Vancian Magic

John Holbrook "Jack" Vance was one of those Renaissance men of whom I'm enormously envious. Skilled in many areas, from sailing to cooking to music, he's best known as one of the greatest American literary fantasists, and his work continues to inspire today. Currently, I'm busy rereading Vance's masterful Lyonesse trilogy, which I feel in some ways rivals Tolkien and Martin for its depth and scope. 

The novels of the Lyonesse saga -- Suldrun's Garden, The Green Pearl, and Madouc, chronicle in leisurely and picaresque fashion the struggle for the control of the Elder Isles, a vanished continent which lay south of Cornwall, north of Iberia, and across the Cantabrian Gulf from Aquitaine, in an uncertain time during Europe's dark ages. With such a pseudo-historical framework to hang his story upon, Vance incorporates both historical and fantastical events -- Christian missionaries seek to convert the pagans of the isles with limited success, the warlike Ska who were forced out of Ireland by the Goths now look to conquer a new empire, while the myths and traditions of the Elder Isles go on to form the stuff of later legend, such as the tales of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

Suldrun's Garden tells the tragic story of the titular princess, banished to her private gardens by her cruel father King Casmir of Lyonesse for refusing a diplomatic marriage. There she encounters a shipwrecked mariner, Prince Aillas of Troicinet, and nurses him to health, and the two somewhat predictably fall in love. All does not go well, and Suldrun's tale ends sadly, though both Aillas and the counple's son Dhrun (who spends a year in the land of the fae, consequently aging a decade in the process) have their own adventures, ranging across the Isles, encountering ogres, wizards, charlatans, slavers, and other obstacles before they are finally reunited.

In The Green Pearl Aillas, now king of Troicinet and its sister-kingdom Dascinet, sets out to unite the Elder Isles, taking the crowns of North and South Ulfland, and battling the ferocious Ska, a warrior people said to be invincible in battle. He's aided by his son Dhrun, and by the wizard Shimrod, while opposing the schemes of the wicked King Casmir and the wizard Tamurello. More magical hijinks ensue, and in the end Aillas, Dhrun and Shimrod help rescue the lady Glynith, who has been trapped in an alternate reality y Shimrod's agent Visbhume.

The trilogy concludes with Madouc, thought by many to be the best of the three, in which the willful and independent Princess Madouc, a changeling whom the fairies sent to Casmir in place of Prince Dhrun, seeks her true heritage and independence from her cruel father, while the final stages of the conflict between Casmir and Aillas.

What I find most delightful and also frustrating about the trilogy (and much of Vance's writing in general) is its absolute refusal to conform to such niceties as a basic three-act structure or conventional narrative flow. These stories are meandering, episodic, and wordy, moving from character to character, following a given plotline for a time before shifting back to other events. Mind you, Vance isn't quite as suffuse and character-rich as George RR Martin (who was a great fan of Vance's as well), and so one does not need to take notes or keep referring back to previous volumes as one reads, as with Song of Ice and Fire (aka Game of Thrones, for the uninitiated). Though at times maddening, it is this very quality of the novels that makes them so fascinating, and maintains the reader's interest.

Combine this merrily episodic structure with Vance's well-known loquacity and almost baroque writing style and you have a classic fantasy trilogy that puts modern grimdark sagas of war and blood and sex and politics to shame, and reads with ease and zest despite the author's sesquipedalian tendencies (go ahead... look it up). The precision of Vance's language, his declarative descriptions and lush use of sensory detail are unequaled by most current writers, and his detailed knowledge of mundanities such as sailing, cooking, and music all add to the work's rich sense of place and vivid narration.

Though there have been others who have successfully followed in Vance's footsteps (I recommend the works of the late and lamented Michael Shae, who continued Vance's Dying Earth tales with the author's permission, and wrote in a style that was at once fresh but also respectful and reminiscent of Vance's own prose, without devolving into pastiche), no one could really fill his shoes, especially in his masterfully dry, witty, and literate style of writing. Believe me, I've tried and fallen flat on my face as a result.

Vance's science fiction, including the Planet of Adventure trilogy, the Cadwal trilogy, and short stories such as The Moon Moth, depict exotic alien worlds, as well as lush and decadent cultures that are all but incomprehensible to ordinary humans. The Moon Moth in particular describes a society founded by humans, which has evolved into something entirely different, where an abundance of resources has led to a culture that values personal status as currency, local inhabitants communicate through song and elaborate musical instruments, and all wear exotic masks that denote their societal status. (Mind you, the worldbuilding is not perfect, as the folk of the planet Sirene also keep slaves, which doesn't make sense to me, given that the world is described as having plenty of resources for all.) The new earth consul is forced not only to adapt to this strange new society, but his life is complicated when informed that a dangerous criminal has arrived on Sirene and is hiding amid the masked population.

I think my favorite of Vance's shorter works is The Dragon Masters, where the humans of the planet Aerlith have been isolated from earth for generations, and have bred a species of lizard like creatures into several different breeds of "dragon," which the various kingdoms use as weapons of war. The dragons are descendants of a race of aliens who in the past raided Aerlith for slaves, and in the midst of a conflict between two powerful human states, the aliens (called grephs or basics) return, with their own servitors -- the descendants of the original human captives, now bred for war as the basics had been. Multiple conflicts must be played out before Joaz Banbeck, thoughtful leader of the humans of Banbeck Vale, can learn how to defend his people against the alien raiders.

One of Vance's most noteworthy contributions to modern gaming comes in the form of "Vancian Magic," a staple of the Dungeons & Dragons magic system. Originally described in Vance's The Dying Earth series, the "Vancian" model postulates that wizards must memorize magical spells and that upon casting, the spell is erased from memory, and must be rememorize before it can be used again. Personally I find this a very clunky system to attach to a medieval fantasy game, and have always tried to rationalize it in different fashion for games I run. The original Vancian system bears little resemblance to D&D's vast volumes of spells, for in The Dying Earth magical spells are highly volatile and dangerous, and only the greatest of minds can hold even a single spell, while the greatest of magicians such as Rhialto the Marvelous (main character of the Vance novel of the same name) can managed two or three. That said, Vance inadvertently set the model for modern notions of spells and magical procedures, and though D&D has thankfully added some other styles of magic, the old Vancian system carries on as strongly as ever.

I've only scratched the surface of Vance's life work here, so anyone who is interested in this baroque master of fantasy, science fiction, and science fantasy is urged to seek out his works and learn about the worlds of Lyonesse, the Alastor Cluster, the Dying Earth, and Tschai the Planet of Adventure, and all of his other creations.4