Wanting to read some old space adventures, I picked a Jack Vance book pretty much at a whim. Can't go wrong with Jack Vance, right? He's one of the big names.

I have to say, City of the Chasch is pretty bad.

Not offensively terrible, but the prose is mid-tier fanfic level at best, and there is no plot. It's just things happening with no coherent direction anywhere to be seen.
I have similar feelings about Edgar Borroughs, but at least he was 50 years earlier.

#SciFi #PlanetaryRomance

And it's not that the old style of adventure writing isn't for me.
I've read Robert Howard and Michael Moorcock, and I never get this feeling of reading the notes for a first draft of a story from them.
I switched to reading Leigh Bracket today. And while so far the plots are not terribly interesting, the writing is leagues better than Jack Vance.
Still not as compelling as Robert Howard, but it's good. Someone who can write.