- Lizard in a Zoot Suit by Marco Finnegan
- Samurai Cat in the Real World by Mark E. Rogers
- Jack Vance’s The Face (Demon Princes, Book 4)
- Jack Vance’s The Book of Dreams (Demon Princes, Book 5)
- Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard, Vol. 1, by Various Artists
- Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard, Vol. 2, by Various Artists
- Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping by Matthew Salesses and The Anti-Racist Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom by Felicia Rose Chavez
- Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard, Vol. 3, by Various Artists
- Wanderhome, by Jay Dragon
- Elements of Fiction, by Walter Mosley
- Hidden Folk, by Eleanor Arnason
- The Wages of Whiteness (Revised Edition) by David R. Roediger
- The Katurran Odyssey by David Michael Wieger, illustrated by Terryl Whitlatch
- Dragons (Time Life Enchanted World)
- May We Borrow Your Husband? and Other Comedies of the Sexual Life by Graham Greene
- Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada by Anna Brownell Jameson
- The Cursed Chateau by James Maliszewski, illustrated by Jez Gordon
- Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention—And How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari
- Dinotopia: A Land Apart From Time by James Gurney
- Mouse Guard: Baldwin the Brave And Other Tales by David Petersen… and a song!
- Mouse Guard: The Owlhen Caregiver and Other Tales by David Petersen
- Thieves’ World edited by Robert Lynn Asprin
- My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf
- Fish F*ckers by Kelvin Green
- Saga Volume 1 by Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples
- Scourge of the Scornlords: Meatlandia Book III by Ahimsa Kerp and Wind Lothamer
- Love is the Law by Nick Mamatas
- Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating by Jane Goodall
- The Graveyard Book Graphic Novel by Neil Gaiman and P. Craig Russell
- Sirenswail by Dave Mitchell
- Roman Britain by David Shotter
- Saga, Volume 2 by Brian Vaughan and Fiona Staples
- Menace Under Marswood by Sterling Lanier
- The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir by Thi Bui
- Muse Sick: a music manifesto in fifty-nine notes by Ian Brennan
- Backwoods Witchcraft: Conjure& Folk Magic From Appalachia by Jake Richards
- Dictionary of the Khazars: A Lexicon Novel by Milorad Pavić, translated by Christina Pribićević-Zorić
- Modern Jazz Voicings: Arranging for Small and Medium Ensembles by Ted Pease and Ken Pullig
- Mammoths of the Great Plains by Eleanor Arnason
- The Home Brewer’s Guide to Vintage Beer by Ron Pattison
- The Planetbreaker’s Son by Nick Mamatas
- The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left Handed Poems by Michael Ondaatje
- Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob
- The Sword of Samurai Cat by Mark E. Rogers
- Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson
- Vermilion by Molly Tanzer
- The Punch Line by Zzarchov Kowolski
- Embassytown by China Miéville
- Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson
- Gyo (Deluxe Edition) by Junji Ito
- Saga, Vols. 2–3, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
- Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur
- Smashed and Tomie by Junji Ito
- Uzumaki by Junji Ito
- The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu
- Dissolving Classroom by Junji Ito
As you may have noticed, I’m mostly blogging to log my reading for the year, at least right now. Most of these posts come at least a few weeks after finishing a given book, to give me time to think about, process, and settle in my feelings and thoughts before discussing them.
So, I continued on in the new year with the Demon Princes novels by Jack Vance, of which this is the fourth. (I’d read the third back in December, so it wasn’t long ago.)
Before I get into the book, I’ll just note that while I’m posting some historical covers below to spice things up, the volume I read this in is the collection pictured above. Still, who can resist the allure of those old covers? The one on the left feels more authentic to Vance, in terms of the ramshackle kookiness of the lived-in, crumbling interstellar civilization Vance writes about. The one of the right is a bit too “sporty combat!” (shiny tank top and all) for a novel that covers the ground that this one does.
The twelve-year hiatus between books 3 and 4 makes it hard not to notice a drastic jump in writerly skill. This one’s much less in the “James Bond in Space” mode of the earlier ones (at least till the end), and much more… well, I don’t know, kind of a more sedate… wait, I’m not sure I can even really think of another book or film that depicts the methodical, slow-motion hostile takeover of a corporation for the purposes of flushing its famously sadistic and criminal current owner out of hiding so he can be assassinated.
Occasionally it felt like the latter group was vaguely coded as “foreign” (though not specifically racialized), while other times they felt much more like working class yokels from any American town… to which, all I can say is that while this universe still seems to be an awful place to be born female, at least the text doesn’t come across as racist so much as entertainingly misanthropic?
The more clod-like culture also has a major wrestling ritual that I kinda wondered whether Vance might have been using to poke fun at the pro-wrestling scene… but then I realized the timing was a bit off: this novel was published in 1979, while pro wrestling—though it existed in the 70s—wasn’t become really popular in the mainstream at the time and wouldn’t be for another half-decade or so; meanwhile, even in the underground it was kind of at a low point in terms of its popularity (or so internet sources suggest). It could be he was mocking pro athletics, though, which would fit with the idea that the latter group of people he was mocking were basically lower/working class Americans. Or maybe the wrestling is supposed to be a kind of emblem for the generally stupid and combative jockeying for respect and clout that happens throughout human societies, especially among men. It’s hard to say, except that it’s recognizable as very human despite it not mapping perfectly onto any specific institution as far as I could see.
Either way, this book felt like quite a departure for the series, because (at least to me) in that there was a lot more going on compared to the earlier ones: it’s almost like during his time away from the Demon Princes (and working on other things), Vance realized that the revenge plot wasn’t just a vehicle for a story, but that it was a potential vehicle for literally anything else he wanted to write about. That’s one reason this book is funnier and weirder than the others. It seems less intent on being taken seriously, and more about presenting a weird and sort of awful situation and then tracking how different people react to it.
One thing that’s clearer here than in earlier books is that Vance seems to see all societies as at least a little crazy and absurd (also, I gather, a theme running through his Dying Earth books, which I hope to finally read all the way through this year). A lot of what ends up being villainousness in his stories seems to be rooted in how that absurdity and craziness affects people who grow up in the thick of it. That’s an even bigger theme in the last of the Demon Princes novels… but I’m getting ahead of myself, and should save those thoughts for the final novel, which I’ll be posting about soon enough.
I’ll also note that it’s sad to see how one must now put “Jack Vance” in quotation marks when searching the man’s name, to avoid getting a flood of results involving a different American “author” (now turned political grifter in Ohio). The irony is that the younger Vance (no relation) is exactly the kind of guy you can see being a lackey to one of the Demon Princes… and getting flushed out an airlock without a thought once he screwed up (or just got on his boss’s nerves) one too many times.
UPDATE (12 Feb 2022): I stand corrected: Marc Laidlaw notes that pro wrestling did have a mainstream cultural presence as far back as the 1960s:
https://twitter.com/marc_laidlaw/status/1492015687069421568
And Elijah Elder notes that sports spectacles are something Vance liked to write about:
Have you read Trullion yet? Vance liked to write about sports and spectacle.
— Russet Chatham (@Lige1) February 11, 2022
… and also speculates whether it might not have been a response to Dune:
Love that book. It makes wonder if the desert dwelling clod culture you describe is any way a response to Vance's friend Frank Herbert's desert dwellers?
— Russet Chatham (@Lige1) February 11, 2022
In fact, Twitter responses seem to be the new Comments Section of the 20s. You can follow along here.