Dream Castle-Jack Vance short story

Dream Castle-Jack Vance short story (author’s revision)

AKA: “I’ll Build Your Dream Castle” (original version)

Dream Castle is an 18 page short story that was originally published in a 15 page abbreviated version in September 1947 in the magazine Astounding Science Fiction under the title "I'll Build Your Dream Castle."  According to the International Speculative Fiction Data Base: "In 1982, Vance revised this story to create “Dream Castle,” which is longer and with significantly revised wording.” This revision was done by Vance for the book Lost Moons, a collection of short works by Vance that was published by Underwood-Miller in 1982.  I've read the original magazine version and the 1982 revision and preferred the revised one.  Vance himself did not care for this story and in his introduction to the 1982 collection Lost Moons he wrote that Dream Castle and another story The World-Thinker were both “so embarrassing that I rewrote a few stand-out passages, a lick-and-a promise operation rather like putting rouge on a corpse.”

Dream Castle features an intelligent and enterprising protagonist named Farrero, a fairly recent graduate who designs and markets homes for a contracting firm.  His boss, Angker, wants him to sign over patents that he created when he was in school. When he refuses to do so, he is immediately fired.  Farrero strikes out on his own even though he does not have a contractor's license.  His ideas are revolutionary and very profit making so that he is soon in competition with his old firm.  They decide to try to rehire him or at least attempt to duplicate what he is doing, but Farrero seems to have anticipated this.  I have read both the original 1947 release and the revised 1982 version multiple times.  I rated the original version a 3 or “Liked it.”  I thought the revised version was somewhat better and rated it a 4 “Really liked it.”

Revision included in the Jack Vance collection titled Lost Moons (1982)

Revision included in the Jack Vance collection titled Wild Thyme and violets, Other Unpublished Works (2018)

Original included in the Jack Vance collection titled World-Thinker and Other Stories (2018)

 

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