The Demon Princes Series by Jack Vance
The Demon Princes Series is a science fiction saga by Jack Vance that unfolds in his imaginative galaxy known as the Gaean Reach. The narrative centers on Kirth Gersen, whose family was brutally murdered by a group of five space pirates known as the Demon Princes. Driven by a quest for vengeance, Gersen dedicates over two decades of his life to training before embarking on a complex journey to confront each of the Demon Princes. The story intertwines elements of mystery and planetary romance, showcasing Gersen's encounters with various villains, such as Attel Malagate, Kokor Hekkus, Viole Fanushe, Lens Larque, and Howard Alan Treesong. Each confrontational episode reveals intricate plots involving deception, rescue missions, and the exploration of moral justice. Notably, Vance's galaxy is primarily inhabited by humans and one human-like alien race, emphasizing the series' unique setting. The overarching themes involve the pursuit of justice and the personal transformation of Gersen as he navigates a richly constructed universe filled with adventure and intrigue.
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The Demon Princes Series
First published:The Star King (1964; serial form, Galaxy, December, 1963, and February, 1964), The Killing Machine (1964), The Palace of Love (1967; serial form, Galaxy, October and December, 1966, and February, 1967), The Face (1979), and The Book of Dreams (1981)
Type of work: Novels
Type of plot: Science fiction—planetary romance
Time of work: Beginning in 3524
Locale: Various planets of the Gaean Reach
The Plot
The Demon Princes series was the first long novel series that Jack Vance started, and it took the longest to complete. It takes place in Vance’s own imaginary galaxy of the future, the Gaean Reach. The civilized, law-abiding part of the galaxy is known as the Oikumene, and the uncivilized, lawless section, its frontier, is known as the Beyond. From this area come five space pirates, the Demon Princes, who have committed the massacre of Kirth Gersen’s family, a crime that Gersen pledges his life to avenge. Gersen and his grandfather, escaping this attack, journey to Old Earth, as Vance customarily calls it, where Gersen trains for more than twenty years to become the instrument of retribution for his family’s fate.
Vance’s Gaean Reach, like Robert A. Heinlein’s Future History and Isaac Asimov’s Galactic Empire, is curiously lacking in intelligent aliens, but the one race that exists closely resembles humans. They are the Star Kings, the race to which Attel Malagate, the first of the Demon Princes Gersen pursues, belongs. Gersen’s main task becomes identifying which one of three possible suspects is the Star King.
Vance, an Edgar-winning mystery author, deftly interweaves plot elements from the traditional mystery with aspects of the planetary romance. Gersen, for example, must rescue an innocent girl kidnapped by one of Malagate’s henchmen. The search for Malagate involves a simultaneous search for an undiscovered Earth-like planet. One of the clues that leads Gersen to identify Malagate is the alien’s lack of human reaction to this Edenic setting. Fittingly, it is the planet’s treelike inhabitants who kill Malagate, but when Gersen returns a year later, enough of Malagate is still left for Gersen to exact his own poetic justice.
The Killing Machine is both the translation of Kokor Hekkus, the name of the second Demon Prince, as well as a description of the mechanical monster he designs to terrify the primitive tribespeople of a world he dominates. Gersen’s complicated search for Hekkus involves him in the manufacture of this machine, swindling Hekkus and the Interchange organization (a group set up to bring order to kidnapping across interstellar distances), and the rescue of a beautiful woman, Alusz Iphigenia, from both Interchange and Hekkus. Hekkus, a seemingly immortal criminal mastermind, is a connoisseur of terror and fear. To indulge these primal emotions, he establishes himself as a wizardlike figure on the legendary world of Thamber. In locating both Hekkus and Thamber, Gersen brings about the end of Thamber as a world of primitive adventure and precipitates its entrance into the Oikumene.
Viole Fanushe, the third of the Demon Princes, is a sybaritic sensualist who has constructed the Palace of Love as a hedonistic hideaway. Once again, Gersen’s main task is identifying which one of a limited number of suspects is the master criminal and locating the planet he uses as a base of operations. This involves Gersen returning to Old Earth, becoming a journalist, and allying himself with Fanushe’s old mentor, the bizarre poet Narvath. Fanushe, it turns out, is as monomaniacal as Gersen. Fanushe’s obsession involves wooing cloned versions of a girl who long ago spurned him. Gersen’s revenge thus involves him freeing not one but four females in jeopardy; he simultaneously liberates the inhabitants of Fanushe’s planet.
In The Face, Gersen pursues Lens Larque, a sadistic, brutal trickster. As the title implies, he is the only one of the Demon Princes who does not mind his losing his anonymity. Gersen must flush him out by carrying out a complicated financial takeover of a company that Larque has formed to play an enormous joke on a society that has shamed him. Gersen deals with Larque shortly before Larque can avenge himself. Gersen, who has been similarly humiliated, carries out Larque’s scheme, but only after Larque is dead.
Howard Alan Treesong, the last of the Demon Princes to be dealt with, is also the most ambitious. He attempts to take over the IPCC, the Interpol of the Gaean Reach, and then to become head of the Institute, a quasi-religious body that places a limit on scientific advances that would interfere with human evolution. Gersen foils Treesong, tracking him down and breaking up his attempted revenge at his high school reunion. Gersen’s own final vengeance is interfered with by victims of one of Tree-song’s earliest crimes, who exact their own peculiarly apt punishment.