Miracle Workers, The-Jack Vance novella

Miracle Workers, The-Jack Vance novella

The Miracle Workers is a 65/74 page novella published in July, 1958 by Astounding Science Fiction. The original inhabitants of the planet Pangborn are called First Folk.  They are the size of humans but have foam sacs that bulge from their arms with orange lipped foam vents pointing forward.  Their backs are wrinkled and loose with skin acting as a bellows to blow air through their foam-sacs.  Enormous hands end with sharp chisel like fingers.  The “head was sheathed in chitin.  Billion-faceted eyes swelled from either side of the head, glowing like black opals.”  They lived in fields of moss but were forced to move into the forests when humans arrived sixteen hundred years ago and displaced and marginalized the First Folk who now consider humans to be their enemy.  These humans once had spaceships and advanced weapons and machines but over the years they lost the knowledge and skills that supported their science and technology.

The main character in this novella is Lord Faide, a human who has waged war to unite the various forts on the planet where other humans reside.  Faide’s solders are mostly foot soldiers who carry crossbows and darts and some mounted, armored knights. The only technically more advance weapons Lord Faide has are several untried cannon like device called Hellmouth and one small, single person shuttle that Lord Faide can minimally operate. But they do employ psychic warfare skills called "hoodoo" that the "jinxmen" use telepathically to frighten the opposition soldiers by causing them to have horrible visions of demons. Hoodoo can also be used to insert a demon like mentality into one's own soldiers to turn them into amazingly fierce fighters. “For over a thousand years the keep-lords had struggled for power.”  “None before had ever extended his authority across the entire continent-which meant control of the planet.”  Lord Faide, from Faide Keep, hopes to be the first leader to do so.

As the story begins Lord Faide is advancing with his army toward a human fort at Ballant Keep that is ruled by Lord Ballant.  But his path to Ballant Keep is blocked by a forest that was planted by the First Folk. The forest is full of deadfalls, scythes, nettle traps and other deadly traps set by the First Folk so Lord Faide decides to negotiate with the First Folk by asking them for a guide to help them get through the deadly forest. Initially the First Folk refuse but when they hear that Lord Faide is planning to attack and kill other humans, the First Folk offer to guide them through the forest because “they are pleased to see us killing one another.”

Chapters III, IV, V and VI are devoted to the imaginative battles between Lord Faide’s troops and those of Lord Ballant’s.  Lord Ballant has an ancient weapon called the Volcano and both sides have ordinary soldiers plus jinxmen who employ their hoodoo to create visions of demons and to implant magical forces into their own men to make them into fierce demon possessed fighters, many times stronger than ordinary humans. 

After the battle Lord Faide and his men attempt to return home but find their way blocked by the First Folk who bear large tubes that look like weapons.  The humans are not concerned at first, however, because the “First Folk were a pale and feeble race, no match for human beings in single combat, but they guarded their forests with traps and deadfalls.” Unfortunately for Lord Faide and his soldiers, hoodoo does not work on the First Folk because their brains are not human and the First Folk have decided that they have had enough persecution by humans. They have bizarre weapons unknown to humans, including large wasp like insects that are fired out from tubes like missiles and secretions of foam.  There is a lot of fighting in the story, but I found it to be a creative and fascinating fantasy work. I’ve read it three times so far  and rated it a 4+ “Really liked it plus.”

Included in the Jack Vance collection titled Eight Fantasms and Magics (1969)

Included in the Jack Vance collection titled Fantasms and Magics (1978)

Included in the Jack Vance collection titled Green Magic: The Fantasy Realms of Jack Vance (2012)

Included in the collection Jack Vance Treasury (2007, Subterranean)

Included in the collection The Dragon Masters and Other Stories (2016, Spatterlight)