City of the Chasch
by Jack Vance

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Book Reviews of City of the Chasch

Book Review: In Search of a Ride Home
Summary: 5 Stars

When the Explorator IV is dispatched to Carina 4269 to investigate a distress signal, Adam Reith is one of the scouts on the mission. Quiet and competent, he is still unprepared when the Explorator IV is destroyed by a missile from the planet's surface, and his scout ship plummets to the surface. Reith survives (barely) and is found by a dour nomadic people called the Kruthe, or Emblem Men. Reith quickly discovers that Tschai, as the world is called, is like no other.

Four non-human races make up the rulers of Tschai, the Chasch, the Dirdir, the Wankh, and the Pnume (with their close relatives the Phung). In this complicated environment humans seem to have appeared by accident. On Tschai, humanity is an underclass, providing services to the other races, or wandering the planet like Reith's nomads. In this alien world Reith must find a way to return home and report his findings.

This will be far from easy. In this volume, Reith must escape from the Kruthe and make his way to Dadiche, the city where his scout ship was taken. Ruled by the Blue Chasch and their human servants, Dadiche is inhospitable at best, and often deadly dangerous. Reith's adventures along the way are many, as we gradually learn that he is a man of ingenuity and principle, to the woe of those who work against him. He makes loyal friends and challenges social inequities with the same aplomb that he rescues fair maidens like the lovely Ylin Ylan, the flower of Cath.

This slim volume is the beginning of a story that ably demonstrates Vance's fertile imagination and delightful narrative style. Never too wordy, his language is still descriptively rich and his sense of humor wry. Reith, like other Vance heroes, is quietly competent, soft spoken, and peculiarly romantic. The other characters are brought to life with the use of rapid descriptive brush strokes and dialog that often amuses as it reveals. Seek this series out and prepare for much enjoyment and delight.

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