Dust-jacket illustration from the first mass-market hardcover edition
|
|
Author | Jack Vance |
---|---|
Cover artist | Vladimir Nenov |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Series | Gaean Reach |
Genre | Science fiction novel |
Publisher | Tom Doherty |
Publication date
|
April 1998 |
Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
Pages | 294 pp |
ISBN | |
OCLC | 37513050 |
813/.54 21 | |
LC Class | PS3572.A424 P67 1998 |
Followed by | Lurulu |
Ports of Call is a science fiction adventure novel by Jack Vance. It is followed by the novel Lurulu. It follows a young man named Myron Tany on a picaresque journey through the Gaean Reach.
Myron's family intended for Myron to follow a staid and respectable career in economics; however, when his wealthy and eccentric great-aunt Dame Hester came into possession of a space yacht, Myron suddenly found his long suppressed dreams of adventure within reach. Serving as Dame Hester's nominal captain on her journey to find a clinic reputed to restore lost youth to wealthy clients, Myron soon finds that his aunt is capricious as she is flamboyant, and after an argument, finds himself castaway on a remote planet. With no resources to return home, he obtains the position of supercargo on a tramp freighter, which enables him to travel further across the Gaean Reach to exotic lands.
F&SF reviewer Elizabeth Hand praised Ports of Call as "delightful," declaring that "one enjoys Ports of Call as one does a Restoration comedy, for the sheer outrageous of its characters and the precision of Vance's often lunatic descriptive powers."