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Introduction and background for the Jack Vance Science Fiction and Fantasy Checklist

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Go to the Jack Vance Checklists: Titles by Year of First Publication    Alphabetically by Original Title  Omnibus Volumes 

The pages of this Jack Vance Checklist of Science Fiction and Fantasy Publications are intended to contain a listing of Vance's science fiction and fantasy books, and an itemization of the different editions of those books. There are some notable omissions which will be detailed below.

Like all of the listings on pagesofpages.com this checklist is an experiment. It is intended to provide a quick way for the reader or collector (two groups with some overlap) to review Vance's books, survey the different editions published for each title, and perhaps make a selection of what edition they would like to obtain next. It is not a complete or comprehensive bibliography; its purpose is actually fairly narrow.

The edition listings contain links for searching various book-selling sites by various combinations of key words, and by isbn when available. This site has no relationship with any of the bookselling sites, there are no referral fees or anything like that. The links are present because we find them convenient for our own purposes (and because they are easy to generate!)

Using the checklist

There are two different arrangements of the titles, linked at the top of this page: a listing by year of first book publication and a listing by the first published title used for each book. These are each single pages that include all the books in the checklist. For each book there is a link to the editions that I have been able to identify, and - if it is a collection of stories - another link that will expand the page to include the story titles .

Each edition page gives a list of the different editions I have been able to identify; most entries include an image of the book cover, simple publication info (year, place, publisher, pagination), a reference link (usually to WorldCat), and links for searching book-selling sites by keyword and by isbn when an isbn is available. Occasionally there is a bit of additional information about a specific edition. And thats it for the contents of these pages. It would be simple if Jack Vance's publication history was simple - more about that below.

Remember that the best place to purchase (and the first place to look for) a book is at your local bookstore.

Other sources of information

There are other more comprehensive sources of information available. Below are a few.

Complications

There are complications in compiling the publications of any genre writer whose works lived beyond their initial publication. Publishers, at least in the earlier decades of genre paperbacks, felt free to make up whatever titles they wanted for books; editors felt free to do whatever pruning they wished to fit whatever their target format was.

Vance's publication history is enlarged by numerous small and/or speciality publishers taking up his work, notably Underwood-Miller who ended up producing the first editions of many of his works in the 80's and early 90's. The Vance Integral Edition is another unusual addition to his bibliography; Vance must have retained the copyright of most of his work to enable such comprehensive editions as the Integral Edition and the Signature Series that is currently being produced.

Omissions

While I am sure that are omissions due to errors, there are also ommissions that have been made deliberately.

As a result of these omissions, there are a number of volumes from the Integral Edition and the Signature Series that are not included here

Sources

The main sources of information for these checklists are the following.