Sorcerer Pharesm-Jack Vance novelette, later a chapter of a novel

Sorcerer Pharesm-Jack Vance novelette, later a chapter of a novel

AKA: Cugel the Clever, chapter IV

Eyes of the Overworld, chapter IV

Tales of the Dying Earth, Book II, chapter IV

The Sorcerer Pharesm was first published in April of 1966 in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It was later included as chapter IV in the Vance novel Eyes of the Overworld (Vance’s preferred title for the novel is Cugel the Clever.)  Sorcerer Pharesm is best read as part of the novel rather than on its own. It is 23/28 pages long.

In the Sorcerer Pharesm Cugel continues his journey in the story The Sorcerer Pharesm and makes Homer's Odyssey look like a stroll around the block.  This story is so bizarre, imaginative and creative that I began to wonder if Vance hadn't taken on Timothy Leary as co-author.  Except it is all well thought out, organized and infused with absurd humor.  Cugel meets fifty some workmen involved in intense carving of rock into "further complexities, and elaborations upon complexities: twists, spires, volutes; disks, saddles, wrenched spheres; torsions and flexions; spindles, cardioids, lanciform pinnacles; the most laborious, painstaking and intricate rock-carving conceivable, manifestly no random effort of the elements.  Cugel frowned in perplexity, unable to imagine a motive for so complex an undertaking."  A three foot tall foreman reviews written plans and uses his thirty foot long extensible forefinger to assist the carvers with creating the right pattern.  The work has been going on for 318 years and is not yet completed.  Then there is Pharesm the Sorcerer who directs it all.  Unfortunately Pharesm has spent 500 years on the rock carving project while attempting to attract a mysterious creature called “Totality.”  Pharesm is outraged when he learns that Cugel just found the creature, broiled it and ate it for lunch. 

Pharesm informs Cugel "The creature, he said in a grating voice, is TOTALITY.  The central globe is all of space viewed from the inverse.  The tubes are vortices into various eras, and what terrible acts you have accomplished with your prodding and poking, your boiling and chewing, are impossible to imagine."  "What of the effects of digestion? inquired Cugel delicately.  Will the various components of space, time and existence retrain their identity after passing the length of my inner tract?"

This creature called Totality is very important to Pharesm and possibly the universe.  Pharesm is so upset that he creates a leaping ghoul, zigzag blazes of energy and glittering purple wasps to prevent Cugel from leaving while citing Kartinjae's Second Law of Cryptorrhoid Affinities.  For Cugel to redeem himself Pharesm proposes sending Cugel back into the past a million years to rescue Totality before it had been eaten. 

After arriving a million years back in time Cugel finds people with large heads, pumpkin orange skin and black teeth along with giant birds called Winged Beings that dash people to death after flying off with them.  Supposedly they only do this to people who are terminally ill. The people of Farwan have strict religious rules that Cugel unintentionally violates, so Cugel has to flee for his life while still attempting to find Totality to transport it magically into the future uneaten.  This is a highly imaginative story that is amazingly creative and engaging beyond any description I can possibly provide. Rated 5.