BOOK REVIEW – JACK VANCE – SERVANTS OF THE WANKH 1969 Mayflower Books. The most embarrassing and unintentionally
laughable title in the history of science fiction goes to this dreadful book, which really lives down to its title. The Wankh are just one silly species of aliens in the story, which also has Dirdirmen, Blue & Purple Chasch, and other races, mostly embroiled in war and intrigue against each other. The hero, Adam Reith, is an Earth astronaut who has crashed on the planet Tschai, and concerns his adventures as he tries to figure out how to get home. In this, his second escapade in Vance’s Planet Of Adventure series, Reith is given the task of escorting Princess Ylin Ylan, The Flower of Cath, to her hometown. The journey there seems curiously uneventful for the first half of the book. Reith is told that there are pirates on the seas, but sails past them without being attacked. He will later be warned of an area infested with ghosts but again, he will see nothing. The book is a series of anti-climaxes and disappointments – most adventure is simply bi-passed. At one point, Reith is shown an island where tribal custom is to stake a woman out so that the migratory scorpions of the island lay their eggs in her, and the hatching young later devour the willing victim. Many a hero would do something to stop such practices, but Reith merely reacts to it as if he has been shown the tourist sites of London. The only real surprise is when the Princess kills herself in a fit of madness half way through the book. Reith now has to break the news to her father who is convinced that Reith has broken the story for reward money. When Reith refuses the offer, assassins pursue him. He is already marked for death for his claims to be from Earth (a distant mythical world to the peoples of Tschai, who Reith knows to be our remote ancestors. A cult has sprung up around his claims and this too makes Reith a condemned man. When he meets an assassin, the result is farcical. The method of execution is to poke a man twelve times over twelve days with poisoned sticks, so that the victim eventually dies of accumulated venom. The attacks are not done by stealth. The killer calmly asks Reith to put out an arm to receive the first poke, and seems genuinely surprised when Reith offers some resistance and reluctance, before killing his would be assassin. Reith changes travelling companions several times, though none are remotely memorable, and with the last group, a bunch of mercenaries picked by offering money in a bar, Reith tries to steal a
spaceship off the dominant Wankh. Captured when the spaceship crashes, as no one has a clue how to fly it, Reith discovers that the Wankh have been lied to by their supposed
servants, the Wankhmen, and he is set free as the Wankh set out to secure their own status on the Planet Of Adventure. Reith will now how have to work to buy his own spaceship, which will be the subject of future books, but after this read, I won’t be joining him for any more adventures. Arthur Chappell