Meeting Jack Vance

For some reason, just before grudgingly entering a week of reading deprivation imposed upon me by a program I've undertake with my husband, I started reading Jack Vance's Cadwel chronicles. Araminta Station is proving to be more of a thriller than a speculative novel, in many ways, but it's also a bot of a political exploration and a social novel. It's okay. Not great, but okay.

For some reason I was expecting space opera; maybe it was the cover art.

Above is the original Tor 1988 hardback cover by Boris Vallejo.

And above, here's a 1989 paperback cover by Bob Eggleton-- well, the upper center strip of artwork is by Bob Eggleton, and what a shame that's all we have, too.

This is the original original, published by Underwood/Miller in 1987 six months before the Tor/Vallejo edition. The cover art is by Tim White.

And above is a 1991 Tor reprint with somewhat more titillating art by Doug Beekman.

This one may be my favorite. It's a 1995 Geman Heyne edition with cover art by Dieter Rottermund. Mad Mountain indeed.