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Book Home  Books Information Durdane series
Durdane series
| The Durdane series are a trilogy of
science fiction books written by Jack Vance between 1971 and 1973,
and detail the political and social adventures of Gastel Etzwane
on the world Durdane. The trilogy, as a whole, portrays the rise
of Gastel Etzwane from common boy, to the autocrat The Anome,
and finally, as a saviour of his world against the alien Asutra
of the third book. |
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They are, in reading order:
The Anome
The Brave Free Men
The Asutra
The land of Shant on the planet Durdane is ruled by a dictator called
"The Faceless Man", or "The Anome". He is called
this because his identity is literally unknown. He maintains control
by virtue of the "torc", a ring of explosive clamped around
the neck of every adult man or woman of Shant. Since no one knows
who the Anome is, or who his agents are, fear of discovery induces
most people to remain law-abiding, since the penalty for crime is
detonation of the torc by remote control - without warning or trial.
The deterrent effect of this method of government is unimpaired by
doubt as to the actual guilt of the dead offender. An exploded head,
innocent or guilty, is a vivid object lesson of the penalty for crime.
The Anome is actually not one man, but a self perpetuating
and self-selected dynasty. When one Anome grows old he chooses his
own successor, in a system that was instituted hundreds of years prior
to the time of the story. The reason for this bizarre system of government
is the extreme individuality of the folk of Shant. They are divided
up into dozens of different cantons, each with it's own very individual
customs and laws, but united by a common language. Prior to the ascendancy
of the Faceless Man, Shant was plagued, by constant civil war and
dissension. The Faceless Man not only provides the glue that holds
Shant together, but operates principally by anonymous communication
with the cantonal leaders. Those who lose their heads are largely
those who have violated local law.
The protagonist of the story is one Gastel Etzwane,
the son of a prostitute and an anonymous musician. The first two volumes
of the trilogy chronicle the coming of age of Gastel Etzwane, his
discovery of the identity of his musician father, his struggles to
become a musician himself, the murder of his mother and sister by
a race of - literally - inhuman barbarian invaders known as the Rhugoshoi,
and his struggle for revenge against those same barbarians. This struggle
leads to Etzwane discovering the identity of the Anome, who, strangely
passive, refuses to mobilize the armies of Shant against the barbarians.
Etzwane is forced to assume the role of Anome himself; and through
luck and improvisation leads an eventually successful struggle against
the invader. As a consequence of the social upheaval caused by the
war, Etzwane lays down his office, and the torc system is abolished.
In the third and final volume, Etzwane learns - the
hard way - that the barbarian invaders were the creation of an alien
race known as the Asutra, who designed these caricatures of humanity
in a first assay at biological warfare against the peoples of Durdane.
For the Rhugoshoi are all males, they can only reproduce by sexual
intercourse with human women, and they are insanely lustful. The resulting
"imps" have no genetic relationship to the human mother,
who is a host only. This process, by design, also renders the woman
sterile, and unable to bear a human child.
The trilogy is set in the same broad Gaean Reach milieu
that many of Vance's books are, and like most of his work, full of
colour, culture and heroic adventure. There are wind-propelled cable-car
like vehicles and explosive collars around the necks of the populace
and a host of other creations that make Vance the distinctive author
he is.
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