Book description
Far in the future, the craftsmen of the distant planet Halma create
goods which are the wonder of the galaxy. But they know little of this.
Their society is harshly regimented, its religion austere and
unforgiving, and primitive -- to maintain standards, even the most basic
use of automation is punishable by death. When Amiante, a wood-carver,
is executed for processing old documents with a camera, his son Ghyl
rebels, and decides to bring down the system. To do so, he must first
interpret the story of Emphyrio, an ancient hero of Halman legend.
Jack Vance (1916 - ) Jack Vance was born in 1916 and studied mining,
engineering and journalism at the University of California. During the
Second World War he served in the merchant navy and was torpedoed twice.
He started contributing stories to the pulp magazines in the mid 1940s
and published his first book, The Dying Earth, in 1950. Among his many
books are The Dragon Masters, for which he won his first Hugo Award, Big
Planet, The Anome, and the Lyonesse sequence. He has won the Hugo,
Nebula and World Fantasy Awards, amongst others, and in 1997 was named a
Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America.
