From Amazon.com
Jack Vance has specialized in science fiction decadence since his first stories in 1950. This novel's decadent world is called Fader, whose inhabitants have only leisure to pursue since they have a genetically engineered slave class to do their hard work. Fader is threatened by many dangers, but the pleasure-seeking inhabitants are paralyzed by lack of will. Vance has developed his own vocabulary, sometimes tricky to decipher, to convey an alien speech, but the meaning of his invented words emerges as the story unfolds.
From Publishers Weekly
Young Jaro comes home to find a man torturing his mother. The boy repels the stranger, then obeys his mother's command to kill her in order to end her pain. Then the fleeing Jaro is nearly beaten to death by malicious older boys. Brain-damaged, the memory of his early life mostly gone, he is nursed back to health by a childless couple. Adopted by them, Jaro leads a mostly happy life, but though his new parents want him to be an academic, he yearns to become a spaceman and to discover the truth behind his mysterious past. Vance (Throy, 1993), who has been publishing SF for close to half a century and has won just about every major award during that time, is near the top of his form in this leisurely tale of interplanetary adventure and financial skullduggery. The pleasure of Vance's books lies in his mannered, heavily ironic language, and in the bizarre societies he creates. His characters, most of whom are rogues, love verbal fencing and often alternate rapidly between violent hyperbole and terse understatement. His cultures abound in strange social customs, preposterous academic pursuits and elaborate costuming. This new novel is unlikely to appeal to the MTV crowd, but it will yield rich rewards to those with the patience to savor its humorous complexities.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
