At the Earth's Core
The keystone hollow-earth adventure, launching a seven-book series (Tarzan eventually visits).
Book Entry · Science Fiction
What is The Dragon Masters about?
On the remote world Aerlith, men breed captured reptilian aliens into fighting 'dragons' — Termagants, Juggers, Blue Horrors — while the aliens, on their raiding visits, deploy soldiers bred from captured men. Joaz Banbeck must out-think both his oafish neighbour Ervis Carcolo and the returning Basics, with the help of the enigmatic, naked, future-scrying sacerdotes who serve no one. A compact masterpiece of symmetrical worldbuilding: each side's monsters are the other side's people, and neither finds this remarkable. Vance at his most elegantly sardonic.
Why it matters
Hugo winner for short fiction (1963), and a perfect single-sitting introduction to Vance's mirrored-civilisations mode.
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