This is a very early story in the career of Jack Vance a respected mystery, fantasy and science fiction writer. Published in 1951 as a story in the magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories it was eventually published as part of an Ace Double novel in 1964. Vance had his science fiction hat on for this one as our hero Joe Smith is planet hopping in search of a rival in love. The story catches up with him on Kyril where a race of druids are in control; keepers of an enormous tree that they claim gives life to the planet and is fed by the work of an underclass. The druids are a proud testy race and Joe meets Hableyat a spy from the planet Mangtse who helps him deal with the druids in his quest to move onto the planet Ballenkarch. Meanwhile Joe has met and fallen in love with the druid princess Elfane who is on a government mission to Ballenkarh. Everyone ends up on the spaceship to Ballenkarch where politics, espionage and murder are acted out before the denouement on the planet.

It is all over in 110 pages but Vance proves that he can write a good story. The politics are breezily worked through, the plot progresses smoothly and I enjoyed the character sketches of Princess Elfane and Hableyat. There is not much time for world building, but the scenarios are well set. The story is not overcomplicated and as a science fiction adventure story it moves quickly through the gears and so 3 stars. ( )

Son of the Tree is from 1951, pure vintage SF. Joe Smith of planet Earth is on a two-year quest, the nature of which is not revealed until quite late in the story. So he's working his way from planet to planet, and now finds himself on Kyril, where 2 million of the Druid class keep 5 billion of the Laity in servitude through worship of the Tree. This novelette is a zippy 110 pages, so I won't try to explain any more, except to say that attitudes several thousands of years after humankind's settlement of galaxies are, in fact, remarkably similar to attitudes in the USA in 1951. Nonetheless engaging depictions of imagined worlds.

In the Houses of Iszm, an Earther botanist, Aile Farr, visits Iszm, a planet where houses grow as trees. Jealous of their cash crop, the Iszics keep a close watch on Farr. After an unpleasant incident involving a deep tree root holding cell, and upon embarking on his return trip to Earth, Farr learns that someone is trying to kill him. Descriptions of future Los Angeles are amusing. Like the paired novelette Son of the Tree, one could call this arboreal sci-fi. ( )