Galactic Effectuator is a 1980 science fiction/mystery anthology by American writer Jack Vance, containing the novella The Dogtown Tourist Agency and the novelette "Freitzke's Turn". Both stories are about an intergalactic sleuth, Miro Hetzel, who uses his wits to pursue challenging cases.
The sleuth Miro Hetzel, who calls himself a "galactic effectuator", resolves two mysteries in this combined short novel and short story. In The Dogtown Tourist Agency, he investigates a plan to deliver weapons to the fairly primitive "Gomaz" race on a distant planet called Maz. The story starts with Hetzel tracking a playboy, and then moves onto him taking a case for Palladian Micronics, a robot firm. Hetzel meets with Palladian's CEO, who cannot understand how a competitor is selling a similar robot at a much cheaper price. While the CEO does not know how the competitor is beating his price, the clues point to the primitive planet of Maz. To find the answer to the mystery, Hetzel must penetrate deeper into the primitive zones of the planet, where encounters with the aggressive Gomaz race add to his peril.
In the short story Freitzke's Turn, Hetzel takes on a case for Conwit Clent, who has had his testicles stolen by a rogue doctor. To track down the doctor, Hetzel has to go to his old university, where he studied as a young man. There he encounters a former rival, the brilliant Faurence Dacre, who may be the key to resolving the mystery.
Kirkus Reviews generally praises the "...pleasures of the Vance intelligence and the Vance prose style", but calls this volume a "...trifle exiguous", as "...there is a lot that might profitably have been left in here in the way of plot", as "...neither mystery is worth the elegance expended on it". [1] In all the review states that the volume has "[m]uch charm, little body." [2]
Speculiction calls Galactic Effectuator "...just average Vance", that, while "[g]enerally comparable to the simplicity of his earlier short fiction", but "[l]acking the sparkling dialogue of the Cugel works or Araminta Station". [3] Speculiction's review of The Dogtown Tourist Agency states that the "...climax of the story shows an imaginative twinkle lacking in much of the author's earlier short fiction, but not quite up to par with his more polished efforts." Speculiction calls "Frietzke's Turn" "...[n]ot up to the same quality as The Dogtown Tourist Agency", and says that perhaps the short story was "...a loose sketch of what would become The Book of Dreams seven years later." [4]
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.
The Galactic Empire series is a science fiction sequence of three of Isaac Asimov's earliest novels, and extended by one short story. They are connected by their early place in his published works and chronological placement within his overarching Foundation universe, set around the rise of Asimov's Galactic Empire, between the Robot and Foundation series to which they were linked in Asimov's later novels.
The Galactic Empire is an interstellar empire featured in Isaac Asimov's Robot, Galactic Empire, and Foundation series. The Empire is spread across the Milky Way galaxy and consists of almost 25 million planets settled exclusively by humans. For over 12 millennia the seat of imperial authority was located on the ecumenopolis of Trantor, whose population exceeded 40 billion, until it was sacked in the year 12,328. The official symbol of the empire is the Spaceship-and-Sun. Cleon II was the last Emperor to hold significant authority. The fall of the empire, modelled on the fall of the Roman Empire, is the subject of many of Asimov's novels.
Bill, the Galactic Hero is a satirical science fiction novel by American writer Harry Harrison, first published in 1965. A novella length version appeared in the magazine Galaxy Science Fiction in 1964 under the name "The Starsloggers".
Jonathan Strahan is an editor and publisher of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. His family moved to Perth, Western Australia in 1968, and he graduated from the University of Western Australia with a Bachelor of Arts in 1986.
William Bradley Strickland is an American writer known primarily for fantasy and science fiction. His speculative fiction is published under the name Brad Strickland except for one novel written as Will Bradley. By a wide margin his work most widely held in WorldCat participating libraries is The Sign of the Sinister Sorcerer, which concluded the Lewis Barnavelt series created by John Bellairs (1938–1991).
Far Horizons: All New Tales from the Greatest Worlds of Science Fiction is an anthology of original science fiction stories edited by Robert Silverberg, first published in hardcover by Avon Eos in May 1999, with a book club edition following from Avon and the Science Fiction Book Club in July of the same year. Paperback and trade paperback editions were issued by Eos/HarperCollins in May 2000 and December 2005, respectively, and an ebook edition by HarperCollins e-books in March 2009. The first British edition was issued in hardcover and trade paperback by Orbit/Little Brown in June 1999, with a paperback edition following from Orbit in July 2000. The book has also been translated into Spanish.
Star Guard is a science fiction novel by American writer Andre Norton, published in 1955 by Harcourt, Brace & Company. It is an example of military science fiction, based on European ancient history.
"Death Sentence" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the November 1943 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and reprinted in the 1972 collection The Early Asimov.
Be An Interplanetary Spy is a series of twelve interactive children's science fiction books designed by Byron Preiss Visual Publications and first published by Bantam Books from 1983 to 1985.
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.
Dragon and Thief is a science fiction/adventure novel published in 2003 by Timothy Zahn. It is the first of a six-part series, concluded in 2008, following the adventures of a reformed juvenile thief alongside a draconoid 'symbiont'.
The Foundation universe is the future history of humanity's colonisation of the galaxy, spanning nearly 25,000 years, created through the gradual fusion of the Robot, Galactic Empire, and Foundation book series written by American author Isaac Asimov.
Cauldron is a 2007 science fiction novel by American author Jack McDevitt. It is the sixth novel in the Academy series, featuring Priscilla Hutchins.
This is a complete list of works by American science fiction and fantasy author Jack Vance.
Nebula Awards 32 is an anthology of science fiction short works edited by Jack Dann. It was first published in hardcover and trade paperback by Harcourt Brace in April 1998.
Aunty Lee's Delights: A Singaporean Mystery is the first detective fiction novel in the Aunty Lee Series by Ovidia Yu. It was published in September 2013 by William Morrow and Company.
The Annals of the Heechee is a science fiction novel by the American writer Frederik Pohl, published in 1987 by Ballantine Books. It is about a dead space explorer's machine-stored version who is trying to discover why the Assassins, a mysterious type of pure energy beings, are threatening the stability of the universe. It is part of Pohl's Heechee Saga, which is about the Heechee, a fictional alien race created by Pohl. The Heechee developed advanced technologies, including interstellar space travel, but then disappeared.
The Gateway Trip is a collection of science fiction "tales and vignettes", including a novella, by the American writer Frederik Pohl. It was published in 1990 by Del Rey Books. It involves one of Pohl's recurring creations, the Heechee universe. The Heechee are a fictional alien race which developed advanced technologies, including interstellar space travel, but then disappeared.