In the 1976 intro to the story Vance says he is particularly
proud of "Ullward's Retreat." This is not a
detective story or an adventure story, but, as Vance says, it is about “human
captiousness and human vanity.”
In the future, Earth is terribly overcrowded, with people
living in tiny apartments and obsessed with privacy and space. People have to eat algae and synthetic foods,
get put on a waiting list if they want to have children (the title character
says that he is “thirty-seven billion down on the list”) and a girl in the
story who acts like a teenager is revealed to be 38 years old, but taking drugs
to prevent sexual maturity.
Ulward is rich, and so is able to afford an apartment with a
large attached room, half an acre, full of cunning machines that create the
illusion that the door to the room in fact leads out to a bucolic countryside. Ulward even has a garden in this room with
real flowers and a real tree. A tree is
such a rarity in this modern world that the 38- year-old girl treasures a single
leaf from it that she receives as a gift.
Ulward is wealthy enough that when he learns that an interstellar explorer
has discovered an uninhabited Earth-like planet and purchased the rights to it
for his own use, Ulward is able rent out half a continent, a million square
miles, on the planet and make his home there.
Ulward has his friends come visit him, but even though the Earthlings
have longed for privacy and space all their lives, now that they have it they
are dissatisfied. Natural food makes
them sick. Real life rocks are not as
picturesque as the illusionary rocks they are accustomed to seeing in video
screens. The ocean is too scary to swim
in. Even worse, all of Ulward’s friends
are disappointed that Ulward does not own the entire planet, and as soon as
possible they trespass on the property of the other wealthy tenant of the
planet, breaking the contract Ulward made with him and causing Ulward no end of
trouble. So, after only a few days of
life in what they would have thought a paradise a month ago, Ulward and his
friends eagerly return to the crowded Earth.
This is a solid philosophical story with some laughs, but I
have to admit that I probably find the Jack Vance stories about people facing
dreadful dangers and committing unspeakable crimes more entertaining.
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