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Jack Vance

The Blue World Mass Market Paperback – April 1, 1977

by Jack Vance (Author), Vincent Di Fate (Illustrator)

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Mass Market Paperback, February 12, 1978

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Ballantine Del Rey, 1977. Science fiction adventure novel, based on Vance’s earlier novella "The Kragen", which appeared in the July 1964 edition of Fantastic Stories of Imagination. This novel version was first published in 1966.

Print length

190 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Ballantine Del Rey
Publication date

April 1, 1977
ISBN-10

0345257847
ISBN-13

978-0345257840
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ballantine Del Rey (April 1, 1977)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Mass Market Paperback ‏ : ‎ 190 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0345257847
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0345257840
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 4 ounces

Best Sellers Rank: #5,433,602 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #104,895 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction

Customer Reviews:
32 ratings

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2 star		3%
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Indiana Reviewer

I have a theory about Jack Vance's writing

Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2014

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Simply put, it's that in a great many of his books he sets himself the challenge of starting a character in an impossible situation and cleverly 'writing' him out of it. In his fabulous "Lyonesse" trilogy Prince Allias is put into a deep hole with unclimbable walls where a dozen other prisoners have left their bones. In Maske: Thaery, Vance's character starts as a younger son belonging to the bottom caste (in a society where those castes were rigid) with virtually no possibilities for advancement. In an afterword to his novel The Dogtown Tourist Agency Vance wrote that he'd like to give his clever detective Miro Hetzel the task of locating "an unidentified man on an unknown world before he commits an undefined act".

The challenge in "The Blue World" isn't far from that considered for Hetzel. A prison starship is hijacked by its scum-of-the-earth convict cargo, and the ship crashes on a 100% water planet. Only the giant 'lily pads' native to the world allowed the escapees to survive at all. Almost everything was constructed from the native plants themselves. The exceptions were the carefully preserved bones of the dead humans; the strongest materials available for tools on the water world.

Vance basically had to write himself out of the hole he'd put himself (and his Blue World humans) into, and at the end of the novel the reader is left with a situation where he can contemplate starships be leaving a highly civilized Blue World within a century or two!

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Evil Overlord

Unusually optimistic

Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2012

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CVIE edition

The Blue World is an longer version of Vance's novella "The Kragen". They're very similar, though the novel tells the story with a little more finesse. Essentially, Sklar Hast, one among the descendants of a crashed human ship, becomes dissatisfied and runs into trouble with the authorities. So far, standard Vance.

Sklar, however, is one of the most appealing and sympathetic of Vance's characters. Not only that, but his love interest, Meril Rohan, is unusually independent. The story itself covers how Sklar and others deal with King Kragen - a giant among the native sea life. King Kragen is clearly intelligent, and it's disappointing that Vance spends virtually no time exploring that aspect of the world - not even the history of how humans and kragen first communicated.

The story is in many ways not one of Vance's best, but it is among the most optimistic. Good things consistently happen to good people, and that's unusual in itself in a Vance story.

As always, there's great fun with language. In this case, for example, society is stratified by caste, including Hoodwinks (who, naturally, wink hoods), Advertisermen, and Swindlers.

Worth a read by anyone, and not a bad place to start with Vance. Non-serious fans won't need to read both this and the novella.

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Michael B.

Vance: Underappreciated Genius

Reviewed in the United States on June 10, 2007

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I have reached a point now where I am continuously reading 100 to 200 pages of sci-fi/fantasy novels, then throwing them away and searching for the next Jack Vance work. I keep finding that he has already written entire, masterful books on random notions that I have had about what the next few decades will bring....and he wrote them decades ago. I've been tearing through his work at a steady clip, and haven't been disappointed yet.

For example, I just wrapped up Blue World, which is somewhat of a cross between Moby Dick and The Old Man and the Sea. It's a masterpiece, and more metaphorical and symbolic than most of Vance's works. On one hand it can be read as a straight-forward adventure story about the descendants of shipwrecked starfarers attempting to defeat an aquatic monster. However, it can simultaneously be read as an indictment of religion, orthodox thinking, and institutionalized bureaucracies as being stultifying narcotics that sap human free-will and advancement.

It is amazingly and deliciously subversive. A good read even for those who don't like science fiction or aren't familiar with Vance.

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Kindle Customer

A forgotten classic.

Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2020

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A swiftly paced, science fiction allegory from an unjustly forgotten master of what is fashionably called “world building” today. Modern, overblown SF and Fantasy tome authors could learn a great deal about the power of economy from this guy.
Well worth your attention!

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Judith Schiebout

One of the best of Jack Vance

Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2018

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One of the best of Jack Vance. It should make a fine movie, now that the technology is available to show the "kragen'"

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G. N. Taylor

Darn Good Vance

Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2014

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While it's not as awesome as, say, Cugel's saga, or the dying earth, it's an interesting story in an unusual setting, with an amusing, if obvious "plot twist" hidden in plain sight. If you've not read it, and you like Jack Vance, it's definitely worth picking up. If you've never read Jack Vance... personally I'd start with either the Lyonesse or Dying Earth stories, but this wouldn't be a bad introduction, either.

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Amazon Customer

Another classic

Reviewed in the United States on October 23, 2014

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Classic Vance, all the goodies are here. Reluctant individualist hero, Conservative and tyrannical adversary, ingenious solutions and clipped action. My kind of old-fashioned SF

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jancarlos Gutierrez

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2018

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Good condition

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Manly Reading

A wonderful in-joke all the way through

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 23, 2012

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This novel (itself an expanded version of the novella The Kragen) has, through all its twists and turns, conflicts and confrontations, a single long-running joke, which the characters themselves never realise (except perhaps near the end, though we can only assume Sklar Hast guesses right). On the surface, this novel is a straight up story of conflict driven by a love-interest: man vs wild on a world of sea. On a deeper level, its about freedom v control - and a political liberal can read the control as an indictment of religion, while a political conservative can view it as the power of the State (and both are possible, as the political system is nascent and we have here the creation and growth of a religious state).

Perhaps then the novel is an argument for the separation of church and State, sparking a renaissance of sorts. Perhaps it is an in-depth look at how society functions cut loose from its base. Or maybe its just a fun romp. Or some combination of all of the above.

Sklar Hast is our hero: the descendant of passengers from a spaceship that crashed on a watery world 12 generation ago. Now all have "castes" based on their descent, and current vocations, and occupy a succession of giant floating lily pads winking semaphore-style messages to each other. They fish and raise plants, and only have one problem: the kragen, giant whale-squids which attack their floating lagoons. The biggest of all - King Kragen - has been fed for generations, and has a whole caste of "intercessors" who seek to placate him.

The story is how Sklar Hast decides change is needed, and how he goes about this particular business. Its great fun, and a short read, and, as noted above, can be read on few levels all at once. I have not spoiled the in-joke here: it wont take long to figure out, and it merely adds a little enjoyment to the telling of the tale.

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Amazon Customer

good, but somewhat lacking

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 2, 2008

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In a backward, unkown world a new people has appeared. They descend from the prisoners of a jail spaceship, who rebelled and crashed there. The planet is a big sphere of water, and only waterplants, fish and their derived products are at hand to survive. Men have survived and fare fairly well, but have to sustain the servitude to a kragen monster and the chaste of mediators who serve him as priests. A man revels against this situation, much against his will. Conflict follows.

This novel is a good example of Jack Vance's style, both with its great things and algo his bad ones. Note that these floats, for example strongly resemble those described years later in Dan Simmons' "Hyperion" in a planet called Covenant-Maui.

The good things: as always, Vance speculates with one of his favourite themes: men falling back into primitive societies and even barbarism when tecnolgy fails. And also his rich description of those very societies and enviroments. His prose is witty, ironic and even sarcastic when the characters get involved in discussions, arguments or explanations. As usual, he is very critical with organised religion, corporate state and government, and all forms of opression, which he feels many are eager to embrace.

The bad (or not so good things): characters are plainly described, and only those of the hero and the main fiends are somewhat developed. Even the hero's girlfriend is a pale shape who speaks two or three times. Besides, as other reviewers point out, some passages are simply sketched (like the metal producing savages, the true history of the tibe...) The end is also abrupt and even hacked. All this can derive from the fact that this novel was derived from previous short story.

All in all, quite an interesting piece of "retro" sci-fi. However, if you like harder sci-fi, then read "The Demon Princes" or "Alastor" series

Mark Lynch

Unusual but enjoyable SciFi

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 19, 2016

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An intriguing science fiction story which examines the themes of tribal superstition and human ingenuity. The descendants of convicts live on a planet which is mostly water, with the exception of the large reefs where human settlements are constructed. A rebellious leader vows to kill a monstrous sea creature which terrorises his community but is unable to build weapons due to the complete absence of metals and raw materials on the planet. Not a novel that everyone would enjoy but worth a read for fans of space colonisation fiction.

Mr. James F. Forrest

an old friend

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 28, 2009

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This was the second Jack Vance book I read (the first was Languages of Pao) back when I was 14 and although I read almost everything he wrote since, The Blue World remains my favourite. It completely captured my imagination. The description of the hoodwink towers. Sklar Harst's harsh personality and the romance and danger in the book. It is simply a great story. I read it many times and kept it for years until one day I foolishly lent it out and never got it back.

Susan

Great book!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 26, 2017

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Great book!

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