Face,The-Jack Vance novel, book review

Face, The-Jack Vance novel

AKA: The Demon Princes Book 4

The Face was first published in 1979 by DAW Books.  It is a 194 page novel that is the fourth in the five novel series by Jack Vance called The Demon Princes and was published twelve years after the third novel in the series. It is still in print.  Kirth Gersen continues his tracking and killing of the five demon princes who killed his parents and destroyed his colony where he lived when he was a child.  Kirth and his grandfather were the only survivors, and his grandfather had Keith trained for many years in hand to hand and weapons combat so that he could avenge the family

In this novel Kirth Gersen attempts to track down Lens Larque also known as The Face.  Larque is an ugly looking outcast (rachepol) from the Darsh people who had his ear cut off by his clan for committing a "repulsive" crime.  He is now an infamous criminal who is noted for his cruel jests often done for revenge or one-upmanship.  He is very intelligent so Gersen must apply all of his skills to outmaneuver him.  Although Larque is given rather minimal development, his people, the Darsh from the planet Dar Sai, are described in fascinating detail.  They are a harsh, crude, violent, odorous, people enjoy whipping and a brutal combat sport called hadaul.  Their food is vile and inedible to outsiders.  They are contrasted with their planetary neighbors with whom they have much contact.  These are the Methlens who live on the nearby planet of Methel.  The Methlens reside in an exclusive community called Llarlarkno where only other Methlen may live.  They are extremely ostentatious and proud, considering themselves superior to all other beings, especially the coarse Darsh.

Gersen meets and falls in love with a Methlen woman, Jerdian Chanseth, whose family and society forbid her to have a friendship or romance with him.  Gersen even entertains the idea of abandoning his quest to track down demon princes by considering getting married and settling down. He also tries to take control over a mining company that Larque uses as a front. This leads him to interactions with Darsh people as he tries to purchase stock in the company.  It also involves stealing a spaceship, impersonating a judge, and fighting in a violent hand to hand combat sport the Darsh call hadaul. 

The novel is full of irony, humor, twists and colorful but scathing portraits of two societies that were very different but recognizable.  Vance describes their histories, cultures, sexual behaviors, governments, laws, traditions and social conventions in more world building detail than one would expect in a 194 page novel. The people on the planet Dar Sai although very different from the inhabitants of the planet Methel, but both are equally unlikable.  The unexpected ending of the novel is humorous, clever and inspired, one of the finest endings to any Vance novel.  This is my third reading of all five novels of The Demon Princes.  My appreciation for each of them has increased.  I continue to find The Face and the sequel, The Book of Dreams, to be the most fascinating and finest written in the series although all five novels are very readable, highly entertaining and heartily recommended.  Rated 5.