The Last Castle [short fiction]

This novellete won the Hugo in '67 and the Nebular in '66, and it happens to be my very first reading of Jack Vance.

I expected nothing other than Silver Age SF, under-topics that were very important to the day, and what might seem to be very old tropes. So what did I get?

Silver Age SF, a fairly deeply buried reflection on a topic of "Doing The Job Yourself"... as opposed letting another class, be it race, socioeconomic, or sex, to do it for you. You know, American Work Ethic, and why the hell is everyone hiring maids to do all their housework, damnit? And of course we get the standard SF tropes that all you fans love, such as highly stratified societies and a huge War With Robots. Yeah! And don't forget castles and neat twists that show more make them seem almost like metaphors for tightly controlled generational ships.

The afterward tells us that he's bringing in some of the surface layers of Japanese Shogunate verbal niceties, too, so definitely keep an eye out in the read for that. :)

There's a ton of great ideas flitting and flying about here, and some of them have 2 foot wingspans even if they're craven cowards and don't want to dominate the text. Which is a shame, because the juxtaposition of all these tropes and a few more I haven't even mentioned is what makes this story a truly cool one.

Jack Vance was one hell of a talesmith, and I am thrilled enough to start building a collection right next to my tiny but growing shelf of Poul Anderson. Sweet!

Oh, and for those purists that hate to read old SF because of all the sexism, prejudice, and other cringeworthy social artifacts, don't worry yourselves with this one. It's pretty damn clean and interesting without being a misanthrope.

After all, the slaves get freed and the old masters have to get their crap together. :) show less

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2909813.html

I don't think The Last Castle has aged particularly well. The sstory is about a decadent aristocratic race of humans at the end of time, whose oppressed non-human slaves have risen and destroyed all but one of the humans' castles. Our hero (there are no notable female characters) makes an alliance with the barbarian humans outside the castle gates, crushes the slave revolt and sends them back where they came from. The racial undertones are rather difficult to ignore.

On the other hand, it's a triumph of world-building, even if the world is an unequal and racist one. The social order of the aristocrats is mapped out in loving detail, perhaps far too much of it, and the descriptions of the show more different environments of the far-future earth are vivid and distinct.

However, it's not really Vance at his best; apart from anything else, it isn't very funny. show less

While this has all the usual trappings of a Vance story - declining society, strange environment, weird creatures - it's unusual in leaning more toward the macho he-man resolution of its time than toward Vance's usual sardonic onlooker.

Award winner or not, I wouldn't put it in the same category as [b:The Languages of Pao|40889|The Languages of Pao|Jack Vance|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1169512189s/40889.jpg|1877052] or [b:The Magnificent Showboats Of The Lower Vissel River Lune Xxiii South, Big Planet|6467260|The Magnificent Showboats Of The Lower Vissel River Lune Xxiii South, Big Planet|Jack Vance|http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nocover/60x80.png|6657766].

A good introduction to Vance, and a fun story for fans.

CVIE vol IV

Weird. In a good way. It is kinda short, and still feels slow sometimes, but those were the days back then...

Like Wells but with more fantasy elements. The Birds and Phanes were cool. A little dated but cool. Against slavery and elitism.

Detailed prose, somewhat slow to catch onto at first, but book becomes pretty engaging. Although, I did not feel completely immersed, due to the length of the reading.

Read this in 2012 after having it forever. It has merit, but instead to building on the situation created in the first two chapters, it just grinds on. Discarded.