 First edition | |
| Author | Jack Vance |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Jeff Jones |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Planet of Adventure |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Publisher | Ace Books |
Publication date | 1968 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 157 |
| Followed by | Servants of the Wankh |
City of the Chasch is a science fiction novel by American writer Jack Vance, the first in the adventure tetralogy Planet of Adventure . It follows the attempts of a man stranded on the distant planet Tschai to return to Earth.
A human starship intercepts a mysterious signal and tracks it back to Carina 4269, a star system 212 light years from Earth. Two elite scouts, Adam Reith and Paul Waunder, are dispatched in a small scout-boat to investigate the planet whence it came. Seconds later, a missile destroys their mothership. The two survivors nurse the severely damaged scout-boat to the planet before ejecting into a forest.
The crash site is first discovered by a band of technologically primitive humans who wear special, personality altering emblems. Reith is amazed to find men on a heretofore unknown, distant planet. One of them casually kills Waunder; Reith remains undetected. A second party approaches in a large sky-raft, sending the humans scurrying into hiding. It is manned (as Reith later learns) by massive, alien Blue Chasch and their human Chaschmen servants. Their investigation of the wreckage is interrupted by a third group, belonging to the Dirdir. The Chasch ambush the tall, pale Dirdir and their human Dirdirmen, driving them off. The Chasch then haul the scout-boat away.
Injured and helpless, Reith cannot avoid being taken captive by Traz Onmale, the grave, mature boy-chieftain of the Kruthe, the Emblem-wearing tribe which killed Waunder. While his wounds heal, Reith incurs the wrath of the "magicians" who are actually in charge, by showing kindness and affection to a slave girl, a grave violation of tribal social norms. Before he can be castrated to make him more docile, he escapes, taking Traz with him. The teen is not unwilling to go, since he would be expected to sacrifice himself to the gods in the near future due to the misfortunes the tribe has faced.
On their trek, Reith rescues an outcast Dirdirman, Ankhe at afram Anacho, from a Phung, an extremely dangerous native. With no plans of his own, he joins them. From Anacho's explanation of Dirdirman theology, Reith deduces that the Dirdir were responsible for bringing humans to Tschai tens of thousands of years ago. His mission is now clear - he must alert Earth to the possible threat of the Dirdir.
The mismatched trio join a trade caravan. Among the other passengers is a group of priestesses, taking a beautiful female captive, Ylin-Ylan, home to participate in an important rite. Reith frees her, but on the lawless steppes, the woman is stolen by the caravan's scouts and returned to the priestesses. Reith rescues her from the seminary and learns that the mysterious signal originated from her people.
The caravan is attacked by Green Chasch just outside the run-down city of Pera, but Reith's group manages to reach safety. The town is ruled by Naga Goho and his brigands. Ylin-Ylan attracts his attention; she and Traz are taken prisoner, forcing Reith to organize a revolt to overthrow the tyrant. Naga Goho is publicly hung.
Reith's locator indicates his scout-boat is in the nearby Blue Chasch city of Dadiche. He sneaks in and finds his ship, apparently intact, but is spotted before he can make a closer inspection. He barely escapes with his life. When he returns to Pera, he finds to his chagrin that he has been elected the new chief of the city. He begins trying to bring civilization to it by organizing a form of government and, importantly on the Steppes, an army. At first the army is a sad sight, but Reith uses his experience as a soldier to guide them into something resembling a coherent force.
A group of Blue Chasch arrives in Pera, demanding Reith's surrender. When he refuses, a battle erupts, which the newly organized humans win thanks to the element of surprise; the Chasch did not think advanced tactics possible from humans. The Blue Chasch then send their entire armed might, but Reith arranges for the Green Chasch, the mortal enemies of the Blue Chasch, to ambush and wipe them out.
With Dadiche now defenseless, Reith and the men of Pera take charge. While their training made them good fighters, it failed to instill true discipline. The army goes on a revenge fueled rampage that, despite his best efforts, Reith is unable to control and the Blue Chasch and any Chaschmen who move to resist are slaughtered. He frees the surviving Chaschmen and gives them the city, after revealing that they had been duped. The Chaschmen had been told they were transformed at death into Chasch. Baby Chasch were implanted in their corpses in secret, to emerge before Chaschmen witnesses.
When Reith checks his scout-boat, he discovers to his dismay that it has been gutted. Ylin-Ylan convinces him to take her back to technologically advanced Cath, where he might be able to build a ship with the backing of her wealthy father.
Norby is a fictional robot created by Janet Asimov and Isaac Asimov who stars in his own series of children's science fiction books, The Norby Chronicles. His first appearance was in the 1983 book Norby, the Mixed-Up Robot, in total he appeared in 11 novels in the 'Norby' series. According to Isaac Asimov, although Janet Asimov did 90% of the work, his "name was wanted on the book for the betterment of sales [and he] went over the manuscript and polished it a bit."
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.
Planetary romance is a subgenre of science fiction in which the bulk of the action consists of adventures on one or more exotic alien planets, characterized by distinctive physical and cultural backgrounds. Some planetary romances take place against the background of a future culture where travel between worlds by spaceship is commonplace; others, particularly the earliest examples of the genre, do not, and invoke flying carpets, astral projection, or other methods of getting between planets. In either case, it is the planetside adventures which are the focus of the story, not the mode of travel.
Sword and planet is a subgenre of science fantasy that features rousing adventure stories set on other planets, and usually featuring humans as protagonists. The name derives from the heroes of the genre engaging their adversaries in hand-to-hand combat primarily with simple melée weapons such as swords, even in a setting that often has advanced technology. Although there are works that herald the genre, such as Percy Greg's Across the Zodiac (1880) and Edwin Lester Arnold's Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation, the prototype for the genre is A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs originally serialized by All-Story in 1912 as "Under the Moons of Mars".
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The Dying Earth is a collection of 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 is retitled Mazirian the Magician in its Vance Integral Edition (2005), after the second of six collected stories.
The Dragon Masters is a science fiction novella by American author Jack Vance. It was first published in Galaxy magazine, August 1962, and in 1963 in book form, as half of Ace Double F-185. It won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1963. The story describes a human society living under pre-industrial conditions that has bred lizard-like intelligent aliens to function as warriors, and an encounter with a ship from the alien planet, containing both the same aliens, and humans bred by them for similar purposes.
The Hostage of Zir is a science fiction novel by American writer L. Sprague de Camp, the seventh book of his Viagens Interplanetarias series and the fifth of its subseries of stories set on the fictional planet Krishna. Chronologically it is the third Krishna novel. It was first published in hardcover by Berkley/Putnam in 1977, and in paperback by Berkley Books in 1978. A new paperback edition was published by Ace Books in 1982 as part of the standard edition of the Krishna novels. An e-book edition was published by Gollancz's SF Gateway imprint on September 29, 2011 as part of a general release of de Camp's works in electronic form. The novel has also been translated into German and Czech.
Servants of the Wankh is a 1969 science fiction adventure novel by American writer Jack Vance, the second in the tetralogy Tschai, Planet of Adventure. It tells of the efforts of the sole survivor of a human starship destroyed by an unknown enemy to return to Earth from the distant planet Tschai.
The Dirdir is a science fiction adventure novel by American writer Jack Vance, the third in the tetralogy Tschai, Planet of Adventure. It tells of the efforts of the sole survivor of the destruction of a human starship to return to Earth from the distant planet Tschai.
The Pnume is a science fiction adventure novel by American writer Jack Vance. The last book in the tetralogy of Planet of Adventure, it tells of the efforts to return to Earth by the sole survivor of a human starship destroyed while investigating a mysterious signal from the distant planet Tschai.
Emphyrio is a science fiction adventure novel by American writer Jack Vance. It tells the story of a young man who overturns the foundations of his world.
The Gray Prince is a science fiction novel by American writer Jack Vance, first published in two parts in Amazing Science Fiction magazine with the title The Domains of Koryphon. Given that the novel's setting, the planet Koryphon, is integral to the plot, The Gray Prince may be said to belong to the science fiction subgenre of the planetary romance. Also significant in this regard is the work's original title, The Domains of Koryphon, which gives prominence to the setting of the conflict narrated in the novel rather than to one of its many characters.
The Viagens Interplanetarias series is a sequence of science fiction stories by L. Sprague de Camp, begun in the late 1940s and written under the influence of contemporary space opera and sword and planet stories, particularly Edgar Rice Burroughs's Martian novels. Set in the future in the 21st and 22nd centuries, the series is named for the quasi-public Terran agency portrayed as monopolizing interstellar travel, the Brazilian-dominated Viagens Interplanetarias. It is also known as the Krishna series, as the majority of the stories belong to a sequence set on a fictional planet of that name. While de Camp started out as a science fiction writer and his early reputation was based on his short stories in the genre, the Viagens tales represent his only extended science fiction series.
The Green Star Series is a set of five science fantasy novels written by American writer Lin Carter, published by DAW Books, from 1972 to 1976. In these novels, the concept of soul-projection is central. The series is written from the viewpoint of an anonymous, rich, crippled 30-year-old who seeks adventure—and finds it on a planet revolving around a green star.
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Underwood–Miller Inc. was a science fiction and fantasy small press specialty publishing house in San Francisco, California, founded in 1976. It was founded by Tim Underwood, a San Francisco book and art dealer, and Chuck Miller, a Pennsylvania used book dealer, after the two had met at a convention.