Abercrombie Station-Jack Vance novella

Abercrombie Station-Jack Vance novella

Abercrombie Station is a 59/62/63 page novella that was initially published in February, 1952 in Thrilling Wonder Stories. This is one of the few Vance works that has a woman as the main character. 

Jean Parlier is an attractive, vivacious, charismatic, clever sixteen year old girl who is also tough minded, very independent and street smart.  Jean is encouraged by a mysterious man to obtain a job as a housekeeper at the home of a wealthy man, Earl Abercrombie, on a private satellite which he owns called Abercrombie Station.  This is one of twenty two resort satellites.  Abercrombie is unmarried and has some terminal medical condition.  The plan is for Jean to marry Abercrombie and then, after he dies, to obtain two million dollars from the mysterious coconspirator who recruited her to do this.  Jean is a "gravity girl" from Earth, however, and the satellite she visits has no gravity and also has a much different concept of female beauty.  On this strange satellite the larger and rounder the woman is the more attractive she is considered, so most of the women living on the satellite are as wide as they are tall and float around in the air like big balloons while hired help wear magnetic shoes to keep themselves on the floor.  So Jean has a problem with attracting this billionaire because she is considered malnourished, unhealthy and scrawny by their standards and is thought to be extremely unattractive even though she is very pretty by Earth standards.  Her billionaire employer also has a large zoological collection of extremely bizarre alien creatures that he keeps in his natural history museum.  He seems to find these creatures to be more of an attraction than any of the women.  No challenge is too much for Jean, however, as she does her best to attract Abercrombie.  This is essential reading for Vance fans.  I’ve read Abercrombie Station four times and rate it a 4 (Really liked it.)

Abercrombie Station is also included in the following Jack Vance collections:

As a fix-up as Monsters in Orbit (Ace Double 1965)

The Best of Jack Vance (1976)

Hard-Luck Diggings: The Early Works of Jack Vance, volume 1 (2010)

Golden Girl and Other Stories (2017)