I have fond memories of reading Jack Vance when I was a young science fiction fan. I even have a memory of reading a review of the first book in this trilogy and thinking that the idea of an open-ended series based on various worlds in a dense star cluster was a pretty awesome one -- but I never got around to reading it or the two others in this volume.

How does it read, decades later?

I have to shamefacedly admit that I could not finish this omnibus. The first two novels are fine ("Marune" being particularly good) but the final book is a ham-fisted satire on collectivism that proves only that Jack Vance was no Jonathan Swift. I found it excruciating, and so -- very uncharacteristically for me -- I had to stop, and put the book down.

I will furtively retreat to my adolescent memories of stories like "The Dragon Masters." ( )

A pity. Jack Vance is usually so much better... Three stories following more or less the same pattern, with kind of similar resolutions at the end. The context really lent itself to so much more, but the end result turned out somewhat banal and trivial. "The Dying Earth" stories are infinitelly better... ( )

A pity. Jack Vance is usually so much better... Three stories following more or less the same pattern, with kind of similar resolutions at the end. The context really lent itself to so much more, but the end result turned out somewhat banal and trivial. "The Dying Earth" stories are infinitelly better... ( )

A good read: Alastor is a compendium of three novels set in the same science fiction universe: Trullion:Alastor 2262 (first published in 1973), Marune:Alastor 933 (1975), and Wyst:Alastor 1716 (1978). The name Alastor refers to a political entity of 3000 worlds comprising trillions of humans all ruled by the Connatic, a benevolent autocrat. Each story is centered on a particular world of Alastor, each with its own peculiar customs, a staple of Jack Vance's writings.Trullion is the weakest of the three stories. Unlike most of Vance's stories, this one never captures the attention of the reader. The wrap up of the murder mystery that is central to the plot is unconvincing as are some of the more arcane plot twists. It should be mentioned that the plot outline of Trullion in the book description above, as well as on the back of the book itself, bears little resemblance to the actual plot. Trullion is about a man who leaves his home to serve in the Connatic's space navy and returns years later to claim his rightful inheritance. Marune is a typical Vance story. The protagonist is a sympathetic character and the world of Marune contains all of the bizarre social conventions that one expects from Vance. My only complaint is that he pulls a deus ex machina to resolve the story. Wyst is a blatant critique of communism. Vance has a grand time ridiculing the inherent contradictions of a society that attempts to enforce a radical brand of 'egalism'. One aspect that makes this story unusual is the personality of Jantiff Rovenstroke, the protagonist. For much of the story Jantiff is a weak willed, unsympathetic, character. Towards the end, he is forced to fend for himself and surprisingly demonstrates much ingenuity and self-reliance. This transformation makes Wyst the best of the three Alastor stories.

Three adventure novels set in Vance's extremely detailed but probably impossible-to-lexicon SF universe. (Somebody should try, though)

Vance novels certainly follow a sort of formula: iconoclast hero encounters bizarre and corrupt cultures, meets a "bad" girl and a "good" girl, discovers a sinister plot, and ends up with one of the girls after the plot is foiled.

Still, there is something deeply enjoyable about his writing and a weird sense of timelessness in his SF milieu that makes me return to it again and again. These are three typical examples of his writing, but they are typically good. ( )