Editing Jack Vance (section)

=== Characteristics and commentary ===
Vance's science fiction runs the gamut from stories written for pulps in the 1940s to multi-volume tales set in the space age. Scott Bradfield states that Vance "wrote about incomprehensibly far-off futures that weren’t driven by the splashy intergalactic military conflicts of his Golden Age predecessors, such as E.E. Doc Smith or Robert A. Heinlein. Instead, Vance’s futures are marked by rich, panoramic socioeconomic systems."<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://newrepublic.com/article/155978/science-fictions-wonderful-mistakes |title=Science Fiction's Wonderful Mistakes |last= Bradfield|first= Scott|date= December 16, 2019|magazine=The New Republic |publisher=New Republic |access-date=November 15, 2021 |quote=}}</ref> While Vance's stories have a wide variety of temporal settings, a majority of them belong to a period long after humanity has colonized other stars, culminating in the development of a fictional region of interstellar space called the [[Gaean Reach]]. In its early phase, exhibited by the Oikumene of the [[Demon Princes]] series, this expanding, loose and pacific agglomerate has an aura of colonial adventure, commerce and exoticism. Later it becomes peace-loving and stolidly middle class.

Vance's stories are seldom concerned directly with war and the conflicts are rarely direct. If there are battles, such as in the slave revolt against the nobility at the end of ''[[The Last Castle (novella)|The Last Castle]]'', they are depicted in an abbreviated length, as Vance is more interested in the social and political context than the clashing of swords. Sometimes at the edges of the Reach or in the lawless areas of Beyond, a planet is menaced or craftily exploited. Some more extensive battles are described in ''The Dragon Masters'', ''The Miracle Workers'', and the ''Lyonesse Trilogy'', in which medieval-style combat abounds. His characters usually become inadvertently enmeshed in low-intensity conflicts between alien cultures; this is the case in ''[[Emphyrio]]'', the [[Planet of Adventure|Tschai]] series, the Durdane series, and the comic stories in ''Galactic Effectuator'', featuring Miro Hetzel. Personal, cultural, social, or political conflicts are the central concerns. This is most particularly the case in the Cadwal series, though it is equally characteristic of the three Alastor books, ''[[Maske: Thaery]]'', and, one way or another, in most of his science fiction novels.

Another way in which Vance expands the usually narrow focus of most speculative fiction writers is the extensive details ranging from the culture of language to food, music, and rituals. In ''[[The Languages of Pao]]'', after a planet with a passive, lazy and backwards culture is invaded and occupied, the planet's leader orders three new languages developed, to make his people more aggressive, industrious and inventive. In the short story "[[The Moon Moth]]", natives must master a number of musical instruments in order to communicate with each other. Spoken words are modulated to acquire different meanings, or may be said to be given full meaning (respect, derision or sarcasm), by means of the musical sounds. These details paint a far more detailed and complex picture of life and cultures in his books.

The "Joe Bain" stories (''The Fox Valley Murders'', ''The Pleasant Grove Murders'', and an unfinished outline published by the VIE) are set in an imaginary northern California county; these are the nearest to the classical mystery form, with a rural policeman as protagonist. ''Bird Isle'', by contrast, is not a mystery at all, but a Wodehousian idyll (also set near San Francisco), while ''[[The Flesh Mask]]'' or ''Strange People&nbsp;...'' emphasize psychological drama. The theme of both ''[[The House on Lily Street]]'' and ''Bad Ronald'' is solipsistic megalomania, taken up again in the Demon Princes cycle of science fiction novels.

Three books published under the [[Ellery Queen (house name)|house name Ellery Queen]] were written to editorial requirements and heavily revised by the publisher. (Volume 45 of The Vance Integral Edition contains the original text for the three Ellery Queen novels. Vance previously refused to acknowledge them for their degree of rewriting.) Four others reflect Vance's world travels: ''[[Strange People, Queer Notions]]'' based on his stay in Positano, Italy; ''The Man in the Cage'', based on a trip to Morocco; ''[[The Dark Ocean]]'', set on a merchant marine vessel; and ''[[The Deadly Isles]]'', based on a stay in [[Tahiti]].

The mystery novels reveal much about Vance's evolution as a science fiction and fantasy writer. He stopped working in the mystery genre in the early 1970s, except for science-fiction mysteries; see below. ''Bad Ronald'' is especially noteworthy for its portrayal of a trial-run for Howard Alan Treesong of ''The Book of Dreams''. The Edgar-Award-winning ''The Man in the Cage'' is a thriller set in North Africa at around the period of the French-Algerian war. ''A Room to Die In'' is a classic 'locked-room' murder mystery featuring a strong-willed young woman as the amateur detective. ''Bird Isle'', a mystery set at a hotel on an island off the California coast, reflects Vance's taste for farce.

Vance's two rural Northern California mysteries featuring [[Sheriff Joe Bain]] were well received by the critics. ''[[The New York Times]]'' said of ''The Fox Valley Murders'': "Mr. Vance has created the county with the same detailed and loving care with which, in the science fiction he writes as Jack Vance, he can create a believable alien planet." [[Dorothy B. Hughes]], in ''[[The Los Angeles Times]]'', wrote that it was "fat with character and scene". As for the second Bain novel, ''The New York Times'' said: "I like regionalism in American detective stories, and I enjoy reading about the problems of a rural county sheriff ... and I bless John Holbrook Vance for the best job of satisfying these tastes with his wonderful tales of Sheriff Joe Bain&nbsp;...".

Vance has also written mysteries set in his science fiction universes. An early 1950s short story series features Magnus Ridolph, an interstellar adventurer and amateur detective who is elderly and not prone to knocking anyone down, and whose exploits appear to have been inspired, in part, by those of [[Jack London]]'s South Seas adventurer, Captain David Grief. The "Galactic Effectuator" novelettes feature Miro Hetzel, a figure who resembles Ridolph in his blending of detecting and troubleshooting (the "effectuating" indicated by the title). A number of the other science fiction novels include mystery, spy thriller, or crime-novel elements: ''The Houses of Iszm'', ''Son of the Tree'', the Alastor books ''Trullion'' and ''Marune'', the Cadwal series, and large parts of the Demon Princes series.

According to writer [[Michael Chabon]], "Jack Vance is the most painful case of all the writers I love who I feel don’t get the credit they deserve. If ‘The Last Castle’ or ‘The Dragon Masters’ had the name [[Italo Calvino]] on it, or just a foreign name, it would be received as a profound meditation, but because he's Jack Vance and published in [[Amazing Stories|Amazing Whatever]], there's this insurmountable barrier."<ref name="Rotella">{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/magazine/19Vance-t.html |title=The Genre Artist |last=Rotella |first=Carlo |date=July 15, 2009 |website=New York Times |access-date=March 8, 2020 }}</ref>

Vance fans developed a website called Totality (pharesm.org), which enables users to do electronic searches of the Vance Integral Edition texts.<ref name="Rotella"/>