I'll state my disclaimer up front: Jack Vance is my favorite writer, and has been so for nearly 22 years. Since picking up the collection, The Narrow Land, in 1985 upon the recommendation of sf writer Øyvind Myhre, I've bought and read all Vance's books in countless editions and imprints. I own almost all of the Underwood-Miller hardcovers, including a few rare ones. I initially signed up for the Vance Integral Edition, but later balked at the $1000 price tag. And yet, I bought without hesitation this latest collection of Vance stories, even though I have read them all before, some of them multiple times. Vance has that effect on his fans. In fact, while looking up the exact words for the title of this review, from Lyonesse: Madouc, I could not resist re-reading the entire novel. I then went back and read the other two books in the series. When I noticed two Magnus Ridolph stories in The Jack Vance Treasury, I had to pick up and re-read all the tales in The Complete Magnus Ridolph.

As in any retrospective collection, the keenest criticism lies in the selection. Despite weighing in at over 225,000 words, this book contains only a fraction of Vance's work. Many key stories are left out, a few are too similar. Where is “The Narrow Land,” or that ultimate tale of revenge, “Chateau d'If?” Still, many of the works are essential Vance: inventive, erudite, complex, graceful, and more. Since Vance stopped writing new material a couple of years ago, after the publication of his final novel, Lurulu, and most of his recent works were novels, these stories tend to be older works. Vance's career spanned six decades of work, starting with “The World Thinker” (another story missing from this book) in 1945, and he has written over sixty books. He is a winner of the Hugo, the Nebula, World Fantasy, and the Edgar (for his mystery novel, The Man in the Cage), and a Science Fiction Writers of America Grand Master. Vance is greatly admired and respected by his peers, but popular and commercial success always seem to have eluded him. His dying earth stories, Cugel the Clever books, the incomparable Lyonesse trilogy, and his Demon Prince quintet and Planet of Adventure quartet of novels mark, in my opinion, the highlights of his career.

Vance's shorter works, from brief sketches to fully realized novella length studies, all show up in this collection. Certain common threads tend to run through most of the stories. Many of the stories deal directly with the tipping points and causes of change in societies after years of ossifying tradition. This is prevalent especially in the longer works, such as “The Miracle Workers,” “The Dragon Masters,” and “The Last Castle.” They show a build-up of tension between two forces, often invaders and natives who have co-existed uneasily for years (often decades or centuries). The need for change often is both inevitable and necessary, yet usually most of the characters resist out of conservative beliefs in tradition. Choosing sides as a reader is not always easy, yet Vance seems to favor not so much one over the other, but rather the agents of change, the innovators and early-adopters, the rebels and risk-takers.

The stories themselves range from detective efforts, to outright fantasy in the tradition of Lord Dunsany and Clark Ashton Smith. Vance may have literary forebears (P. G. Wodehouse and Jeffrey Farnol are cited as influences as well), but he never imitates. To use a word that often appears in his own fiction, Vance is non-pareil.

This treasury of tales proves valuable for new readers of Vance as well as old fans. Brief snippets of Vance's own words about the writing craft appear after each tale (though all are reprinted from many years ago, and do not always speak specifically to the tale that it follows). A fascinating autobiographical essay concludes the book, although it, too, is a reprint (albeit a very recent one). This essay lifts the curtain and reveals a little of Vance the person; Vance usually lets his fiction do the talking, and rarely himself steps out into the spotlight. While no recluse, Vance rarely frequented sf conventions like many other writers, and thus remains largely unknown to fans. Few of his works are currently in print, despite having published over sixty books in several genres. Many of his rarer works fetch vast sums on the used book market. This collection showcases many stories that are available only to those readers who trawl through used book stores or online clearinghouse sites like abebooks.com.

Several of Vance's longer works align well with libertarian ideas, such as Blue World, Emphyrio, Wyst: Alastor 1716, the Durdane trilogy, and to some degree, Big Planet. Some of his shorter works also display elements that libertarians can applaud, but often due to the shorter nature of these works, they are more focused on individuals and the recurring theme of change (often for the sake of change itself), to examine more political rooted ideas. In some cases, such as with his Dying Earth or Cugel books, morality seems non-existent or meaningless. This often also is the case in some of his less favorable societies encountered by more scrupulous protagonists; although not overtly evil, most of the antagonists in Vance's works often seek to take advantage of any and every person. Vance is a widely traveled individual, and it's certainly possible that encounters as a tourist with people from other cultures influence such negative opinions of people. More often than not, tourists or foreigners are seen as fair game by less scrupulous people. Even some regular individuals who might not rob their own neighbors see nothing wrong with lifting extra cash from strangers. One can see perhaps some of the same themes in many of Edgar Rice Burroughs' books, another influence sometimes cited by readers and critics of Vance. ERB's societies, especially in his Pellucidar novels, display similar stranger-averse societies; suspicion is normal, and treachery constant.

Perhaps Jack Vance is not a writer for every taste. That might be the reason his fame still suffers. His style often seems languid, too laconic or slow-moving compared to the more exciting adventure sf. Still, as I re-read his books again and again I never cease to marvel at his incomparable word choice, where often one word or phrase does the work of four of five words, and his endless imagination and insights. In The Jack Vance Treasury you can get lost inside worlds of marvel, and I can only hope the publication of this book will yield additional reprints of Vance's work, and that many more readers will discover the joys of his inventiveness and singular mind. Few writers carve their own style as distinctly as Jack Vance.