Wild Thyme, Green Magic
By Jack Vance
Dust jacket by Tom Kidd
Trade Edition Hardcover - $70.00
Fine in fine dj.
OUT OF PRINT FROM THE PUBLISHER
ISBN: 978-1-59606-226-9
Length: 360 pages
Subterranean Press; fully cloth bound hardcover
When Jack Vance decided to become a writer, a "million words a year" man as he put it so pragmatically at the time, he also gave fantastic literature one of its most cherished and distinctive voices. Though primarily a novelist throughout his long and distinguished career, this Hugo, Nebula, Edgar and World Fantasy Award-winning Grand Master also produced many short and mid-length works.
Wild Thyme, Green Magic collects an alien's handful of these wondrous tales, among them the author's first-ever sale, "The World Thinker", the unforgettable "Chateau D'If", the stylish "Green Magic", the no-punches-pulled "DP", the macabre, almost Gothic "Seven Exits from Bocz".
"Who could not return from a visit to Jack Vance's world without feeling that he had been somewhere unique, that he had experienced things unavailable in our mundane world?" - Robert Silverberg
"Jack Vance is one of the greatest image-makers of English letters." - Frank Herbert
"Jack Vance is one of the finest writers that the science fiction field has ever known." - Poul Anderson
"You can't possibly pass up any book by Jack Vance...He has perfected the trick of creating new worlds so deceptively real that after a while your own home seems imaginary." - Jerry Pournelle
Table of Contents:
- Introduction by Terry Dowling and Jonathan Strahan
- Assault on a City
- Rumfuddle
- The Augmented Agent
- Green Magic
- Ullward's Retreat
- Coup de Grace
- Chateau d'If
- The Potters of Firsk
- The World-Thinker
- Seven Exits from Bocz
- Wild Thyme and Violets
From Publishers Weekly:
"The 'spun-silver' prose of fantasy grand master Vance (Lurulu) illuminates 12 delightful stories, some with intriguing afterwords by the author...this showcase follows Vance's career from his very first publication, 1945's 'The World-Thinker,' through 1961's fast-paced novelette 'The Augmented Agent' and 1974's Dying Earth story 'The Seventeen Virgins' to 'Wild Thyme and Violets,' the outline for an Italy-inspired gothic romance that reads like a surreal flash fiction novel and was first published in 2005. Most of the focus is on Vance's work from the 1960s and 1970s, which ranges from dramatic fantasy ('Green Magic') to classic science fiction parables ('Ullward's Retreat')."