/lit/ - Literature

>>19822466
this is pretty fun

>>17729453
Demon Princes series by Jack Vance

I began reading Jack Vance's Demon Princes series with Star King, which I just finished. It's essentially a revenge plot; as a child, the protag witnesses the massacre of his home town by the hands of five 'demon princes' i.e. arch-criminals whom he vows to kill. After training and reaching adulthood, and years of searching the galaxies, he finds a lead towards the identity of one of them by chance. It's a surprisingly hard-bitten narrative, at times like a detective novel, as we follow the protag's thought processes and cunning machinations in his pursuit of his mysterious and powerful nemesis.

This is interesting to compare to his Dying Earth books - the same wry prose, eye catching visual writing and witty dialogue is still here, but the tone is more tense and violent, and in a SF father than fantasy setting. The pacing feels good, and there is a satisfying mixture of intrigues, exotic locations, and revenge porn.