Review of City of the Chasch (Planet of Adventure, #1) by Jack Vance

A classic set-up for an adventure novel. The premise allowed Vance’s mastery of the pulp s-f elements he had used in his other stories and novels to shine forth unfiltered.

Our main character crash lands on an alien planet and must survive. What more do you need to know? He must either make new comrades or conquer his new enemies or perish. His fellow earth-men have forsaken him – or don’t know he crashed? Men have become a space-faring culture, but they are unaware of such a pervasive presence as the inhabitants of Tschai? Best not to ask too many questions, like how does he learn the alien language so quickly? In reality I doubt any human could learn a non-human language in the space of one lifetime. The rituals and cultural stigmas he encounters are bizarre, but not entirely divorced from our understanding of less technologically developed human tribes. In fact, these aliens are suspiciously human. What he comes to find is that another travel-happy race or two have visited earth in the past and brought their own earth slaves to populate their gorgeous planet. This book is all about subjugation, about distinctions of meaningless appearance, about putting on airs and calling yourself better than someone else.

It is somewhat satisfying to watch Reith cut his way through their ranks and establish himself as a rightful leader. But the commoners who remain under him are helpless without their vicious masters to guide them. Are slaves really so incompetent? The book makes me wonder if Vance is saying that humans have allowed themselves to become slaves for thousands of years, never rising up or always bowing down, whether to some cult or some empirical conqueror, or becoming slaves to ideals and vanity, to self-serving ends. When the choice is servitude or death Reith seems to run straight for the latter option, but always manages to escape of course. Deus ex machina is the main plot element here. The wacky roadtrip that ensues is marred by a somewhat generic damsel in distress who is obviously stunning and immediately falls in love with him.

Remember, this is pulp-sci-fi. Gor was popular. Vance is a cut above his contemporary practitioners though for the facility of his language. His descriptive abilities are extraordinary. His elocution is actually amusing. Characters in his books talk like Vance characters in the same way that Henry James characters only speak one way – the way James writes. Vance seems incapable of imitating actual speech patterns, or is only interested in conveying the sense through a consistent tone of elevated sort of noble dialect of good English sentences.

I am still at a loss as to how Reith is never really in peril because he is just so good at getting out of scrapes. He is variously tricked, but the tricksters always get their comeuppance. He makes the brazen, macho choices, but is too easily side-tracked. He often plays into the hands of his enemies out of defiance and obscene self-confidence.

And yet this was one of the most incredibly fun books I have ever read.