Jack Vance, A Giant Of Fantasy, Has Died

Jack Vance, a fantasy writer I'm been in awe of since childhood, has died. He was thee years shy of a hundred.

He left a body of work that is truly staggering in its volume, scope, and quality.

I first stumbled on Jack in Melbourne's Space Age Books, a long gone palace of fantastique delights for fantasy and SF fans that was located a few doors north of Swanston and Lonsdale Streets.

The book I picked up was City of the Chasch,  the first volume in the stunning PLANET OF ADVENTURE series. It was the word ADVENTURE that hooked me.

More than other other fantasy writer, I found Jack's work magical and truly transporting. He cooked up fully-fleshed-out worlds of mind-bending wonder with just twenty-six carefully heated alphabetical ingredients. His works, set in galaxies a million light years from here, and in times few of us could even imagine, were so utterly complete, so real, so authentic in their customs, social structures, and histories (past and future), I never stopped wondering how the hell he did it, how he managed to get everything so right. And that's why I'm still in awe of his talent up to this very day. A sad day.  

Whenever friends or bloggers lament the sorry state of cinematic fantasy, I always think of Jack. My mind automatically turns to a man who set a literary standard that no film could possibly meet. Of course, someone will create a cinematic world based on Jack's imaginings, and someone will pilfer elements of what made Jack so visionary (Cameron did it in AVATAR), but nobody will do Jack as Jack did Jack. Nobody will get it right without surrendering quality and intelligence.

Before Jack, I read Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury, Ballard, Moorcock, Leiber, Van Vogt, Malzburg (Barry), Ellison, Bester (Alfred), and others too many to list here. I ate their works up. They took me to places beyond my experience, beyond my childhood when childhood wasn't so sweet.  When its realities felt harsh.

When I met Jack, I journeyed further, and I encountered a type of science fantasy that, though set in remote places, blended the grand adventure of R.M. Ballantyne (a favorite of my pre-teen years) with the exotica of fully realized alien worlds. His prose soared, his characters sweated 'til we smelt them, and his affinity for invention colored every chapter. One couldn't read about things like 'sky rafts' and not be pulled into Jack's boundless creations.  

If you've never met Jack, I envy you your first handshake. You won't let go. 

John Holbrook Vance, RIP

Avatar in the Valley of Vance

I'm not inspired to write much about Avatar; I'd rather write about Narciso Ibenez Serrador's La Residencia, which I saw on the same day and liked three hundred million times more; I'll get to that next.

Hayao Miyazaki's Naussica - In the Valley of The Wind is an absolute favorite of mine, a sci-fi ecology drama stunningly realized. James Cameron's clearly a fan, too, because he's stolen from it wholesale; then he added floating mountains stolen from Laputa - Castle in the Sky. Despite all that thievery, the film's still shockingly predictable.

Naussica - In the Valley of the Wind

Dances With Wolves gets borrowed, too. Wholesale.

But it is the work of fantasy titan Jack Vance that Avatar draws from most blatantly; his Son of the Tree, in particular, suffers the greatest act of pillage. Works such as The Dragon Masters, Big Planet, and Planet of Adventure quadrilogy provide rich source material also.


Despite all these rich influences, the result is fairly bland stew.

Yes, the visual effects are striking, but the whole shebang made me nostalgic for the time when special effects would serve the story. The "game changer" (fuck!, I hate that expression) here is that a flimsy waif of a story is now serving the special effects. Is that really progress?

Is it reasonable to expect an amazing script from a $300 million movie? I think so. Do you?

Laputa - Castle in the Sky

Final nail in the coffin is the casting of the charisma-free Sam Worthington. I didn't like him in the Aussie Macbeth and I didn't like him here one bit. Also, his wavering between an Aussie and American accent distracted me unnecessarily.

I mentally slogged through this because every plot turn is excruciatingly predictable; I just sat and waited for the inevitable to come and go.

What I did I like? Zoe Saldana as the blue-skinned heroine 'Neytiri'; she's terribly sensual.

While examining the features of the film's native population, the Navi, it occurred to me that these folks all have noses like 'The Tenia' (Jo Prestia) from Gasper Noe's Irreversible. They just don't possess his savagery.

Despite Avatar's budget and hype, it still doesn't come close to the cinematic magnificence of Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers, the best integration of CG, live action, and storytelling yet.