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Ports of Call (Vance novel)

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Ports of Call
Dust-jacket illustration from the first mass-market hardcover edition
AuthorJack Vance
Cover artistVladimir Nenov
LanguageEnglish
SeriesGaean Reach
GenreScience fiction
PublisherTom Doherty
Publication date
April 1998
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardback & paperback)
Pages294
ISBN0-312-85801-9
OCLC37513050
813/.54 21
LC ClassPS3572.A424 P67 1998
Followed byLurulu 

Ports of Call is a 1998 science fiction adventure novel by American writer Jack Vance. Followed by the novel Lurulu, it tells the story of a young man named Myron Tany on a picaresque journey through the Gaean Reach.

Plot summary

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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 cast away 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.

Reception

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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."[1]

References

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  1. ^ Hand, Elizabeth (August 1998). "Books: Ports of Call". F&SF. Retrieved 13 August 2011.
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