THE DEEP ONES: "Liane the Wayfarer" by Jack Vance

"Liane the Wayfarer" by Jack Vance.

Discussion begins August 7, 2024.

First published in The Dying Earth (1950).



BIBLIOGRAPHY

https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?57662

SELECTED PRINT VERSIONS

The Big Book of Modern Fantasy
The Jack Vance Treasury
The World Turned Upside Down

ONLINE VERSIONS

http://baencd.freedoors.org/Books/The%20World%20Turned%20Upside%20Down/074349874...

ONLINE AUDIO VERSIONS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sMc7pnU-BU

MISCELLANY

https://jackvance.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Vance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_Earth
https://tinyurl.com/y2cmm3e4

I have this in a Grafton paperback of The Dying Earth, which I picked up along with The Eyes of the Overworld and Rhialto the Marvellous at a book table at a convention for coffee money.

Being a bit of a completist, I decided to get also Cugel's Saga - which I'd read previously from the library - in the corresponding Grafton edition, which ended up being considerably more expensive than the other three; and to add insult to injury it turned out that what I actually received after ordering a copy online was under a Granada imprint, not the Grafton one (it appears to be identical except for the imprint label and the colour of the spine).

Anyway, I just read it online.

I've got the Orb Tales of the Dying Earth omnibus--not a terribly pretty edition IMO, but conveniently complete. I know I've been out of the Deep Ones loop for the last few weeks, and I read this story last night.

I've been remiss with the Deep Ones recently too. Maybe I'll manage to catch up with the last few weeks' stories.

I think we've got the wrong touchstone for The World Turned Upside Down in the OP, BTW.

In the discussion of Moorcock's "Stealer of Souls", we debated whether Elric or Conan was the bigger murder-hobo. I submit that Liane have them both beat.

We get very little description of Chun; he speaks like a man, runs like a dog (so is quadrupedal?), has black skin (or at least a black back), and is, of course, preternaturally unavoidable.

Given his impetuous nature, one is surprised Liane has survived long enough to amass too many enemies in Kaiin. Presumably there's considerable skill to back up the bravado - not that it's too evident in his AFAIK only other appearance in "T'sais".

I wonder if this story could have inspired the strange Blue Oyster Cult song "Harvester of Eyes."

Presumably it is Chun himself who delivers the threads to Lith, taken perhaps from his half of the tapestry. Or are they manufactured from the golden eyes, their optic nerves? The ring-portal which fails to save Liane creates a precedent to make it feasible that the completed tapestry might transport Lith to Ariventa.

The editorial notes in the linked online version from The World Turned Upside Down are interesting. In particular, I note from David Drake:

Also—and this is a big one for me—he writes with a flat affect. Neither the narrator nor the internal dialogue of characters in a Jack Vance story explains how the reader should feel about what's being described. Liane, the viewpoint character in this story, is a sociopath, but Vance to a greater or lesser extent uses the same technique in all his fiction.

I was drawn to that tendency in the first Vance story I read ("The Moon Moth"). I didn't copy Vance when I began to write: I naturally wrote in a similar fashion. And because of that, I know that some people believe that because a writer doesn't tell readers how to feel, the writer himself feels nothing about the horrors he describes. That's not true of me; I very much doubt it's true of Vance.

I associate the technique described by Drake with James Branch Cabell, who typically gives reports of the actions and thoughts of his characters, but creates an ironic tone by abstaining from judgment of them.

>6 paradoxosalpha:

Oh, well, now I have to read this story.

Overall a reminder I've long wanted to read Vance in depth, especially the tales in The Dying Earth, and perhaps a nudge for me to do something about it.

Certainly this seems like the sort of influence Melzer would use for the song lyric. I have a book at home that may shed some light on it, quick online searches provided only dubious arguments.

I noted that Liane took care to bury the spice merchant, despite his annoyance at the latter inconsiderately staining his shoes. Presumably not a gesture of respect for the merchant so much as for gods or magic that might follow any neglect on his part.

>8 paradoxosalpha:
I also interpreted there being an agreement between Lith and Chun, but it didn't occur to me anything was needed for Lith to travel to Ariventa more than the tapestry itself ... perhaps even that, Ariventa isn't a mundane place so much as a personage trapped in that form. So much gold, similar to Lith herself.

>7 paradoxosalpha:

If the threads were made from the optic nerves, you'd think there'd be two each time, not just now as a special favour because Liane's eyes were particularly nice.

>10 elenchus:

I vaguely assumed the burial was to hide evidence.

>10 elenchus: Certainly this seems like the sort of influence Melzer would use for the song lyric. I have a book at home that may shed some light on it, quick online searches provided only dubious arguments.

Turns out my source, Martin Popoff's Secrets Revealed!, corroborates and expands the stories I found online regarding the inspiration being U.S. Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas, though for his televised appearance before a Senate Committee and not activity while a sitting justice. The story was little more than an anecdote, and there was no further quote or evidence from Meltzer. With no evidence to support me, I prefer to think Meltzer had read Vance, and the Abe Fortas testimony was merely a catalyst for coopting Vance's imagery.

I think this is the the third Dying Earth story I've read over many decades, and I just don't seem to be on Vance's wavelength.

While I appreciated Liane's comeuppance, Vance's violation of expectations by having the magic hoop play no significant plot role, and the joke of Chun truly being unavoidable, I wasn't that impressed by the story.

Chun seems to, in his way, be courting Lith and lusting after her. At least, that's how I took Lith not leaving her hut for a long time after Chun delivers his gift. She seems to fear, as with Liane, Chun assaulting her.