Cholwell's Chickens-Jack Vance, novella

Cholwell's Chickens-Jack Vance, novella

"Cholwell's Chickens" is a 47 page novella that is a sequel to the novel "Abercrombie Station" although it can be read and understood on its own.  It was first published in February 1952 in Thrilling Wonder Stories magazine.  It was later published along with Abercrombie Station as a collection titled Monsters in Orbit. Abercrombie Station is actually a sequel to Cholwell’s Chicken with the same main character, Jean Parlier. Cholwell’s Chickens is one of the very few works by Vance where he portrays a stand-alone female main character, in this instance, Jean Parlier, an attractive, vivacious, charismatic, clever 17 year old girl who is also very savvy and independent. She is “wary and wild, characterized by a precocious feral quality, a recklessness that made ordinary women seem pastel and insipid.” Jean finds that the wealth she acquired in the story "Abercrombie Station" has not brought her the contentment she had anticipated.  She never knew her parents because she was abandoned in a bar and raised by the bar owner. Jean thinks that finding her parents now might bring some meaning and direction to her life so begins to make plans to try to search out who her parents might be. While visiting at her attorney's office (he is also her guardian) she encounters a Dr. Cholwell who is “lean, bright-eyed, elegant in a jerky bird-like manner” and has an unusual scheme for becoming rich on his home planet raising chickens.  He needs an investor so tries to convince Jean and her guardian that his chicken ranch would make a great investment. Jean is planning to fly to the town where she was born in an effort to locate her long lost mother who abandoned her in a bar and Cholwell's ranch is on the same planet so he invites her to visit.  While there Jean finds out that it is not chickens Cholwell is raising but something far different.  In attempting to locate her mother, and possibly her father, Jean also finds herself.  More accurately she finds "her selves" as she encounters some mysterious secrets and conspiracies that have remained hidden for many years. This is a very odd story. I’ve read it three times and rated it a 4 (Really liked it.)

Note: Cholwell’s Chickens is near the border between being a novella or a novelette but The Internet Speculative Fiction Data Base lists is as a “novella.”  The standards for the Science Fiction Writers of America also lists novellas as usually being between 53 and 121 pages, although the standard goes by words rather than pages. Cholwell’s Chicken is only 47/50 pages long in my copies. But because it is on the border and the ISFDB lists it as a novella it is listed here too as a novella.

Included in the collection Monsters in Orbit (Ace Double 1965) with Freitzke’s Turn

Included in the Jack Vance collection titled Dream Castles: Early Jack Vance, vol. 2 (2012)

Included in the collection titled Miro Hetzel, Effectuator (2016 Spatterlight) with Freitzke’s Turn

Included in the Jack Vance collection titled Golden Girl and Other Stories (2017)