Part of Series
The Pnume are native to Tschai, living underground in a vast network of caverns with their human slave-species, the Pnumekin. Historians of Tschai, the Pnume collect its past with scholarly disinterest; they hear rumors of Adam Reith - a man who claims to come from another planet, named Earth - and they want him for permanent display in Foreverness, museum of Tschai life! Reith must survive the Pnume tunnels, if he is ever to return to Earth. Tschai The Pnume is part 4 of 4 of Tschai Tschai is a planet orbiting the star Carina 4269, 212 light-years from Earth. It is populated by three alien, mutually hostile species; the displaced, native Pnume; and various human races, some of whom live as slaves or clients of the aliens. Each of the four novels relates Reith's adventures with one of the species, and is named after that species.
Author
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.
