Like the professional wizards and sorcerers he so often writes about, Jack Vance has long been a master magician when it comes to storytelling, turning out marvelous tricks with words, using his wonderful knack for names, detail and dialog, his fine eye for rendering the vagaries of the human condition to deliver high adventure set on fascinating worlds and in fabulous realms that are second to none.
In a career spanning nearly sixty years, this peerless F&SF Grand Master has taken us from the Dying Earth to Lyonesse, from the Oikumene of the Demon Princes to the farthest corners of the Gaean Reach, Alastor Cluster and beyond, bringing alive on the page magical places we can only dream about.
Dream Castles presents a generous serving of this celebrated magician’s “performances,” ten fascinating tales from his long and influential career, among them his two Miro Hetzel adventures, “The Dogtown Tourist Agency” and “Freitzke’s Turn,” the intriguing “The Narrow Land,” a second outing for Jean Parlier in “Choldwell’s Chickens,” and the classic space opera of “Son of the Tree.”
Dream Castles shows a true magician storyteller perfecting his craft, one moment as journeyman finding a voice all his own, the next as fully-fledged maestro intent on exploring worlds and delivering adventure and wonder in equal parts, the very stuff that dreams are made of.
