Review Page: Emphyrio by Jack Vance
| Title: |
Emphyrio |
| Author: |
Jack Vance |
| Format: |
Novel |
| Genre: |
Science Fiction |
| Publisher: |
Millennium Books |
| Date of Publication: |
14 October, 1999 |
| ISBN: |
185798885X |
No. of Reviews: 1
Av. Rating: 8/10
Buy this book from the Amazon website.
10.10.2000 - Benvenuto - 8/10
List of Reviews | Bio
This is another one of those SF Masterworks things. Vance's The Dying Earth is one of the same publisher's Fantasy Masterworks, which shows you what kind of writer he is: there's not much difference stylistically or thematically between his fantasy and his science fiction, and in this book you will not find any of the equations, or scientist characters expounding theories earnestly to each other, beloved of many SF writers.
Vance is above all else a supreme prose stylist. His exotic, ironic, dry, ornate language is pretty much unique, and it renders the most prosaic passages as things of wonder and strangeness. This is the way Emphyrio opens: "In the chamber at the top of the tower were six individuals: three who chose to call themselves 'lords' or sometimes 'remedials'; a wretched underling who was their prisoner; and two Garrion. The chamber was dramatic and queer: of irregular dimension, hung with panels of heavy maroon velvet." Either this intrigues you, or it repels you.
The book itself is mostly set in the city of Ambroy, governed for historical reasons by an extremely repressive (although the inhabitants mostly don't see it as such) regime structured for historical reasons around welfare benefit entitlement. Ghyl Tarvoke, the protagonist, starts to chafe under the yoke, and more through mischance than whim finds himself swept up in the role of outlaw. He escapes narrow brushes with fate, tours the stars to learn that his people's relationship with the outside is not what he had imagined, and returns to solve the mystery of the legend of Emphyrio (a mythical hero whose drama he sees performed, highly inaccurately, at the start of the book) and to realize its relevance to the current situation. Ghyl is an amiable youth, quick to emotion and just as quick to regain reason, and the same is true for most of the characters, which makes for wonderful moments of bathos. Two scenes in particular - the bickering between the outlaws after they hijack a star yacht, and Ghyl's journey with the captured lords across the wilderness - are quite dreadfully funny.
I'm going to give this an 8, because although it succeeds admirably at what it sets out to do, its ambitions are modest. It is Vance in miniature - all his virtues tightly and neatly displayed. After reading it, you'll want to find more by this sadly neglected author, only a few of whose books are in print. But the Dying Earth series (four books under one cover) and the three Lyonesse novels are good ones to move on to, even better than Emphyrio.