World-Thinker, The-Jack Vance novelette

World-Thinker, The-Jack Vance novelette

The World-Thinker was the first story Vance ever published and was issued in Thrilling Wonder Stories in August of 1945. It is a 25/27 page novelette that Vance wrote while he was at sea.  I don’t think it is such a bad story for a first publication but years later in Vance said he found it embarrassing.  In Vance’s introduction to the 1982 collection Lost Moons he said The World-Thinker and another story Dream Castles were bothw “so embarrassing that I rewrote a few stand-out passages, a lick-and-a promise operation rather like putting rouge on a corpse.”

The story involves Isabel May who escapes prison on Earth and flees in a spaceship pursued by Lanark who is hired to capture her alive.  She possesses a very valuable code that is highly important to the government. Lanark finally tracks her spaceship down on another planet but cannot find Isabel. Instead he encounters a godlike creature named Laoome, "the one-time Sage of the Fifth Universe--Laoome the World-Thinker, the Final Sage of the Fifth Universe."  Laoome has the ability to create through his mind other planets and realities and has placed Isabel under his protection on one of the planets he created.  Lanark convinces Laoome to allow him to visit this planet to talk with her. A number of cosmological ideas are explored in this early work.  I’ve read this three times.  It is a bit clumsy and amateurish and certainly not one of Vance’s best stories but I rated it a 3 "Liked it."

Included in the Jack Vance collection titled Lost Moons (1982 Underwood Miller)

Included in the Jack Vance collection titled The Narrow Land (1982 DAW)

Included in the Jack Vance collection titled The Narrow Land (1984 Coronet)

Included in the Jack Vance collection titled Wild Thyme, Green Magic (2009)

Included in the Jack Vance collection titled World-Thinker and Other Stories (2017)