143. (March 2025) Emphyrio, by Jack Vance — The Tabletop Roleplayers' Book Club

Emphyrio Q3. The Setting

clash_bowley — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 15:53:53 +0000

Vance is widely considered the master of portraying cultures and places. making them unique and memorable. Most credit his experience in the merchant marine before he became a writer with exposure to many exotic cultures. Was this the case with Ambroy on Hauma? Was the reading immersive in this culture, or was it superficial and shallow?

Emphyrio Q6. Gaming

clash_bowley — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 15:59:07 +0000

Did you come away from reading Emphyrio with ideas you can incorporate in your games? If so, what inspired you and how would you use it?

Emphyrio Q2. The Tone

clash_bowley — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 15:51:54 +0000

Emphyrio is sombre and melancholy throughout. This is not Vance's typical authorial voice, which is comical and amusing. Does it work for this story?

Emphyrio Q4. The Characters

clash_bowley — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 15:55:18 +0000

There are many major characters in Emphyrio besides Ghyl. His father Amiante, his friend Floriel, Nion, Shanne the lordling, and others. Were they interesting on their own, or only tools to enable and manipulate?

Emphyrio Q5. The Writing

clash_bowley — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 15:57:42 +0000

Vance was a SF Grandmaster, famed for his writing style and background building. What was your experience like reading him?

Emphyrio Q1. The Legend

clash_bowley — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 15:49:59 +0000

In the story, Emphyrio is an ancient legend with many variants - like legends are wont to have - and Ghyl Tarvoke is exposed to one early on, at the age of eight, as a puppet play (with live, fractious puppet constructs) ending in puppet-Emphyrio's death by real execution. This has a lasting effect on Ghyl, who internalizes the story. Does this make sense in the development of Ghyl as time goes on? Ghyl searches for the truth about Emphyrio as Emphyrio used truth to face and defeat the monsters. Does this fixation work for you reading the story?

About Jack Vance

RichardAbbott — Wed, 12 Feb 2025 08:09:04 +0000

Jack (John Holbrook) Vance (August 28, 1916 San Francisco - May 26, 2013 Oakland) was an American mystery, fantasy and science fiction author. Most of his work has been published under the name Jack Vance. Vance has published 11 mysteries as John Holbrook Vance and 3 as Ellery Queen. Other pen names (each used only once) included Alan Wade, Peter Held, John van See, and Jay Kavanse.

Among his awards are: Hugo Awards, in 1963 for The Dragon Masters, in 1967 for The Last Castle, and in 2010 for his memoir This is Me, Jack Vance!; a Nebula Award in 1966, also for The Last Castle; the Jupiter Award in 1975; the World Fantasy Award in 1984 for life achievement and in 1990 for Lyonesse: Madouc; an Edgar (the mystery equivalent of the Nebula) for the best first mystery novel in 1961 for The Man in the Cage; in 1992, he was Guest of Honor at the WorldCon in Orlando, Florida; and in 1997 he was named a SFWA Grand Master. A 2009 profile in the New York Times Magazine described Vance as "one of American literature's most distinctive and undervalued voices."

An enormously long biography can be found at https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/author/B000AQ71MO/about

Cover Blurb for Emphyrio

RichardAbbott — Wed, 12 Feb 2025 08:07:27 +0000

Far in the future, the craftsmen of the distant planet Halma create goods which are the wonder of the galaxy. But they know little of this. Their society is harshly regimented, its religion austere and unforgiving, and primitive - to maintain standards, even the most basic use of automation is punishable by death. When Amiante, a wood-carver, is executed for processing old documents with a camera, his son Ghyl rebels, and decides to bring down the system. To do so, he must first interpret the story of Emphyrio, an ancient hero of Halman legend.

All Jack Vance titles in the SF Gateway use the author's preferred texts, as restored for the Vance Integral Edition (VIE), an extensive project masterminded by an international online community of Vance's admirers. In general, we also use the VIE titles, and have adopted the arrangement of short story collections to eliminate overlaps.