NickyMcLean

Complete Works of Jack Vance

The Vance Integral Edition had its problems. I worked on the integrity of one of the volumes, The Brave Free Men, and have my copy of it on the shelf. The quality of the integrity varied with the people who volunteered. I spent at least six months comparing every word in the manuscript with two different copies of the books in my collection. The editor in chief was an opinionated jerk, but the project would never have been completed without someone in charge. The thing I disagree with most was the choice of font. The editor designed his own font for the series. I am sure that it will never be used anywhere else as it is a terrible font to read. I prefer reading almost any other copy than the VIE, and I do have other copies of at least half the works. I did get to spend a day with a bunch of volunteers and Jack at his house in Oakland, so there is that. Grr (talk) 15:18, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

In general terms, driving a sprawling project to some sort of completion requires a determined person, and this determination is likely to spread into other aspects and cause affront. Ah well. I didn't hear of the initial project until the work had been completed, so I was too late to contribute (for a decade or so I was the proofreader for a friend's fanzine, so I've had some practice, at least) and likewise I was too late to make an order for a set of the individual books. I have a near-complete collection of paperbacks of Jack Vance's SF works, the collections of short stories in various overlapping anthologies being the problem, as demonstrated by the Integral Edition including short stories previously unknown to me, as well as the non-SF stories, which I have never before seen in book form and only heard of via descriptions of books on offer for extraordinary prices. Similarly, when the Integral Edition in six volumes project began it meant a second chance, but I didn't hear of that until subscriptions had almost been closed, and my attempt to reserve a copy was lost somehow along with my initial US$100. So much for that. Then my friend noticed an offer to sell a set on eBay; our initial attempt failed because the vendor wouldn't deliver outside the USA and so cancelled our winning bid, even though I had an accomplice in the USA lined up to receive the copies and send them on to NZ. Our second attempt succeeded and so $4,000 was spent, and I promptly started wondering why I really needed to spend that money, given my completeish collection. My friend murmured about "overthinking".

With regard to the fount I can't say that I'm offended though I did wonder why a personally-designed fount would be appropriate for a project that was the result of many persons working in many ways; rather unbalanced, and as well, the editor using his own illustrations seemed unegalist, self-promoting even. There is the usual difficulty with certain letter sequences whose glyphs collide or touch (even within ligatures), but generally I've been happy enough to read the text, though hefting the large books is a strain. Still, I agree that the ordinary paperbacks with ordinary founts seem to offer easier reading; I'm just not conscious of appropriate words to say why. What does jar my reading is encountering mistypes, and odd spellings introduced by editorial fiat - that of course I never agreed to and seem devoid of merit. Potentially, given a ePub text, I could impose adjustments in "my" copy, but the point is that the source test was supposed to be ... perfect for all to read henceforth and anyway, I want an actual book in my hands to read and loan. I am also puzzled by the ordering of the stories in the six volumes, as it seems to be random. The obvious scheme would be chronological, possibly adjusted to have related stories in sequence. Moreover, I would have liked to see a publishing history for each story, with thereby some indication of development - both of the story and of the author's writing. And, a collation of the cover images for the various books. (I've noticed a web page somewhere giving many of those cover images) Some such images are hopelessly irrelevant (being cliché SF style unrelated to the story, and notably a cover for The Grey Prince showing a knight's full armour, in grey) but others are good, and rather better than the editor's... Or so I think.

So then, I rather think that there should be some account of the details of the Integral Edition project, as well as of the sad shortfalls from perfection. Since you have had a much closer connection to the project, I'm surprised that you should think that my few brief words are better removed than expanded upon. Are you bitter about the experience? I am sad that I didn't take advantage of Jack Vance's visit to Australia to make a visit, but, funds were short, and I was morose...

I think your complaints about the VIE are legit, but too specific for the article without a citation. Some things like the word "goodby" were spelled that way because that was what Jack used in his manuscripts that were "fixed" by an editor when it was published to match the publisher's style guide. I don't remember if that was true with "goodby", but seems likely. I spent a few hours at the Mugar Library in Boston, where Jack had donated some of his original manuscript. I noted that an editor had fixed Jack's constructed word "skeel" for a metal to "steel" in a published copy. The VIE reverted it back to Jack's spelling based on my note. Grr (talk) 18:11, 8 May 2021 (UTC)