ALASTOR

First hardback publication of Vance's three novels, now out of print, set in Alastor Cluster, a vast star-swarm ruled by the mysterious Connatic, who likes to walk abroad incognito and participate in the lives of his subjects. The splendid Trullion (1973) is the idyllic setting for a powerful family drama, notable for its invention of ""hussade,"" a rousing game resembling football played on trapezes above tanks of water. Marune (1975) meditates upon the warrior-scholar Rhunes and their peculiar sexual habits; a work of subtle and lingering charms, it is probably Vance's most underrated novel. The less successful Wyst (1978), Vance's only overtly political work, observes a creaky socialist utopia rife with food fetishes and petty thievery as it totters toward bankruptcy. An accurate measure of Vance's towering contribution to the genre.