Crime Fantasy Fiction Sci-fi Sci-Fi Fantasy Space Opera

Demon Princes #3

The Palace of Love

Name: The Palace of Love
Rating: 3.95 (1342 reviews)
Author: Jack Vance

Jack Vance October 1, 1967

3.95 1.3k Ratings

Ongoing Status

25 Views

Start Reading

Synopsis

In the midpoint novel of the “Demon Princes” series, Kirth Gersen sets his sights upon the mysterious Viole Falushe. Vance describes this murderous creature as a “sybarite.” “Sadistic pervert” would probably be a more apropos phrase.After several false leads, Gersen backtracks the villain to his point of origin — Earth, of all places! Then the trail moves outward again, to the starworlds and a place back of beyond where there is actually a physical Palace of Love!

Books similar to The Palace of Love

The Golden Globe

★ 4.06

John Varley

Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards, John Varley is truly one of the "greats" of science fiction, comparable only to Heinlein, Herbert, Asimov, and Clark. Now the all-time master returns -- with his long-awaited epic novel of life beyond the great beyond...All the universe is a stage, and Sparky Valentine is its itinerant thespian. He makes his way from planet to planet as part of a motley theater troupe, bringing Shakespeare -- a version of it anyway -- to the outer reaches of earth's solar system. He journeys through the outlands, where thousands of artificial satellites drift, conglomerates of junk and rock welded together to support meager communities of human life. Here Sparky plies his trade, transforming himself from young to old, fat to thin, man to woman, by altering magnetic implants beneath his skin. Indispensable hardware for a career actor and an interstellar con man wanted for murder -- for while Sparky Valentine may have a song in his heart, he also has a price on his head. But his galactic roamings are bringing him closer to home, closer to justice -- and closer to the truth of his strange and prolonged existence...

Against a Dark Background

★ 4.1

Iain M. Banks

She came from one of the more disreputable aristocratic families.

Sharrow was once the leader of a personality-attuned combat team in one of the sporadic little commercial wars in the civilization based around the planet Golter. On an island with a glass shore - relic of some even more ancient conflict - she discovers she is to be hunted by the Huhsz, a religious cult which believes she is the last obstacle before their faith's apotheosis. She has to run, knowing her only hope of finally escaping the Huhsz is to find the last of the ancient, apocalyptically powerful but seemingly cursed Lazy Guns. But that is just the first as well as the final step on a search that takes her on an odyssey through the exotic Golterian system and results in both a trail of destruction and a journey into her own past, as well as that of her family and the system itself; a journey that changes everything.

The Great Dune Trilogy

★ 4.37

Frank Herbert

Herbert's evocative, epic tales are set on the desert planet Arrakis, the focus for a complex political and military struggle with galaxy-wide repercussions. This volume includes the titles Dune, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune.

The Book of Dreams

★ 4.13

Jack Vance

Kirth Gersen pursues the last of the five Demon Princes he has sworn vengeance against, Howard Alan Treesong, a cruel tyrant fond of terrible jokes

The Reality Dysfunction 1: Emergence

★ 4.26

Peter F. Hamilton

In the far future, humanity has divided into two diametrically opposed groups. The Edenists are genetically engineered space-dwellers with telepathic affinity for their biotechnological homes and ships. The Adamists, effectively the Luddites of the future, are willing to pioneer new worlds, much as their ancestors did hundreds of years ago. The two groups, peopled by fascinating characters, clash on a primitive world called Lalonde, setting in motion a tale of adventure unparalleled in this universe.

Destination: Void

★ 3.6

Frank Herbert

The starship Earthling, filled with thousands of hybernating colonists en route to a new world at Tau Ceti, is stranded beyond the solar system when the ship's three Organic Mental Cores, disembodied human brains that control the vessel's functions, go insane. An emergency skeleton crew sees only one chance for survival: to create an artificial consciousness in the Earthling's primary computer, which could guide them to their destination . . . or could destroy the human race.

Frank Herbert's classic novel that begins the epic Pandora Sequence (written with Bill Ransom), which also includes The Jesus Incident, The Lazarus Effect, and The Ascension Factor.

Giants’ Star

★ 3.92

James P. Hogan

A PROBLEM IN RELATIVITY

ONE:
Eons ago, a gentle race of giant aliens fled the planet Minerva, leaving the ancestors of Man to fend for themselves.

TWO:
50 thousand years ago, Minerva exploded, hurling its moon into an orbit about the Earth.

THREE:
In the 21st century, scientists Victor Hunt and Chris Danchekker, doing research on Ganymede, attract a small band of friendly aliens lost in time, who begin to reveal something of the origin of Mankind.

Finally, Man thought he comprehended his place in the Universe...until he learned of the Watchers in the stars!

The Garden of Rama

★ 3.79

Arthur C. Clarke

In the year 2130 a mysterious spaceship, Rama, arrived in the solar system. It was huge - big enough to contain a city and a sea - and empty, apparently abandoned. By the time Rama departed for its next, unknown, destination many wonders had been uncovered, but few mysteries solved. Only one thing was clear: everything the enigmatic builders of Rama did, they did in threes.

Eighty years later the second alien craft arrived in the solar system. This time, Earth had been waiting. But all the years of preparation were not enough to unlock the Raman enigma.

Now Rama II is on its way out of the solar system. Aboard it are three humans, two men and a woman, left behind when the expedition departed. Ahead of them lies the unknown, a voyage no human has ever experienced. And at the end of it - and who could tell how many years away that might be? - may lie the truth about Rama...

The Palace of Love

More in Demon Princes Series

The Demon Princes, Volume One: The Star King, The Killing Machine, The Palace of Love

The Face

The Book of Dreams