Every year there are one or two of my old favourite fantasy books that I pick up again for some reason. This year “Demon Princes” became one of them, because I suddenly had a desire to read about an old-fashioned anti-hero like the one waiting in the pages of this book (Kirth Gerson) for his adventures to be revived again by an understanding reader like myself.

The great thing about Jack Vance is that even with his potboilers he still entertains you with his florid use of language, the weird and wonderful names, and the little details he drops into his stories, products of his wild imagination that elevate even the most mundane tales. For instance, in one story a Vancean villain threatens the hero thus "Low grade assassins shall drown you in excrement! A thousand pariahs shall drub your corpse! Diseased curs shall drag your head through the streets by the tongue!", whereas a lesser writer would be content with "I'll get you for that!"

Vance is the Man!



Book Review SF = Speculative Fiction ( )

Five different novels dealing with the same theme, revenge of the Demon Princes for killing his family.

I made the mistake of reading the first three novels back to back to back. During the third I could feel myself losing interest as the stories were too similar to allow that kind of reading.

So, I spaced the 4th and 5th novel out months apart, and was I rewarded. Jack Vance's descriptive style of writing, his world building and narrative style proved interesting and entertaining. ( )

I discovered why this was on my 'to read' for so long. I am not a great fan of this book. This is a 5 novel series collected into 1 large book. The Demon Princes are pirates of space. In the far future, humanity has expanded into space, but there is a large 'beyond' area that is largely unknown and uncontrolled. Rich people and pirates control whole planets. A mysterious 'Institute' seems to possibly, maybe, conspire to keep civilization at its present level for some reason, but that level includes mass killings, piracy, slavery, whole planets of poisoners and other generally unpleasant cultures and planets. Unfortunately the pirate lords are shallow and cartoonish and the hero, Kirth Girson, is a uncouth James Bond-ish character with none of Bond's charm - just his skills, an apparently infinite license to kill and a compulsion to kill all 5 Demon Princes. The technology is simplistic as is the economy and sociology of this book. I really can't find anything to recommend about it. I finished it but I had to skip large chunks of books 4 and 5 to get through it. ( )

I've reviewed these separately at FanLit: http://www.fantasyliterature.com/fantasy-author/vancejack ( )