What began as a human refugee camp on the Earth-like world of Pangborn 1,600 years ago has long since evolved into a global colony. Most of the planet is ruled by Lord Faide. His only remaining opponent is Lord Ballant. On the eve of war, Faide and his troops march to invade Ballant’s kingdom. However, their way is obstructed by a forest, recently planted by the First Folk, Pangborn’s indigenous people.
The First Folk were all but slaughtered by the original human settlers and they continue to harbor a grudge against mankind. Their forest is replete with traps, but Faide and his telepathic mystics known as “Jinxmen” negotiate with the First Folk for safe passage, explaining that they have no qualms with anyone but Lord Ballant.
The First Folk guide them through safely and Faide invades Ballant-keep using a combination of weaponry and the voodoo practiced by his Jinxmen. After soundly defeating Ballant, Faide turns his attention to the First Folk who, he soon learns, are plotting against him in an attempt to take back Pangborn from the humans.
Faide and his Jinxmen soon learn that the First Folk are all but invulnerable to telepathy and voodoo. Their minds do not function as do those of men. They are also far more resourceful than anticipated.
The Miracle Workers is a brief but engaging exploration into imperialism and colonialism with an interesting twist. While Faide and his contemporaries are, in some ways, more advanced than their ancestors, they have lost the scientific and engineering prowess of the early colonists, until an apprentice Jinxman—viewed as an incompetent fool by his elders—begins experimenting with various solutions to aid Faide in his war against the First Folk.
The only disappointing aspect of the story is a lack of exposure to the First Folks’ plight. In the beginning of the story, they are merely an obstacle between Faide and Ballant. Later, they become Faide’s enemy, but are themselves never fully developed as characters. As such, it is difficult to sympathize with them. There are no individuals, only the horde. They have few lines and are mostly referred to in the third person by Faide and his men. Yes, the First Folks’ motives for destroying the humans are clear enough, but they are depicted as little more than two-dimensional creatures with bizarre physical abilities and exceptional cunning.
In this fourth and final installment of Jack Vance’s Planet of Adventure series, astronaut Adam Reith is nearly finished construction on a spaceship that will allow him to escape the dangerous world of Tschai and return to Earth. It has been at least a year since Reith crash landed on the planet when his scout ship was shot down while attempting to land.
In a time when cryo-technology allows the recently deceased to maintain brain activity for years in cold storage, successful businessman Glen Runciter consults with his late wife, Ella, who has been dead for over two decades. Glen and Ella manage a company that employs a team of anti-telepaths with a unique ability to seek out and neutralize telepaths who pose a danger to society.
American astronaut Adam Reith, stranded on the alien planet Tschai for at least a year and desperate to return to Earth, has no choice but to find a way to build a new spaceship from scratch. The scout ship in which he and his late colleague, Paul Waunder, crashed on Tschai was long ago confiscated by one of the alien races and stripped for its technology. Reith’s previous two attempts to acquire a ship failed (as chronicled in City of the Chasch and Servants of the Wankh).