Star King
cover of The Star King
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| Author | Jack Vance |
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| Cover artist | Richard M. Powers |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Demon Princes |
| Genre | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Berkley Books |
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Publication date
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1964 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Followed by | The Killing Machine |
Star King (also published as The Star King) is a science fiction novel by American writer Jack Vance, the first in his Demon Princes series. It tells the story of a young man, Kirth Gersen, who sets out to track down and revenge himself upon the first of the Demon Princes, the five arch-criminals who massacred or enslaved nearly all the inhabitants of his colony world when he was a child.
Star King was originally serialized in the December 1963 and February 1964 editions of Galaxy magazine, as The Star King. The antagonist of the book was originally known as Grendel the Monster, and was subsequently renamed Attel Malagate for the novel version. The magazine version featured striking cover and interior illustrations by Ed Emshwiller.
Though Vance won the 1963 short-story Hugo award for "The Dragon Masters", Star King did not win the award as is half-suggested by early cover designs.
Gersen is taking a short holiday at Smade’s Tavern, the only settlement on Smade’s Planet, which is a “neutral ground” hostelry for crook and honest man alike in the Beyond. Here he meets an explorer with a problem: Lugo Teehalt has discovered a beautiful and unspoiled world – but he has learned that his employer is the notorious criminal Attel Malagate, “Malagate the Woe”, and Teehalt cannot bear to see his planet despoiled by him. However, some of Malagate's minions murder him and steal the spaceship parked nearby. By chance, Gersen's spaceship is the same common model as Teehalt's; the thieves have taken the wrong ship. Gersen departs in the deceased man's ship and thus comes into possession of the navigational device that contains the planet’s coordinates.
Gersen goes in search of the identity of Teehalt’s employer. He quickly establishes that his mission was sponsored by someone at Sea Province University, an important institution on the planet Alphanor in the Rigel Concourse, and narrows Malagate's alter ego to one of three men, all senior officials at the university. All deny specific knowledge of Lugo Teehalt. By now, Gersen has encountered two of Malagate’s chief henchmen, whom he saw earlier at Smade’s Tavern: Tristano the Earthman, and Sivij Suthiro the Sarkoy. He knows that Malagate is aware of what he carries, though not his motivation.
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