Night Lamp

{ Oct 2020 - epub revisions. Verified ebook for complete book description, cover, table of contents, content separation, and epub format error checking. } Paperback, 380 pages Published 1996 (Not Gollancz, a scan from some unknown source) Masterworks of Science Fiction A book set within the universe of the Gaean Reach Series Jack Vance has specialized in science fiction decadence since his first stories in 1950. This novel's decadent world is called Fader, whose inhabitants have only leisure to pursue since they have a genetically engineered slave class to do their hard work. Fader is threatened by many dangers, but the pleasure-seeking inhabitants are paralyzed by lack of will. Vance has developed his own vocabulary, sometimes tricky to decipher, to convey an alien speech, but the meaning of his invented words emerges as the story unfolds. Jaro Fath has been troubled by visions all his life: a garden, a menacing man in black, a woman screaming. Voices fill his head sometimes, saying words that Jaro cannot quite understand. Jaro is an orphan, but he had been adopted under mysterious circumstances by the Faths, a scholarly couple who loved him dearly. They raised him on the planet Thanet, where they gave him everything he could ever desire - except one thing. They would not tell him about his origins, always saying that the time was not yet right. But the Faths were killed on the world of Ushant, bystanders and witnesses of an act of ritual self-destruction by one of their more radical colleagues. Jaro was left their sole heir, but without the legacy he truly wanted - his identity. He now finds himself threatened on all sides by men who wish to exploit or, worse, kill him. His friends are few - a young woman named Skirlet, who has very high social status but very little wealth, and a mysterious man who calls himself Evan Tarr. Tarr knows something, it is clear, and now he has encouraged Jaro to abandon the life his adoptive parents had planned for him, and to set out on a quest to discover his identity. Against The Backdrop Of The Gaean Reach, The Widely Populated Region Of Space Where The Full Diversity Of Human Development Is Revealed, The Story Of Jaro Fath Unfolds: From Wildling Orphan To Spaceship Captain, A Tale Of Adventure And Discovery Wittily Told. Jaro's Life Is Directed By An Inner Voice He Cannot Account For . . . Until He Returns To Kammerwelt, Described In The Handbook Of The Planets As The Fourth World In The Entourage Of Robert Palmer's Star, Drifting In A Far-flung Sector Of The Galaxy Known As The Dragon's Maw. Jaro Is Haunted By Memories Of His Dead Mother's Terror, And He Is About To Find Out Why . . . Grand Master Jack Vance's haunting tale of the search for identity across time and space.