Book description
The inhabitants of a planet called Iszm, a species known as the Iszic,
have evolved the native giant trees into living homes, with all needs
and various luxuries supplied by the trees' own natural growth. The
Iszic maintain a jealously-guarded monopoly, exporting only enough trees
to keep prices high and make a great profit. The protagonist, Ailie
Farr, is a human botanist who goes to Iszm (like many others before him,
of many species) to steal a female tree, which might allow the
propagation of the species off world and break the monopoly. 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.
