained by an enslaved alien race, the Meks. After centuries of slavery, the Meks revolt, destroying the castles and slaughtering their elite inhabitants, until only one castle is left.
The Five Gold Bands is a science fiction novel by American writer Jack Vance, first published in the November 1950 issue of Startling Stories magazine. It was published in 1953 as a separate book under the title The Space Pirate, and in 1963 it was paired with Vance's Hugo Award-winning novella The Dragon Masters in the form of an Ace Double.
The Culture series is a science fiction series written by Scottish author Iain M. Banks and released from 1987 until 2012. The stories centre on The Culture, a utopian, post-scarcity space society of humanoid aliens, and advanced superintelligent artificial intelligences living in artificial habitats spread across the Milky Way galaxy. The main themes of the series are the dilemmas that an idealistic, more-advanced civilization faces in dealing with smaller, less-advanced civilizations that do not share its ideals, and whose behaviour it sometimes finds barbaric. In some of the stories, action takes place mainly in non-Culture environments, and the leading characters are often on the fringes of the Culture, sometimes acting as agents of Culture in its plans to civilize the galaxy. Each novel is a self-contained story with new characters, although reference is occasionally made to the events of previous novels.
Araminta Station is a 1987 science fiction novel by the American writer Jack Vance. It is the first part of the Cadwal Chronicles, a trilogy set in the Gaean Reach, the other two novels being Ecce and Old Earth (1991) and Throy (1992).
The Cadwal Chronicles are a trilogy of science fiction novels by American writer Jack Vance set in his Gaean Reach fictional universe. The three novels are called Araminta Station (1987), Ecce and Old Earth (1991) and Throy (1992).
Dying Earth is a subgenre of science fantasy or science fiction which takes place in the far future at either the end of life on Earth or the end of time, when the laws of the universe themselves fail. Dominant themes include world-weariness, innocence, idealism, entropy, heat death of the universe, exhaustion or depletion of many or all resources, and the hope of renewal. A related subgenre set in the distant future of entropic decay is called entropic romance.
This is a complete list of works by American science fiction and fantasy author Jack Vance.
Slaves of the Klau is a science fiction novel by American writer Jack Vance written in 1958. It is about an Earth man, Roy Barch, who is kidnapped into slavery by a warlike alien race, the Klau and taken to a forced labour planet. Roy develops a plan to escape back to Earth by stealing an anti-gravity ship from the Klau and turning it into a spaceship.