The novel “City of the Chasch”, also known as “The Chasch”, by Jack Vance was published for the first time in 1968. It is the first novel in the Tschai tetralogy, also known with the global title “Planet of Adventure”.

An Earth starship reaches the Carina 4269 system, from where 200 years earlier a signal was sent. A scout-boat is sent to investigate a planet that seems habitable but soon after its launch the starship is destroyed by a missile launched from the surface. The scout-boat escapes destruction and can land but the two crew members are attacked by what appear to be humans.

Paul Waunder gets killed while Adam Reith manages to hide and sees other human groups who come to check the situation with some individuals belonging to species Reith doesn’t know. Eventually, the survivor gets captured by a local tribe and is forced to quickly understand the situation in which he ended up to avoid big trouble.

“City of the Chasch” is the first of four novels that tell Adam Reith’s adventures on the planet Tschai. The only survivor of an Earth expedition, the astronaut must use all his skills and all his training to survive and try to recover the scout-boat he used to landed on Tschai.

“Planet of Adventure” shows the typical characteristics of Jack Vance’s works. From the beginning, through Adam Reith’s eyes the readers discover a planet inhabited by humans and some other species in a constant state of mutual hostility. This basic idea allows to develop very diverse situations that show the author’s great imagination.

When Adam Reith gets captured by a local tribe, in his attempt to survive he must first try to understand how the tribal hierarchy works. Talking to the chieftain Traz, Reith also tries to find out how it’s possible that human beings live on a distant planet and starts learning the various existing legends, different for each group of humans.

To try to recover his scout-boat, Adam Reith is forced to face a long journey full of dangers in which he comes into contact with various groups of humans living on Tschai. Jack Vance creates various cultures, each with its own customs, its legends about the origin of humanity and its relationship with the other species.

Adam Reith discovers that humans are subservient to other species but the situation is far from simple. Each species has a very unique relationship with its human servants and this also affects the relationships with other species and other human groups. In “City of the Chasch”, Reith has to deal in particular with the Chasch.

From the beginning, Adam Reith is an enigma because he claims he’s from another planet ruled by humans. On Tschai they many different cultures and civilizations were born ranging from the most primitive to some very advanced but the astronaut is something totally different for the natives.

The story is full of sense-of-wonder, witty dialogue, dramatic but at the same time full of humor. Not surprisingly, the Tschai tetralogy has become a great classic, especially in the subgenre known as “planetary romance”, of which Jack Vance was one of the best representative.

“City of the Chasch” has no real ending because it’s the first part of a tetralogy of novels short by today’s standards that are tightly linked and form one single big story. For this reason, I think the best thing is to get the complete tetralogy to read it all and fully enjoy this classic.