In response to a signal from a planet over 200 light years from Earth, a ship is sent to investigate. Upon reaching the planet, two astronauts named Adam Reith and Paul Waunder are dispatched in a small scout ship. Soon after, missiles fired from the planet destroy the mothership and damage the scout ship, forcing it to crash land.

Injured, Reith and Waunder are soon captured by a band of primitive warriors. Waunder is immediately beheaded by one of the soldiers. Their teenage leader, later introduced as Traz Onmale, rages against the man and strips him of his rank and status by removing the man’s Emblem.

The scout ship’s crash also attracts the attention of rival clans known as the Blue Chasch and the Dirdir. Each newly arriving group drives away the next until Onmale’s soldiers finally chase the Dirdir away before transporting the injured Reith back to their village. Unfortunately, during the chaos, the Blue Chasch manage to depart with the wreckage of Reith’s scout ship.

Once healed, Reith manages to do exactly what you would expect in any “fish out of water” story—he violates the customs, and questions the beliefs, of Onmale’s people, resulting in a series of misunderstandings, some of which spark violent confrontations.

Eventually, Reith convinces Traz to join him on a quest to recover his scout ship from the Blue Chasch and together, they embark on a daring expedition across the planet. Along the way, they befriend a Dirdirman named Anacho, engage in battle against an insane beast known as the Phung, join a traveling clan of traders and rescue a young woman from a misandrist clan of sadistic priestesses, encounter a clan of sadistic pranksters known as the Green Chasch, overthrow the corrupt chief of a ruined town, and much more…

City of the Chasch is evocative of the Mars novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs with Adam Reith and Chasch taking the place of John Carter and Barsoom (as Mars is known to its inhabitants). Jack Vance does an exemplary job of revealing the complex cultures, conflicts, and characteristics of his world as the story unfolds. There are no significant infodumps here, allowing for a reasonably fast-paced tale. While there is nothing spectacular about the story, City of the Chasch holds up as a sturdy SF yarn and is the first in a tetralogy in Vance’s Planet of Adventure series. ( )

This was cool, very retro in a Burroughs-esque sci-fi/fantasy mashup kind of way. Pretty light on characterization, heavy on world building and about medium on action. I guess there are more books in the series, but I probably won't get to them, just too many other books out there that I might love. ( )

This is a tough one. Not having read Jack Vance I did not know what to expect. It's pure space opera and a bit adolescent. At first I couldn't get excited and almost put it down. Then the story picked up and became interesting.

I liked it once I realized was reading a more modern Edgar Rice Burroughs, John Carter of Mars. If you like the John Carter stories you may like Jack Vance stories. Similar style and similar hero.

As I read the rating went from 3 stars to 4. ( )

I first read this about 30 years ago, but after recently coming across The Pnume (Tschai, 4), I decided to read the whole series through.

I love Vance's compressed, ironic, decorative prose, his "lapidary style" as one friend put it.

Aside from that, this is pure escapist fun: Meet quirkly alien, have funny dialogue. Meet dangerous alien, bash and run.

Can't wait to read the next installment. ( )

_The Chasch_ (originally published as _City of the Chasch_) is sort of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ [b:A Princess of Mars|787282|A Princess of Mars (Barsoom, #1)|Edgar Rice Burroughs|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1240492073s/787282.jpg|1129624] as envisioned by Jack Vance. It is an entertaining Planetary Romance tale (or Sword & Planet if you prefer that designation) that describes the adventures of Adam Reith, Earthman and sole survivor of the Explorator IV a starship that is destroyed by unknown forces while in orbit above the planet Tschai. Reith is a Scout, meaning that he is a Jack-of-all-Trades uniquely equipped for survival in a hostile and alien environment. Good thing too, since Tschai is a world in turmoil that will throw everything it has at Reith.

Once the basics of mere survival are attained Reith begins to explore this strange new world and finds a menagerie of aliens and apparent humanity locked in endless and fruitless struggle. Vance displays his typically deft hand with the painting of bizarre cultures that spell out the various ways in which human (and alien) nature can be twisted by convention and assumptions into nearly unrecognizable forms. The planet seems to have once belonged to the mysterious Pnume and their insane kin the Phung in ages past. Now these creatures are rarely seen and only then as shadowy figures in the distance watching the current denizens of the world from their underground tunnels. The Chasch, who apparently ‘conquered’ the Pnume, are lizard men of three varieties: Old, Blue and Green, who war amongst themselves as much as with everyone else. The final waves of conquest were led by the Dirdir, a race of warlike, though apparently highly cultured aliens, and the Wannek (in the original publication the unfortunately named Wankh) an as yet unseen group of aliens. Each of these alien races displays varying degrees of high technology (they are apparently still space-faring) mixed with elements of antiquated, even barbarian culture (swords, armour, monarchical governments, etc.) Mixed in with these alien races is an innumerable array of human offshoots: some are client races to the existing aliens, thus the Chaschmen, Dirdirmen, Pnumekin and Wannekmen who seemed to have been genetically and cosmetically modified to display some of the physical characteristics of their masters and who each think that they are the ‘true’ human race derived in some way from their ‘parent’ alien race. In addition to these client human races are the various ‘barbarians’ who give fealty to no aliens, but tend to live in very degraded circumstances. All of these races on Tschai are seemingly intent upon killing each other, though none of them wish to upset the current balance of power and thus restrict themselves to small battles and bandit raids…none of the races is quite powerful enough to completely overpower the others and each of the aliens is capable of dealing a death blow to the planet should anyone attempt to overrun them.

Reith is the wild card thrust into this scenario. A typically competent and dry-witted Vance hero, he is both perplexed and aghast at the existence of so degraded an example of humanity on this planet and while he initially intends only to find his stolen space boat and return to earth he soon becomes embroiled in the local conflicts and decides that he must help his estranged and enslaved kinsmen. Along the way he will of course fall in with some allies who are impressed by his competence, technological know-how and ability to lead and meets the requisite alien princess in need of his assistance. I especially enjoyed Vance’s various cultures (esp. the fascinating Emblem Men whose culture is determined by the totemic signets they wear and which give the men a unique identity and motivation, the reality of these emblems is left somewhat mysterious…is it real or only a figment in the minds of the people enslaved by this ideology?) Vance’s signature ornate language was on somewhat less display than I had expected, and had hoped for, though certain characters did exhibit it. All in all this was an enjoyable adventure story with a little bit extra, but I wasn’t left gasping for more at the end. I will likely eventually continue the “Planet of Adventure” series, of which this is the first book, but I still think that Vance’s “Lyonesse” trilogy is his best work. ( )