
Emphyrio
By Jack Vance
1969
First Published
3.89
Average Rating
238
Number of Pages
Halma, a world where humans were ruled by a race of effete and arrogant lords; where a neo-feudal system banned all work by machines; where a mock welfare state rewarded painful hand labor with a pitiful dole.Young Ghyl Tarvok was a rebel. In a pirated spaceship, he began his search through the civilizations of the galaxy, hunting the elusive key to the time-shrouded secret that could free his people. Inexorably he moved toward his last desperate hope: the place his ancestors had left many thousands of years before, the mysterious and terrifying planet called Earth.
Avg Rating
3.89
Number of Ratings
2,648
5 STARS
30%
4 STARS
38%
3 STARS
26%
2 STARS
4%
1 STARS
2%
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Author

Jack Vance
Author · 84 books
Aka John Holbrook Vance, Peter Held, John Holbrook, Ellery Queen, John van See, Alan Wade. The author was born in 1916 and educated at the University of California, first as a mining engineer, then majoring in physics and finally in journalism. During the 1940s and 1950s, he contributed widely to science fiction and fantasy magazines. His first novel, The Dying Earth , was published in 1950 to great acclaim. He won both of science fiction's most coveted trophies, the Hugo and Nebula awards. He also won an Edgar Award for his mystery novel The Man in the Cage . He lived in Oakland, California in a house he designed.