The Demon Princes, Vol. 1: The Star King * The Killing Machine * The Palace of Love [Hardcover]

Jack Vance (Author)

Book Description

Series: Demon Princes | Publication Date: April 15, 1997

Kirth Gersen carries in his pocket a slip of paper with a list of five names written upon it--the names of five Demon Princes. The Demon Princes are a race of beings who disguise themselves as humans and delight in power and destruction. however, to Kirth they are merely murderers who killed his family and destroyed his home planet--and who deserves to die for those misdeeds. Three have already fallen in Kirth's hands, but there are two more names on his list, two more Princes who will live only long enough to regret their evil ways.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Jack Vance excels at writing a series of shorter works that together comprise a grand, interstellar adventure. Such is the The Demon Princes, a series of five tales that chronicle Kirth Gersen's quest for vengeance against the five demon princes. The princes led the Mount Pleasant Massacre, a raid that destroyed Gersen's family and his world. But now Kirth is on their trail, and no matter how many galaxies there are to search, he will find them one by one and exact his revenge. This first volume collects three of the five Demon Prince stories, while the second volume will carry the remaining two.

From Library Journal

Collected here are the first three novels in Vance's classic "Demon Princes" series. Kerth Gersen seeks the demon princes, a destructive race that disguises itself as human, to exact revenge for the death of his family and planet. Recommended for sf collections not owning the separate titles.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books (April 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312863373
• ISBN-13: 978-0312863371
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,855,531 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Avenger, November 28, 2000

By 

James R. Mccall (Libertyville, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Demon Princes, Vol. 1: The Star King * The Killing Machine * The Palace of Love (Paperback)

This is really a review of both volumes One and Two, which belong together, although each one is long enough that a single book would be unwieldy.

There are five novellas collected here, three in the first volume and two in the second, that make up the episodic story of Kirth Gerson, who has devoted his life to revenge on the five Demon Princes, who are galactic super-criminals, for a massacre they all cooperated on when he was a child that left him bereft of family, friends, and home. Since then they have all pursued their imaginative evils independently.

Gerson was raised by his grandfather to be a revenge machine. He has perfected the arts of killing in all their variety, and cultivates a bland and harmless appearance so as to pursue, undetected and undeterred, the deaths of these (mostly) men.

But they will not succumb easily. Gerson's greatest weapon is that these enormously clever and ruthless criminals are not aware of him, or of his mission. They are, however, preternaturally vigilant (as befits those extravagantly beyond the law), masters of disguise and misdirection, and playful in ghastly and terrifying ways. They assume they have enemies, and each time Kirth Gerson draws near his quarry the roles of hunter and hunted become less clear.

The premise is gripping, the prose luxuriant and witty, and the action a tasteful mixture of violence and elegant repartee. Vance's inventiveness never flags, and he clearly enjoys the implausible colorful worlds he constructs with so much attention to the details of diet, costume, architecture, and custom. And what could be more appealing than innocence avenged, and dangerous evil decisively defeated?

These stories appeared in the old Galaxy magazine (I think!) back in the sixties, over a period of years. I remember getting hold of new ones in college after having gotten hooked by the first two stories years earlier. So, just as it took Kirth Gerson a long time to fully effect his revenge, it was a long time before we readers had his whole story in hand. But this two-volume collection replaces that years-long suspense with more-or-less instant gratification. The stories are long, but they are all there, in the proper order. It would be cruel indeed to give volume One as a gift without supplying volume Two as well. But Vance's prose is a rich diet, and it's likely that after these books a reader will be ready for some leaner fare for quite some time.

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb Anthology, October 23, 2005

By 

Stewart Teaze (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Demon Princes (Hardcover)

THE DEMON PRINCES is an anthology of five related science fiction novels written by the Grandmaster Jack Vance between the years 1964 and 1981, set about 1500 years in the future. The hero of the stories, Kirth Gersen, is a kind of "James Bond/Sherlock Holmes in Space"; who, as a young boy finds himself and his grandfather witnesses and sole survivors of a town massacre perpetrated by five "Demon Princes". Kirth's grandfather grooms him to seek revenge, and enrolls him in an elite Intergalactic Police Training Academy, where Kirth excels, and sets out to "The Beyond" to locate and extract revenge against the Demon Princes.

As is always the case with Jack Vance books, be sure to keep a dictionary handy and prepare to improve your vocabulary. I find myself looking up a new word on average of once every 4 or 5 pages... and I rarely have to look up a new word when reading books produced by most modern-day authors.

Following are brief reviews of each of the 5 stories contained in THE DEMON PRINCES:

THE STAR KING **** (1964, 170 pages) - A nicely interwoven tale of mystery, intrigue, action, courtship, and alien worlds. "They just don't write `em like this any more".

THE KILLING MACHINE **** (1964, 165 pages) - Somewhat similar to THE STAR KING in that Kirth ends up having a hard time telling what the "bad guy" Kokor Hekkus really looks like. The alien world that Kirth traces Hekkus to is something out of the Middle Ages, with castles, princes and princesses, but also includes huge dreadful centipede-like man-killing beasts. Kirth manages to come into quite a bit of money by the end of this story.

THE PALACE OF LOVE **** (1967, 185 pages) - After the princess from THE KILLING MACHINE ends up taking a walk because she can't live with Kirth Gersen's single-mindedness, Kirth tracks the oddball Demon Prince Viole Falushe to his secret "Palace of Love". Interesting subplot regarding the plight of typical slaves on the lawless planets "beyond".

THE FACE ***** (1979, 222 pages) - Fantastic story, it is my pleasure to say that this is one of the best stories I've ever read. It has it all; action, mystery, romance, believable situations, innovative alien worlds and cultures - all leading up to a superb ending. This particular story is so good that it single-handedly brings the entire anthology (which is otherwise made up mostly of 4-star offerings) up to a 5-star rating.

THE BOOK OF DREAMS ***** (1981, 222 pages) - Another top-notch story, which starts out with Kirth Gerson using a ruse somewhat similar to that described in A. Conan Doyle's THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE, in order to attract the interest of the last remaining Demon Prince, H.A. Treesong... he then chases him from one bizzare future human culture world to another - including one funny/wild scene where he buys his way into a high school reunion garden party band as a beginner flute player, to get a chance to kill Treesong.

I only have two negative comments regarding this anthology; 1) About every 100 pages or so, and especially in the first three stories, there would be missing or transformed letters, or even missing words... and at times you will find yourself playing "WHEEL OF FORTUNE" trying to piece a sentence back together, 2) In the first three stories, Kirth's character, while entirely believable and not unlikeable, is a bit wooden and most of the time is fairly unexciting around the women (this is explained away by the fact that he is "a man on a mission", and has to keep his life focused on tracking down the evil-doers). By the fourth story, Kirth's character evolves into a much more exciting, inventive, personable, and introspective person, who is much more at ease with the ladies.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A sharp response to hard criticism, October 7, 1998

By 

"mangetout" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Demon Princes, Vol. 1: The Star King * The Killing Machine * The Palace of Love (Hardcover)

A classic criticism of SF is that the characters are thinly-drawn caricatures. Often there is more than a grain of truth in this, and Mr. Vance himself can have been considered guilty. However, this is the 'Scream' of SF literature, in that it is a knowing response to the critique, whilst staying as fast-paced, rollicking swashbuckler, with colourful characters, inventive prose and fantastic (in the traditional sense of the word) names, giving depth to the entertainingly-realised worlds. Kirth Gersen himself, the lead character, is often caught questioning his own lack of personality depth beyond his mission, whilst displaying a not insignificant range and subtlety of emotion. Still surprising on re-reading, with great sophistication and wit, it is a fine testament to a top author.