Jack/John Holbrook Vance FFB: THE DOGTOWN TOURIST AGENCY by Jack Vance (1975)

This, my review of Jack Vance's short novel/long novella The Dogtown Tourist Agency, first published in the bugcrushing all-original-publication anthology Epoch, edited by Robert Silverberg and Roger Elwood (subtitled, modestly, "The State of the Art of Science Fiction Now") will be delayed to later today, as I'm feeling a bit under the weather. It is notable that Epoch was Berkley Books's attempt to do just that, offer an expensively-budgeted all-original anthology to stand with anyone's, including such relatively rare commercial successes as the Star Science Fiction series edited by Frederik Pohl (Ballantine, 1950s) and its less-sustained heir of sorts, Stellar Science Fiction (edited by Judy-Lynn Benjamin/Del Rey, for Ballantine, then Ballantine/Del Rey Books, 1970s) or Dangerous Visions edited by Harlan Ellison (Doubleday, 1967) after an Ellison-commissioned similar project to be edited by Judith Merril had fizzled while Ellison was editing at Regency Books.

Robert Silverberg, during the most artistically "hot" period of his life as a writer, and most prolific period as anthologist for adult and younger readers, and Roger Elwood, the controversial and hugely prolific anthologist (infamous in sf circles for his conservative Christian opinions and relative nonchalance about the quality of the work he would publish, while usually querying work from good writers for his original anthologies and often depending on his co-editors to exercise most of the literary judgment about what was going into original or reprint anthologies) were given the contract to produce the Big Book for Berkley, which was also one of the first books (iinm) to be published after the merger of the paperback line with G.P. Putnam, as a Berkley/Putnam hardcover. The SF Book Club and, of course, Berkley's originals line Medallion did reprint editions, and that latter was how I first saw and read the volume in early 1977, when my father had purchased it for himself (probably not least because it leads off with the first appearance of Larry Niven's novella "ARM" and he was a Niven fanatic up until about that point of Niven's career). It was also the first time I would see the name of my friend A. A. Attanasio in print (and it was close to his first sale).

For some reason as yet unknown to me, this solid example of Vance's voluptuous color sense, knack for sketching convincing alien culture and keen sardonic wit has been republished in, among other collections, the second volume of The Early Jack Vance, which leads me to wonder if this first Miro Hetzel story had been sitting in Vance's drawer before he dusted it off and sent it along to Silverberg and Elwood (or if it simply struck the editors of The Early Vance as in the spirit of Vance's early work for Planet Stories and Startling Stories magazines, which it is)...why that would be the case, I'm unsure, as it is while not the absolute essence of Vance's art that the likes of the Dying Earth and arguably the Lyonesse sequences of books, or his early award winners, have been, they are still Vance hitting on all cylinders.

More anon.

The ISFDB index to Epoch (the hardcover and book club editions, with different pagination for the paperback, unsurpisingly)

• Pages: viii+623

• vii • Introduction (Epoch) • (1975) • essay by Robert Silverberg and Roger Elwood
• 1 • ARM • [Gil Hamilton] • (1975) • novella by Larry Niven
• 57 • Angel of Truth • (1975) • novelette by Gordon Eklund
• 79 • Mazes • (1975) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin
• 85 • For All Poor Folks at Picketwire • (1975) • shortstory by R. A. Lafferty
• 103 • Growing Up in Edge City • (1975) • shortstory by Frederik Pohl
• 115 • Durance • (1975) • shortstory by Ward Moore
• 129 • The Ghost of a Model T • (1975) • novelette by Clifford D. Simak
• 143 • Planet Story • (1975) • shortstory by Kate Wilhelm
• 157 • Graduation Day • (1975) • shortstory by W. Macfarlane
• 171 • Timetipping • (1975) • shortstory by Jack Dann
• 183 • Encounter with a Carnivore • (1975) • shortstory by Joseph Green
• 199 • Lady Sunshine and the Magoon of Beatus • (1975) • novella by Alexei Panshin and Cory Panshin
• 245 • ". . . For a Single Yesterday" • (1975) • novelette by George R. R. Martin
• 269 • Bloodstream • (1975) • shortstory by Lou Fisher
• 283 • Existence • (1975) • shortstory by Joanna Russ
• 293 • Interface • (1975) • novella by A. A. Attanasio
• 341 • Blooded on Arachne • (1975) • novelette by Michael Bishop
• 365 • Leviticus: In the Ark • (1975) • shortstory by Barry N. Malzberg
• 379 • Cambridge, 1:58 A.M. • (1975) • shortstory by Gregory Benford
• 405 • Run from the Fire • (1975) • novelette by Harry Harrison
• 437 • Waiting for the Universe to Begin • [The Aperture Moment • 1] • (1975) • shortstory by Brian W. Aldiss
• 447 • But Without Orifices • [The Aperture Moment • 2] • (1975) • shortstory by Brian W. Aldiss
• 455 • Aimez-Vous Holman Hunt? • [The Aperture Moment • 3] • (1975) • shortstory by Brian W. Aldiss
• 463 • Nightbeat • (1975) • shortstory by Neal Barrett, Jr.
• 469 • Uneasy Chrysalids, Our Memories • (1975) • shortstory by John Shirley
• 489 • The Dogtown Tourist Agency • [Miro Hetzel • 1] • (1975) • novella by Jack Vance

Please see BV Lawson's blog for more of today's (Vance week) books...Patti Abbott is on assignment.