Star King, The-Jack Vance novel, book review

Star King, The-Jack Vance novel

AKA: The Demon Princes Book 1

The Star King is the first of five fast paced, entertaining, well written novels that comprise the Jack Vance series called The Demon Princes.  The Star King was first released in 1963 to 1964 as a serial in Galaxy magazine.  Originally the name of the first star king encountered was Grendel the Monster but in the novel, released in April, 1964 by Berkley-Medallion, he was renamed Attel Malagate or Malagate the Woe. 

Demon Princes are nonhuman, asexual, alien beings who have changed their appearances to look like men.  When our main character, Kirth Gersen, was a 9 years old, five of the demon princes organized an attack one of the colonies on a planet where all of the people, including his parents, were killed or enslaved except for Kirth and his grandfather.  This attack was subsequently referred to as the Mount Pleasant Massacre.  After escaping the planet Kirth Gersen's grandfather raised him and had him trained for many years in hand to hand combat and the skillful use of weapons and poison so that Kirth when an adult would be able to track down and kill all five of the star kings.  Kirth became a highly trained killer with one life ambition.  For Gersen, however, revenge is more of a mission of justice than an act of anger.

The story begins in the far future with Kirth Gersen's visit at Smade's Tavern, a colorful tavern and hotel on Smade's Planet that is near the border of the civilized world called The Oikumene and the wild ungoverned planets of The Beyond.  (Vance fans will probably note some similarities between The Oikumene and Vance's later Gaean Reach.)  While sitting at the tavern Gersen meets an explorer Lugo Teehalt who claims he has discovered a rare, amazingly beautiful new planet with exotic life forms on it.  Teehalt is hesitant to report his discovery to his employer, Attel Malagate, who owns the spaceship because Malagate is a known criminal and Teehalt is fearful of what Malagate might do with the newly discovered virgin planet.  But Malagate's agents are already on Smade's Planet and after dealing with Teehalt they take what they think is the spaceship Malagate loaned to Teehalt.  But it turns out to be Gersen's spaceship and Gersen ends up with the ship Teehalt had been using.  Gersen, however, has concerns beyond getting his own ship back.  He is now on the trail of Malagate, one of the five star kings who killed his parents and destroyed the colony he lived in.  Having Malagate's ship is his bait for finding Malagate.

Although The Star King is not quite as interesting as the last two books in The Demon Princes series (The Face and The Book of Dreams), it is a very good novel and provides all of the background information so that The Demon Princes series makes sense.  (It needs to be read first.)  It does have a few flaws, however.  There is a romance between Gersen and a woman named Pallis Atwrode that  is not well developed and the woman seems like a mere token figure rather than a fleshed out character.  Also, the novel did not seem as deep, complex or thought provoking as some of Vance's really great novels.  A few readers might have some difficulty empathizing with Kirth Gersen because he is so obsessed with killing demon princes.  But subsequent novels in the series provide more development to his character, and The Star King is more than simply a straight forward, entertaining, revenge novel.  I loved reading about the strange places and planets that were described in detail along with the unusual and interesting alien creatures.  The 140 pages are engaging and filled with action. I also thought the dialog was lively and well done.  I’ve read The Star King three times so far and rated it a 4 “Really liked it.”