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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beware the Touch of Panak,
By Marc Ruby™ "The Noh Hare™" (Warren, MI USA) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)
This review is from: The Face (The Demon Princes, Book 4) (Hardcover)
Vance returned to the Demon Prince series after a 12-year hiatus to write this novel and its sequel, 'The Book of Dreams.' These demonstrate the mature Vance. His world building skills are just as fine, but character development has come a great distance Kirth Gersen is not only a full three dimensional character, but he is fully in control of events now. An 'actor' rather than a 'reactor.' This carries over to the rest of the persona as well, except for the villain of the piece, Lens Larque, who must remain a menacing shadow to the very end.Larque is a Darsh from Dar Sai, a world that was only civilized because of the value of its raw materials. Its people are harsh, prone to games of whipping and violent 'diplomacy.' The sexes don't like each other and the mating customs are half hide-and-seek, and half mayhem. Gersen puts together a ship-napping in order to trick Larque into exposure, has the tables turned on him, and finally arrives on Dar Sai with a new respect for the fourth of the Demon Princes. Gersen's troubles don't end because he has got to the right planet. Next, he must find the right man. Soon you get the idea that the only cooperative people on Dar Sai were not born their. The Darsh have about the same social skills as miners during the gold rush. And about the same amount of rapacity as well. I should also mention that they have the worst food in known space. Winning only a pyrrhic victory on Dar Sai, Gersen heads for its sister planet Methlen, where the beautiful people live. Besides the inevitable conclusion, Gersen also learns the sorrows of love (again) and the joys of delivering a good comeuppance. There is a lot of subtle and ironic humor in the story, one of Vance's trademarks as a developed writer. As such, interest remains high right through the end as the last twists fall into place. While it was to be only a few more years before the final volume appears it was a very impatient time for the fans. You modern young whippersnappers should count yourselves lucky.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
hilarious and clever,
This review is from: The Face (The Demon Princes) (Paperback)
Here's another thoroughly delightful installment (book 4 of 5) of The Demon Princes. The plot is as usual: Kirth Gersen is hunting down one of the Demon Princes who destroyed his family and homeland when he was a boy. There's no doubt that Gersen will kill Lens Larque; the question is how he'll kill him and what adventures he'll have on the way.The Face distinguishes itself by introducing a couple of cultures which Vance uses to make fun of human behavior. Lens Larque is one of the Darsh of the planet Dar Sai. They're a large ugly people with a disgusting cuisine, a fondness for flagellation, and some pretty entertaining mating habits. Their women have a short period of beauty during adolescence, but then become meaty, mustached, and mean. Thus, the men chase only the young women and the older women capture young men who aren't big enough to resist. (Vance mentions that "the system has permutations unnecessary now to explore.") The Darsh also have an exciting game of survival called hadaul. The other culture is the Methlen. These folks are snobs who look down on everyone else in the universe. They live in Llalarkno, an exclusive country club type area of the planet Methel, and they don't want anyone who's not Methlen living there. They especially hate the Darsh whose planet is close to theirs. When Lens Larque tries to buy a house in Llalarkno, he's insulted and run-off by the neighbor. He hatches an elaborate plan to get even and Kirth Gersen gets involved with both societies as he tries to track down the elusive Larque. The Face is hilarious and has a particularly clever and satisfying ending. You don't really need to read the previous Demon Princes books to enjoy The Face, but why wouldn't you?
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The 4th of the Demon Princes: Lens Larque,
By Michele L. Worley (Kingdom of the Mouse, United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Face (The Demon Princes) (Paperback)
"It is instructive to note that the author [of LENS LARQUE: THE FLAGELLATOR], Erasmus Heupter, dropped out of sight soon after publication of the article and was never seen again."- note added to a reprint of the piece, accompanied by a fervent disclaimer of responsibility for the accompanying silly-looking artist's impression of Lens Larque himself While two of the five DEMON PRINCES volumes are named for Kirth Gersen's targets at those phases of his lifelong quest for vengeance, the remaining three are named for great exploits or conceits (or both) of the larger-than-life crimelords therein. While each title is seen, in the end, to be apt, in some cases the full beauty of it won't be apparent until the end of the story. Readers unfamiliar with this series might expect all five episodes to follow a similar structure, as Gersen strips away his current target's protective veils of false identities and middlemen to bring about a confrontation. Not so; as noted in various (imaginary) learned tomes quoted throughout the series, the Demon Princes have few points in common, save that 1) each is a master criminal - brilliant, untouchable, and completely indifferent to human pain, and 2) they have a flair for schemes on a grand scale. Even on the matter of ego, Malagate - the only non-human among them - was arguably an exception. Lens Larque, on the other hand - Gersen's current quarry - stands out as exceptionally arrogant, even among this select group who divided the criminal activities of known space as predators might split a kill, ignoring lesser threats. The Demon Princes aren't an organization; they merely recognize one another as peers and stay out of each other's way. The Mount Pleasant raid, in which Gersen's home and family were destroyed, is the only recorded instance of a cooperative effort by the Demon Princes - and it was one too many, as Gersen's grandfather reacted by ruthlessly turning his only surviving relative into a weapon to strike even beyond the grave. Given the events of the preceding three books, it's even possible that none of Gersen's targets is aware of the fate of any other. The five books *could* be read in any order without giving away Gersen's solution of each core problem - identifying and isolating his target - but ideally the development of Gersen's arsenal of resources should be read in order. Through the events of THE KILLING MACHINE and THE PALACE OF LOVE, Gersen acquired tools to smooth his way: a fortune, and Jehan Addels, his canny (and nervous) man of business. (Ironically, through Addels, Gersen himself has acquired aliases and shell corporations to protect his identity even as his targets conceal theirs.) Addels acts as Gersen's unhappy ally, to the point of helping mastermind the legal strategems intended to smoke the whip-wielding Darsh out of concealment long enough for Gersen to trap him. As in Gersen's other adventures, his is not the only attempt at an epic achievement. Part of the charm of these stories is to try to figure out what the current Demon Prince is up to (as well as being treated to accounts of their past exploits). Another feature is that no Demon Prince is easy to identify, and each is capable of turning the tables more than once in a story. In fact, Gersen's first encounter with Lens Larque turns out as a spectacular revenge indeed - but the joke's on *him*. The Demon Princes didn't get where they are by being fools (insane in some cases, sure, but not stupid). THE FACE, unlike the other entries in the series, is broken into three acts, each set on a different planet, beginning on Aloysius (Addels' home base), moving to Lens Larque's homeworld of Dar Sai, and culminating on Methlen. The book is worth reading for Darsh culture alone and its stark contrasts: the comfortable Shades in which they protect themselves from the surrounding desert; their strict but alien code of honor and harsh penalties for lawbreakers (their mating/marriage customs expect adults of both genders to be sexual predators, but woe betide he who steals from a neighbour); the men have more whips than Indiana Jones. The Methlen - neighbours only in the sense that they occupy the same solar system - provide yet another contrast. Unlike the deliberately coarse Darsh, who enjoy making outsiders squirm just with their cooking, the Methlen are essentially a country club-type-group who bought their own planet generations ago, and by now have *really* exaggerated ideas of their own superiority, to the point where there are only three kinds of people: Methlen, everybody else except the Darsh, and the Darsh (who are just as prideful, but antithetical culturally). And the development of the Methlen isn't neglected. Gersen gets involved with Jerdian Chanseth, a young Methlen aristocrat with a great deal of physical charm. Nice touch; Gersen's human enough to fall in love, consider having a *life*, and settling down, even though the relationship from an outsider's perspective looks doomed from the start. Even better, Gersen's romantic entanglements are always relevant to the main plot.
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