This article consists almost entirely of a plot summary . It should be expanded to provide more balanced coverage that includes real-world context.(February 2011) |
Author | Jack Vance |
---|---|
Cover artist | Eric Ladd |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Series | Alastor |
Genre | Science fiction |
Published | 1978 (DAW SF Books) |
Media type | Print (Hardback), mass-market paperback |
Pages | 222 pp |
ISBN | 0-87997-593-8 |
Preceded by | Marune: Alastor 933 |
Wyst: Alastor 1716 (1978) is a science fiction novel by Jack Vance first published by DAW Books. It is the third and last novel set in the Alastor Cluster, a group of thousands of stars and planets ruled by the mysterious Connatic, which is a part of Vance's Gaean Reach.
Arrabus on the planet Wyst is an "egalistic" nation, where everyone is supposedly equal to everyone else. Arrabins work only two hours per week ("drudge"), assigned at random each week. In return, they receive a ration of synthetic food, and are housed in gigantic block tenements. Natural food ("bonter") is very rare, resulting in a flourishing black market trade with the "Weirdlands", the lands beyond Arrabus. An executive committee of four, selected at random and known as the Whispers, governs Arrabus.
Jantiff Ravensroke, a restless young artist from the planet Zeck, wins an art contest and receives a round-trip voucher and three hundred ozols to any planet of his choosing. Jantiff decides on Wyst, having read of its "glorious light, where every surface quivers with its true and just color."
He arrives in the city of Uncibal in Arrabus and is assigned a room, shared with Skorlet, a middle-aged woman. He is introduced to her lover Esteban and their young daughter Tanzel, as well as the peculiarities of the Arrabin mindset. It is not long before Jantiff learns of the darker side of Arrabin mores. Many of his belongings are stolen the first day, making him more equal to the other residents.
Soon after meeting the beautiful Kedidah, Jantiff is invited on a forage, an expedition into the Weirdlands to steal real food. However, the resident farmers have traps and guard dogs, and Jantiff returns to the city empty-handed.
Later, Esteban announces that he is arranging a bonterfest catered by Weirdland gypsies. Jantiff, Skorlet, Kedidah and Tanzel make tentative plans to attend. Skorlet gets Jantiff to pay for Tanzel by arranging for Kedidah's current roommate, an old man named Sarp, to switch rooms with Jantiff.
By chance, Jantiff overhears a conversation between Skorlet, Esteban, Sarp and an unknown individual about a mysterious plan; it is evident that this plan hinges somehow on Jantiff's drawings. Jantiff reports the suspicious conversation to the Cursar, the Connatic's representative on Wyst. The Cursar, without tangible proof, can only enjoin Jantiff to do all he can to uncover the plot.
Kedidah has become the sheirl for a hussade sports team. The team wins its first game, but when it loses, Kedidah is publicly defiled by Claubus, a twelve-foot wooden effigy. She commits suicide.
Jantiff attends the bonterfest. As requested by Skorlet, he brings his camera, although he replaces the matrix (recording element). The participants are flown to the Weirdlands by Booch, an aide to the Contractor Shubart. Oddly, when Esteban discovers that Jantiff has replaced the matrix, he becomes agitated. Later, Jantiff notices Esteban talking to the gypsies.
The meal is enjoyed by all, but after the gypsies depart, Tanzel goes missing. It is implied that the gypsies have kidnapped her to become an ingredient in their next bonterfest. Jantiff overhears Esteban lamenting the misunderstanding with the gypsies; he was the intended victim.
Jantiff returns to Uncibal to retrieve the matrix, which he now realizes must contain an image of the mysterious fourth member of the cabal. After being intercepted and pursued by Esteban, Jantiff leaves the matrix for the Cursar with the clerk. Several days later, he returns to the Cursar's office and learns that the clerk has been murdered and the matrix is missing. At the current clerk's urging, Jantiff tries to reach the spaceport at Balad to try to return to Zeck.
Jantiff stows away on a transporter, but is discovered. The conductor agrees to take him part of the way, though he learns that Balad spaceport accepts no passengers. Jantiff makes his way to Balad on foot, encountering strange witches along the way.
Lacking funds, Jantiff finds work at the Old Groar Inn. He meets Eubanq, Balad's port agent and an employee of Contractor Shubart. For 100 ozols, Eubanq offers to arrange a flight from Balad to Uncibal and its spaceport. Booch, the pilot who flew the bonterfesters to the Weirdlands, also lives at Balad. Jantiff works diligently to earn the money. He rescues a mute young witch woman, who he later names Glisten, from Booch and nurses her back to health.
Some weeks later, Eubanq notices that Jantiff's hands have the "yellows", a medical condition believed to be caused by eating witches' food. Jantiff returns to his hut and discovers that his savings have been stolen and Glisten is missing. Jantiff confronts Eubanq, but the townspeople decide to punish Jantiff for exposing them to the yellows. Fleeing into Contractor Shubart's mansion, he discovers Skorlet, Esteban, and Sarp. The townspeople smash his "yellowed" fingers and blind him. Afterward, Booch comes looking for Jantiff's money and to kill him; he is interrupted by Ryl Schermatz, a high-ranking official sent by the Connatic. Booch tries to kill Schermatz, but is himself slain.
Jantiff tells Schermatz what he has deduced: Esteban noticed a physical similarity between himself, Skorlet, Sarp, and Contractor Shubart, and the current Whispers. The cabal disposed of the real Whispers and took their places, even journeying through space to meet with the Connatic.
Schermatz returns to Balad with Jantiff, whose vision is somewhat restored, and arrests Eubanq. He reveals that a harmless, easily cured fungus causes the yellows, and that the persecution of the witches is to end. Then, he and Jantiff return to Uncibal.
They learn that the false Whispers plan a Grand Rally to celebrate the anniversary of the founding of Arrabus. Jantiff realizes just barely in time that it is a scheme to eliminate everyone who knows the plotters. It comes too late to save the guests, who are blown up, but Schermatz and Jantiff survive. Schermatz has the four impostors arrested and sentenced to death.
The original Whispers had recognized that Arrabus was falling apart economically and had intended to appeal to the Connatic for help. The fake Whispers had taken an entirely different tone with the Connatic, raising his suspicions and causing Schermatz (who may actually be the Connatic in disguise) to investigate. He intimates to Jantiff that the Arrabin society will have to change drastically.
Jantiff returns to Zeck, where some months later, a cured, speaking Glisten arrives at his door.
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.
Darkover is the planet giving its name to the Darkover series of science fiction-fantasy novels and short stories by Marion Zimmer Bradley and others published since 1958. According to the novels, Darkover is the only habitable planet of seven orbiting a fictional red giant star called Cottman.
Tatooine is a fictional desert planet that appears in the Star Wars franchise. It is a beige-colored, desolate world orbiting a pair of binary stars, and inhabited by human settlers and a variety of other life forms. The planet was first seen in the original 1977 film Star Wars, and has to date featured in a total of six Star Wars theatrical films.
Howl's Moving Castle is a fantasy novel by British author Diana Wynne Jones, first published in 1986 by Greenwillow Books of New York. It was a runner-up for the annual Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, and won the Phoenix Award twenty years later. It was adapted into a critically acclaimed 2004 animated film of the same name, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
The Spell Sword is a sword and planet novel by American writer Marion Zimmer Bradley, part of the Darkover series. The book was co-authored by Paul Edwin Zimmer, Bradley's brother, though he was not credited. The Spell Sword was first published in paperback by DAW in 1974 OCLC 156484864 and has been republished several times.
The Cat Returns is a 2002 Japanese animated fantasy film directed by Hiroyuki Morita, produced by Toshio Suzuki and Nozomu Takahashi, written by Reiko Yoshida, based on the manga The Cat Returns by Aoi Hiiragi, with music by Yuji Nomi, animated by Studio Ghibli for Tokuma Shoten, Nippon Television Network, Hakuhodo, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Mitsubishi and Toho and distributed by the latter company. It stars Chizuru Ikewaki, Yoshihiko Hakamada, Tetsu Watanabe, Yosuke Saito, Aki Maeda and Tetsurō Tamba. This is Hiroyuki Morita's first and only film as director for Studio Ghibli.
The Valeyard is a fictional character from the long-running British science fiction television series, Doctor Who. He is described by the Master as an amalgamation of the Doctor's darker sides from between his twelfth and final incarnations. In the story The Trial of a Time Lord, comprising the whole of Season 23, the High Council of the Time Lords appoint the Valeyard as prosecutor at the Sixth Doctor's trial, hoping to have him executed and thereby remove the sole witness to their near destruction of life on Earth.
Armitage III is a 1995 cyberpunk original video animation series. It centers on Naomi Armitage, a highly advanced "Type-III" android. In 1996, the series was edited into a film called Armitage: Poly-Matrix.
Transformers Generation 2 is a comic book series based on the Transformers: Generation 2 toy line, written by Simon Furman. It was published by Marvel Comics.
In the Best Families is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, first published by the Viking Press in 1950. The story was collected in the omnibus volumes Five of a Kind and Triple Zeck.
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.
Maske: Thaery is a science fiction novel by American writer Jack Vance, set in his Gaean Reach milieu, which was first published as a paperback by Berkley Books, the science-fiction imprint of Putnam, in 1976. It is about a young man, Jubal Droad, from the Droad caste on the planet Maske, who has a chance encounter with an arrogant nobleman, Ramus Ymph, who almost ends up causing Jubal's death. As Jubal tries to seek a job from the powerful noble Nai the Hever, Jubal finds himself involved with Thaery's intelligence agency. Jubal's desire for revenge overlaps with the intelligence agency's interest in Ramus Ymph, leading Jubal on a planet-hopping adventure to track down his nemesis.
Trullion: Alastor 2262 (1973) is a science fiction novel by American writer Jack Vance, first published by Ballantine Books. It is one of three books set in the Alastor Cluster, "a whorl of thirty thousand live stars in an irregular volume twenty to thirty light-years in diameter." Three thousand of the star systems are inhabited by five trillion humans, ruled by the mostly hands-off, laissez-faire Connatic, who occasionally, in the manner of Harun al-Rashid of The Thousand and One Nights, goes among his people in disguise.
The Cabal is a secret society of supervillains and antiheroes appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. As a more villainous counterpart to the Illuminati, the group was formed in the "Dark Reign" storyline very shortly after the Secret Invasion event.
Whisper of the Heart is a 1995 Japanese animated musical coming-of-age romantic drama film directed by Yoshifumi Kondō and written by Hayao Miyazaki based on the 1989 manga of the same name by Aoi Hiiragi. It was animated by Studio Ghibli for Tokuma Shoten, Nippon Television Network and Hakuhodo. The film stars Yoko Honna, Issei Takahashi, Takashi Tachibana, Shigeru Muroi, Shigeru Tsuyuguchi and Keiju Kobayashi.
Traitor’s Sun is a science fiction novel by American writers Marion Zimmer Bradley and Adrienne Martine-Barnes in the Darkover series. It was first published by in hardcover by DAW Books in 1998. The book falls in the Darkover time periods that the author called "Against the Terrans: The Second Age ".
The Passion Flower is a 1921 American drama film starring Norma Talmadge, Courtenay Foote, and Eulalie Jensen, and directed by Herbert Brenon. It is based on the 1913 Spanish play The Unloved Woman by Jacinto Benavente. The play was translated into English by John Garrett Underhill as The Passion Flower and successfully produced in 1920 in New York City. The plot of the film involves the forbidden love of a man for his stepdaughter which leads to tragedy and murder.
Marune: Alastor 933 (1975) is a science fiction novel by Jack Vance, the second of three books set in the Alastor Cluster, ‘a whorl of thirty thousand stars in an irregular volume twenty to thirty light-years in diameter’. Three thousand of the star systems are inhabited by five trillion humans, ruled by the mostly hands-off, laissez-faire Connatic, who occasionally, in the manner of Harun al-Rashid of The Thousand and One Nights, goes among his people in disguise. The novel was preceded by Trullion: Alastor 2262 (1973) and followed by Wyst: Alastor 1716 (1978).
Vandals of the Void is a young adult science fiction novel by American writer Jack Vance, published in 1953. It was his first novel, although he was already known for his many short stories.