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christopherc's review
3.0
“Planet of Adventure” is a science-fiction tetralogy written by Jack Vance in the early 1970s and consisting of the novels City of the Chasch, Servants of the Wankh, The Dirdir and The Pnume. It was originally commissioned as a young adult series, but through the addition of some sex and violence, it became more suitable for an adult readership. This Orb omninus collects all four novels into a single volume.
As the first novel opens, space explorer Adam Reith is stranded on the distant world of Tschai after an unknown adversary has blown up his ship and killed all of his companions. Tschai is home to four alien-races, the Chasch, the unfortunately-named Wankh (Vance was unaware of how silly this would sound to English speakers outside the US, and would change the spelling to "Wannek" in a later printing), the Dirdir and, indigenous instead of later arrivals like the others, the mysterious Pnume. Intriguingly, Tschai is also home to a large amount of human beings, scooped up from Earth in some prehistoric era. Though many live free, each of the four alien spaces has its own population of human servants, which sets Reith's blood boiling.
In this adventure much in the tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Adam Reith fights his way across Tschai to liberate his fellow men from alien domination and searches for a spaceship to get back to Earth. The plot is generally ridiculous: book by book, Reith encounters warriors who have spent their whole lives training and fighting, and instantly dispatches them with his kung fu skills; he is captured time and time again by foes who are, unlike him, familiar with this alien world, but he always manages to outsmart them and escape.
Quite a lot of bodies pile up over the course of the tetralogy, and in one episode Reith commits what can be fairly called genocide, but our hero is never shaken by post-traumatic stress. Nor does he have any qualms about seducing the beautiful women in distress that he rescues. Planet of Adventure is very much of its time, written just before science-fiction would examine more deeply issues of morality towards alien races and gender equality.
What makes Planet of Adventure interesting and worth reading for any fan of science-fiction is Vance's interest in the diversity of human culture, which is his real concern here (unlike much of the genre, there's not much focus on advanced technology, and even the means by which Reith crosses hundreds of light years from Earth is never specified). The human servants of the alien races have conformed to their masters in their thought processes and sometimes (though prosthetics or clothing) in their physiology and appearance. The myriad free human races are each described in depth, each with its peculiar tradition, taboos, food and economy.
As the first novel opens, space explorer Adam Reith is stranded on the distant world of Tschai after an unknown adversary has blown up his ship and killed all of his companions. Tschai is home to four alien-races, the Chasch, the unfortunately-named Wankh (Vance was unaware of how silly this would sound to English speakers outside the US, and would change the spelling to "Wannek" in a later printing), the Dirdir and, indigenous instead of later arrivals like the others, the mysterious Pnume. Intriguingly, Tschai is also home to a large amount of human beings, scooped up from Earth in some prehistoric era. Though many live free, each of the four alien spaces has its own population of human servants, which sets Reith's blood boiling.
In this adventure much in the tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Adam Reith fights his way across Tschai to liberate his fellow men from alien domination and searches for a spaceship to get back to Earth. The plot is generally ridiculous: book by book, Reith encounters warriors who have spent their whole lives training and fighting, and instantly dispatches them with his kung fu skills; he is captured time and time again by foes who are, unlike him, familiar with this alien world, but he always manages to outsmart them and escape.
Quite a lot of bodies pile up over the course of the tetralogy, and in one episode Reith commits what can be fairly called genocide, but our hero is never shaken by post-traumatic stress. Nor does he have any qualms about seducing the beautiful women in distress that he rescues. Planet of Adventure is very much of its time, written just before science-fiction would examine more deeply issues of morality towards alien races and gender equality.
What makes Planet of Adventure interesting and worth reading for any fan of science-fiction is Vance's interest in the diversity of human culture, which is his real concern here (unlike much of the genre, there's not much focus on advanced technology, and even the means by which Reith crosses hundreds of light years from Earth is never specified). The human servants of the alien races have conformed to their masters in their thought processes and sometimes (though prosthetics or clothing) in their physiology and appearance. The myriad free human races are each described in depth, each with its peculiar tradition, taboos, food and economy.
jporterfield99's review
5.0
Silly title, great book. Vance was one of the genre's best world builders and creators of morally ambiguous rogues.
raj_page's review
5.0
Tschai is a marvelous planet. It has two moons and a motley collection of alien species and sub-species. It is around 200 light years away from Earth. But fascinatingly enough, it has humans which have been living on it for tens of thousands of years along with these other aliens.
But surprisingly, even though humans on Earth have learnt to travel at light speed, their distant cousins on Tschai are living either a primitive or a submissive life.
Adam Reith is a human from Earth and he has just crash-landed on Tschai. Now his only goal is to go back to his home. In the beginning, it reminded me of [b:Shōgun|402093|Shōgun (Asian Saga, #1)|James Clavell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1397228842l/402093._SX50_.jpg|1755568]. A man enters a world that he desperately wants to escape. Over the course of the four book, he makes friends, he saves damsels, he topples governments and learns well hidden secrets.
The four books portray the four enemies that he faces. But they were so much more too.
City of the Chasch: We are shown Adam's sense of righteousness from the start. He saves people because that is the right thing to do. We see how brave he is and how he is willing to jump into danger without hesitation.
Servants of the Wankh: To be honest, I didn't expect the ending even though there were clear signs of it all along. But the thing that I took away from this book is the bartering and bargaining skills that Adam possess. I've never been so jealous of a fictional character before.
The Dirdir: The desperate measures a man takes when backed into a corner. Also, the dangers in this world is not only manipulative aliens but also manipulative humans. Never underestimate humans.
The Pnume: In the first three books, it has been established that Tschai is not a safe place and everywhere you go, you'll be in danger. But in this good, there is more sense of adventure than sense of danger. There are actually people who help without asking. There are actually places where bargaining is not needed. There are actually people on Tschai who are opposite of manipulative, who are pure and innocent. There is this underlying feeling in this book, it won't be that bad if Adam just stay in this world, will it?
And this is precisely why we are left with an empty feeling when the book ends. We are craving for more from a series which we know have so much unexplored. The last book shows us a glimpse into the possibilities that the planet hold. But we know that it being the last book, there's not going to be more. But I think that this world will stay with me, in my thoughts.
Highly Recommended.
But surprisingly, even though humans on Earth have learnt to travel at light speed, their distant cousins on Tschai are living either a primitive or a submissive life.
Adam Reith is a human from Earth and he has just crash-landed on Tschai. Now his only goal is to go back to his home. In the beginning, it reminded me of [b:Shōgun|402093|Shōgun (Asian Saga, #1)|James Clavell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1397228842l/402093._SX50_.jpg|1755568]. A man enters a world that he desperately wants to escape. Over the course of the four book, he makes friends, he saves damsels, he topples governments and learns well hidden secrets.
The four books portray the four enemies that he faces. But they were so much more too.
City of the Chasch: We are shown Adam's sense of righteousness from the start. He saves people because that is the right thing to do. We see how brave he is and how he is willing to jump into danger without hesitation.
Servants of the Wankh: To be honest, I didn't expect the ending even though there were clear signs of it all along. But the thing that I took away from this book is the bartering and bargaining skills that Adam possess. I've never been so jealous of a fictional character before.
The Dirdir: The desperate measures a man takes when backed into a corner. Also, the dangers in this world is not only manipulative aliens but also manipulative humans. Never underestimate humans.
The Pnume: In the first three books, it has been established that Tschai is not a safe place and everywhere you go, you'll be in danger. But in this good, there is more sense of adventure than sense of danger. There are actually people who help without asking. There are actually places where bargaining is not needed. There are actually people on Tschai who are opposite of manipulative, who are pure and innocent. There is this underlying feeling in this book, it won't be that bad if Adam just stay in this world, will it?
And this is precisely why we are left with an empty feeling when the book ends. We are craving for more from a series which we know have so much unexplored. The last book shows us a glimpse into the possibilities that the planet hold. But we know that it being the last book, there's not going to be more. But I think that this world will stay with me, in my thoughts.
Highly Recommended.
michaelrswanson's review
4.0
Another entertaining planetary science fantasy series. Vance had a fantastic ability to describe scenes. Making sure to include most, if not all the senses when doing so. His character development was average, but true to the spirit of the Barsoom and other planetary science fantasy novels. The dialog is not his best. The stand out character for me was Ankhe at afram Anacho, a dirdirman and native of Tschai.
Here is a detailed summary for those who like a little more info before plunging in (spoilers within): https://www.tor.com/2016/09/13/robinson-crusoe-of-tschai-the-planet-of-adventure-tetralogy/
Here is a detailed summary for those who like a little more info before plunging in (spoilers within): https://www.tor.com/2016/09/13/robinson-crusoe-of-tschai-the-planet-of-adventure-tetralogy/
vertellerpaul's review against another edition
3.0
Welcome to this guided tour of Tchai, the insane planet. Your tour guide will be Adam Reith, formerly of the spaceship Explorator IV, which was unfortunately shot down. Reith is an all American macho, covertly racist, overtly sexist. He knows exactly two ways to deal with problems: throw money at it (and haggle, my goodness, this book had pages and pages of haggling), or use violence and preferably kill people. His talents are many: he learns an alien language in a matter of weeks, can handle any weapon and any means of transport, he is strong, attractive, resourceful, untiring and altogether emotionless (except of course for a healthy dose of anger and vindictiveness). Most of his friends who we will meet on the way equally lack emotions, although they are always less talented, knowledgeable, optimistic, clever and dexterous as our Reith. They are men, all of them. And a few women, but Reith really doesn’t know what to do with them, finding them both attractive, especially prepubescent girls, and fickle, unfathomable, impossible to understand.
On our tour Reith will have many adventures. Some minor, mere random encounters, to use TTRPG-parlance, some major, spanning most of one of the four books in this volume. We will meet in turn the four alien races inhabiting Tchai and the humans that work for them. Wherever he goes, Reith blatantly disrespects local culture, but, starting from superior, white, male, earth values, unleashes revolutions, topples societal structures, swindles, steals, kills with gusto, forcefully imparting freedom, honesty and equality wherever he goes. And as soon as he’s undermined yet another age old civilisation, he travels on to find the next set of misguided aliens, living their life the wrong way, in dire need of Reith to set things straight. And when there’s no more change to be wrought, he builds a spaceship and leaves.
—-
This book feels more like the thorough description of a TTRPG setting (and would serve brilliantly as one) than a story. Vance’s world-building is excellent. He creates intricate societies, biologies, technologies, linguistics, histories and mythologies that all connect with each other and make sense. The characters that inhabit this world are highly individual, interesting and fun.
It’s just too bad that Adam Reith storms through all of this like a raging bull in a China shop. Within the first fifty pages the man looses his ship and all his earth friends and doesn’t bat an eye. No tears, no regrets, no emotions. He then finds himself in an alien group of nomads, learns their language, customs and technology, is critical of each, tries to kiss a girl who didn’t want to be kissed, deposes and then inexplicably befriends their leader and runs off with him. The following five hundred pages are one adventure after another, with as the only coherent (and cliche) plot point that Reith wants to get home to earth. Other than that the adventures are largely unconnected. The writing is extremely straightforward and not very intelligent. One craves a metaphor or some second layer of meaning, maybe some social criticism, a witticism, anything to make you think a little.
This is not a good book. I know it’s scifi-pulp from the late sixties, but even then the blatant sexism (bordering on pedophilia) and the racist overtones should have been noticed and dealt with. And even pulp can have a more coherent, interconnected, a more clever story.
So why the three stars?
The separate adventures are often thrilling and exciting. But it’s the couleur locale that makes this book enjoyable. All the intricately constructed alien races, the landscapes, clothes, foods, modes of transport, customs, etcetera, etcetera.
This phenomenal setting deserved a much better story and a much better main character. As it stands, this book hasn’t aged well. I’m not a SJW, I’m against all forms of cancel-culture, but please, let’s simply forget about this book or use it only as a great starting point for wonderful roleplaying game adventures.
On our tour Reith will have many adventures. Some minor, mere random encounters, to use TTRPG-parlance, some major, spanning most of one of the four books in this volume. We will meet in turn the four alien races inhabiting Tchai and the humans that work for them. Wherever he goes, Reith blatantly disrespects local culture, but, starting from superior, white, male, earth values, unleashes revolutions, topples societal structures, swindles, steals, kills with gusto, forcefully imparting freedom, honesty and equality wherever he goes. And as soon as he’s undermined yet another age old civilisation, he travels on to find the next set of misguided aliens, living their life the wrong way, in dire need of Reith to set things straight. And when there’s no more change to be wrought, he builds a spaceship and leaves.
—-
This book feels more like the thorough description of a TTRPG setting (and would serve brilliantly as one) than a story. Vance’s world-building is excellent. He creates intricate societies, biologies, technologies, linguistics, histories and mythologies that all connect with each other and make sense. The characters that inhabit this world are highly individual, interesting and fun.
It’s just too bad that Adam Reith storms through all of this like a raging bull in a China shop. Within the first fifty pages the man looses his ship and all his earth friends and doesn’t bat an eye. No tears, no regrets, no emotions. He then finds himself in an alien group of nomads, learns their language, customs and technology, is critical of each, tries to kiss a girl who didn’t want to be kissed, deposes and then inexplicably befriends their leader and runs off with him. The following five hundred pages are one adventure after another, with as the only coherent (and cliche) plot point that Reith wants to get home to earth. Other than that the adventures are largely unconnected. The writing is extremely straightforward and not very intelligent. One craves a metaphor or some second layer of meaning, maybe some social criticism, a witticism, anything to make you think a little.
This is not a good book. I know it’s scifi-pulp from the late sixties, but even then the blatant sexism (bordering on pedophilia) and the racist overtones should have been noticed and dealt with. And even pulp can have a more coherent, interconnected, a more clever story.
So why the three stars?
The separate adventures are often thrilling and exciting. But it’s the couleur locale that makes this book enjoyable. All the intricately constructed alien races, the landscapes, clothes, foods, modes of transport, customs, etcetera, etcetera.
This phenomenal setting deserved a much better story and a much better main character. As it stands, this book hasn’t aged well. I’m not a SJW, I’m against all forms of cancel-culture, but please, let’s simply forget about this book or use it only as a great starting point for wonderful roleplaying game adventures.
depizan's review
2.0
These did not age well. In some ways, the writing is very good - Vance is excellent at description, particularly of locations, and his aliens do seem alien, but in other ways, it's a mess. While the female characters get (somewhat) better over the course of the books, I was left with a definite impression that Vance was unaware that women are people. When the best it gets is a character who basically fits the Born Sexy Yesterday trope, you've got problems. (And a lot of characters people point to for that trope are still less...whatever the heck was going on here.)
The main character is less a person than a collection of whatever attributes is needed for a given scene, and there's a weird sort of exaggerated tension/stakes thing that keeps happening around him. "Oh, no, things look bleak, the [whichever alien race] are so much more powerful than our hero and his friends, whatever will they do!?" *five minutes later* "Oh, never mind, he just beat them in single combat (or whatever)." It's like the enemies all suffered from last minute power decay, which leaves one with the fridge logic of why Reith and co couldn't deal with them the way the eventually did sooner. (Particularly in the third book.)
Honestly, I'm mostly just disappointed there, because the character had potential - or at least certain versions of him did. But it was like... imagine playing a game of D&D, but every hour, your character's stats were randomly reassigned. Reith was kind of like that. For this scene, his highest score is in wisdom and he can accurately predict the psychology of an alien race. For this scene, his lowest score is in wisdom and he can't even understand a human from a culture not that different from ones found on Earth. (Also, he kept waffling between being utterly stoic and kind of refreshingly emotional.)
And, while I realize this is kind of inherent in the genre, since this is basically a more scifinal planetary romance, but there was something really uncomfortable both in nearly every society (human or alien) on Tschai being deeply terrible and in Reith proving, again and again, superior to everyone around him. I mean, I should be thoroughly rooting for him to win, since nearly everyone is made of awful, but there was some background assumption or...something...that made it all feel wrong. I have no idea whether I would have agreed with Vance on anything or not, but it felt kind of like finding oneself agreeing with that awful relative who has completely different political/social points of view. You find yourself asking what you're missing that this is happening.
Or maybe this is all a case of me taking the not-serious thing too seriously. I do that. Often. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The main character is less a person than a collection of whatever attributes is needed for a given scene, and there's a weird sort of exaggerated tension/stakes thing that keeps happening around him. "Oh, no, things look bleak, the [whichever alien race] are so much more powerful than our hero and his friends, whatever will they do!?" *five minutes later* "Oh, never mind, he just beat them in single combat (or whatever)." It's like the enemies all suffered from last minute power decay, which leaves one with the fridge logic of why Reith and co couldn't deal with them the way the eventually did sooner. (Particularly in the third book.)
Honestly, I'm mostly just disappointed there, because the character had potential - or at least certain versions of him did. But it was like... imagine playing a game of D&D, but every hour, your character's stats were randomly reassigned. Reith was kind of like that. For this scene, his highest score is in wisdom and he can accurately predict the psychology of an alien race. For this scene, his lowest score is in wisdom and he can't even understand a human from a culture not that different from ones found on Earth. (Also, he kept waffling between being utterly stoic and kind of refreshingly emotional.)
And, while I realize this is kind of inherent in the genre, since this is basically a more scifinal planetary romance, but there was something really uncomfortable both in nearly every society (human or alien) on Tschai being deeply terrible and in Reith proving, again and again, superior to everyone around him. I mean, I should be thoroughly rooting for him to win, since nearly everyone is made of awful, but there was some background assumption or...something...that made it all feel wrong. I have no idea whether I would have agreed with Vance on anything or not, but it felt kind of like finding oneself agreeing with that awful relative who has completely different political/social points of view. You find yourself asking what you're missing that this is happening.
Or maybe this is all a case of me taking the not-serious thing too seriously. I do that. Often. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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