Night Lamp
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
Young Jaro Fath, his violent past shrouded in amnesia, is raised by adoptive parents who want him to follow in their scholarly footsteps. But driven by the need to know his origins, he becomes a spaceman and sets off on a voyage of self-discovery. His quest brings him to the decadent world Fader, whose proud but indolent upper class live in fear of the bio-engineered slaves who cater to their every whim. Here Jaro will confront the dire secret of his origin.
No one does space opera like Jack Vance. Here is one of science fiction’s grandmasters at the top of his form.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Young Jaro comes home to find a man torturing his mother. The boy repels the stranger, then obeys his mother's command to kill her in order to end her pain. Then the fleeing Jaro is nearly beaten to death by malicious older boys. Brain-damaged, the memory of his early life mostly gone, he is nursed back to health by a childless couple. Adopted by them, Jaro leads a mostly happy life, but though his new parents want him to be an academic, he yearns to become a spaceman and to discover the truth behind his mysterious past. Vance (Throy, 1993), who has been publishing SF for close to half a century and has won just about every major award during that time, is near the top of his form in this leisurely tale of interplanetary adventure and financial skullduggery. The pleasure of Vance's books lies in his mannered, heavily ironic language, and in the bizarre societies he creates. His characters, most of whom are rogues, love verbal fencing and often alternate rapidly between violent hyperbole and terse understatement. His cultures abound in strange social customs, preposterous academic pursuits and elaborate costuming. This new novel is unlikely to appeal to the MTV crowd, but it will yield rich rewards to those with the patience to savor its humorous complexities.
