Star Well
Alexei Panshin
211 pages
published in 1968

Star Well is the first book in the Anthony Villiers series, but the second novel in this series I have read. I had already read The Thurb Revolution since that was the first of the series I had found in the local second hand bookstores, the series having long been out of print. There is also a third book, Masque World and a fourth book, The Universal Pantograph was announced but never published.

Alexei Panshin is not just known for this series, but also for his Nebula award winning novel Rite of Passage, which was published slightly earlier, as well as his criticism, especially his work on Heinlein, Heinlein in Dimension. In my opinion Panshin was a writer with quite some potential, who unfortunately stopped writing, or at least stopped getting published. If that had not been the case, he may have been as important a writer as e.g. Roger Zelazny.

But perhaps we should be satisfied with what he did publish. As I said, Star Well is the first of three novels about interstellar adventurer Anthony Villiers. It can best be described as a fusion between a science fiction adventure romp and a comedy of manners, though the latter aspect is not as pronounced as it is in e.g. Walter John William's Drake Maijstral series. Star Well's manneredness is mainly shown in the comments of the narrator of the story at the start of each chapter.

The plot itself is no more than a sketch. Star Well is an interstellar gambling asteroid, somewhere in the empty void, from which a minor smuggling operation is run, which Villiers and his alien companion, Torve The Trog more or less help foil. Some other complications occur during said foiling, but nothing too strenous. The pleasure of this book lies more in the writing than in does in the plotting. If you do not like mannered works, this will only irritate.

The Thurb Revolution
Alexei Panshin
215 pages
published in 1968

As seems to have happened a lot lately, I read this book due to a review in rasfw, of the entire Anthony Villiers series, of which this is the second of three books. A fourth one was announced, but never appeared. The series as a whole is one of those "lost classics" people refer to often, but are long out of print and not easily found. Originally I had the plan to only read the books after I had all three available, but obviously this didn't happen.

Anthony Villiers is one of those heroes with a mysterious past, around which the plot revolves without touching him, a catalyst who sets things in motion, but stays obscure himself. Hints are dropped every now and again to who he really is, but nothing is spelled out.

The book is written in a slightly pompous, slightly baroque, slightly tongue in cheek manner. The characters are somewhat on the archetypical side, though always firmly realised as people and never two dimensional. The plot is slight, about the cultural revolution Villiers and especially his companion Torve the Trog unwittingly set in motion on the somewhat backward planet of Shiawassee amongst the Yagoots, "at best harmless wastrels, at worst public nuisances".

Cleverly written, ironic and self mocking, but never spiteful.