Lurulu (Paperback)

Belated sequel or, better, the missing last section of Ports of Call (1998), a picaresque travel-adventure from the master storyteller and stylist. We rejoin the battered old tramp cargo ship Glicca and its colorful crew: ex-policeman Captain Maloof, Chief Engineer Schwatzendale, Chief Steward Wingo, and supercargo Myron Tany, as they continue their erratic course from planet to planet, acquiring and discharging peculiar cargoes, dealing with the equally bizarre inhabitants. Each of the four pursues an individual quest, philosophically and without great urgency. On a planet of spectacular natural beauty and prudish social climate, Maloof searches for his mother, who's beguiled by an infernally handsome rogue who merely wants the old woman's money. Wingo ponders joining a band of pilgrims as they face appalling hardships while seeking enlightenment. Gambler Schwatzendale sets about relieving the passengers of their valuables, while Myron hopes for news of his great-aunt Hester (and her marvelous space-yacht), who has gone to look for the fountain of youth-again accompanied by a despicable rogue. On some worlds the four friends merely require a glass of good beer, being sometimes gratified, sometimes frustrated. Languorous, occasionally repetitive-but this is quintessential Vance: rich, eccentric, nourished from roots deep in the human psyche. (Kirkus Reviews)

Myron Tany, rebellious scion of a wealthy family, tours the Galaxy on a very questionable interstellar freighter, in search of his lurulu. Against the backdrop of the Gaean Reach, first the story of Jaro Fath unfolds: from wildling orphan to spaceship captain, a tale of adventure and discovery wittily told. A boy haunted by memories of his dead mother's terror, Jaro's life is directed by an inner voice he can't account for...until he returns to Kammerwelt, described in The Handbook of the Planets as the fourth world in the entourage of Robert Palmer's Star, drifting in a far-flung sector of the galaxy known as the Dragon's Maw. Then Myron Tany, in thrall to his zany aunt Dame Hester Lajoie, sets off in her space yacht to find a faraway fountain of youth. The captain flatters Hester agreeably, but when Myron points out that the man is a swindler, he is marooned on an inhospitable planet with barely his passage home. Thus he is given the perfect opportunity to live out his childhood fantasies of intergalactic adventure, alien encounters and exotic romance. Or starve to death. Luckily, the tramp cargo vessel Glicca is just then in need of a supercargo, and Myron is it.

General

Imprint:	Harper Voyager
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	November 2006
Authors:	Jack Vance
Dimensions:	178 x 111 x 14mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback - Mass Market
Pages:	208
ISBN-13:	978-0-00-648210-9
Categories:	Books > Fiction > Genre fiction > Science fiction
LSN:	0-00-648210-4
Barcode:	9780006482109

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