A collection of short stories, originally published in the 1950s, which exemplify the modern hero in fantasy fiction and greatly influenced the science-fiction field. Jack Vance has received Hugo, Nebula, Edgar and Howard awards, and his latest bestseller is "Araminta Station".
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12 of 16 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Mediocre Vance is Still Great
Aug 22 2003
By Leo W. Early, Jr.
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
I'm not sure exactly what this book contains, but from the title and author it seems to include a novelette called "I-C a B.E.M." which Jack Vance wrote in the late 60s or early 70s about a secret agent whose body contained surgically implanted gizmos to give him certain advantages over the opposition, sort of like James Bond with more and better gadgets and the gadgets inside. The story was set on Earth in the very near future, which at the time was the 1990s. The agent carried out some kind of mission in equatorial West Africa. I believe there was a sequel called "The Augmented Agent".
This is not one of Vance's classics, but even mediocre Vance is well worth reading. The trademark irony and wit, the elegant language, the hero who does more thinking than slugging, are all here. Only the lush and well-described setting and powerful story lines of more classic Vance novels are missing. The setting here is contemporary equatorial West Africa, a boring place to me, and is described in perfunctory fashion. I forget what task the agent had to perform, which speaks for itself.
This is a relatively minor work by Vance, and I wrote this review only because the Editorial Review above seems bizarrely out of place. The Editorial Review, apparently of a work by James F. Tiptree, Jr., seems to have nothing to do with Jack Vance or "The Augmented Agent". I suppose it's conceivable that the volume contains both the titular works by Jack Vance and some short stories by James F. Tiptree, Jr., but I've never heard of an odder couple. If that's the case, I would expect the work to be listed twice, once under Vance and once under Tiptree, and the Editorial Reviewer to describe the Vance works in the Vance listing and the Tiptree works in the Tiptree listing.
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