The finest of the showboats—at least in its owner's mind—is Miraldra's Enchantment, owned by Apollon Zamp. He prefers to confine his voyages to the Lower Vissel, where the towns and audiences are known quantities and unlikely to loot or scuttle his craft. Yet Zamp becomes interested in a great contest being held far up the Vissel. In the town of Lanteen, an adjudicator for King Waldemar will select the finest of the Lower Vissel showboats; then the winner of this contest will compete with showboats from other rivers in the Grand Festival of Mornune for the prize of a noble title, a palace and a great treasure.

Though Mornune is located exceedingly far away—in the unknown, half-fabled kingdom of Soyvanesse, which lies beyond Bottomless Lake—Apollon Zamp enters the preliminary competition at Lanteen. Despite the best efforts of a rival riverboat captain to destroy Miraldra's Enchantment, Zamp wins the competition and gains the coveted Lower Vissel slot in the Grand Festival. Of course, it doesn't hurt that Zamp arranged the sinking of his rival's showboat. Well, not until the rival arranges the flaming destruction of Miraldra's Enchantment, leaving Zamp a showboat-festival finalist without a showboat.

Zamp is nothing if not resourceful. With the aid of his mysterious new actress, the beautiful Damsel Blanche-Aster, Zamp cajoles the miserly Throdorus Gassoon into letting his floating museum become the new Miraldra's Enchantment. And so, battling Gassoon and Blanche-Aster over their expenses and goals, Zamp and his troupe proceed up the Vissel toward the Grand Festival of Mornune, which lies—if they survive the journey—beyond the rapacious nomads of Tinsitala Steppe and the unknown hazards of Bottomless Lake.

Rogues, rascals and rapscallions

Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning SFWA Grand Master Jack Vance (born in 1916) is one of the most important and influential writers in SF and fantasy. His first novel, The Dying Earth (1950), painted an exotic vision of a far-future Earth so remote and strange that magic and science are one—a vision that has influenced innumerable SF and fantasy authors, most notably Matthew Hughes, Michael Moorcock and Gene Wolfe. In his second novel, Big Planet (1952), Vance created a world so richly and diversely imagined that it founded a new SF subgenre, the modern planetary romance—an invention that makes Vance the literary progenitor of Dune and Darkover. Vance's subsequent SF continued to develop his prodigious talent for creating bizarre new planets and cultures and established him as one of the field's greatest worldbuilders.

Another hallmark of Vance's work is its rogues. From his early Magnus Ridolph stories and his first novel, Vance's characters have often engaged in rascally behavior. In Big Planet, the protagonist contends with rogues, scoundrels and worse. In the sequel, Showboat World (1979), the protagonist is a rogue. Unlike its predecessor, Showboat World isn't a planetary romance; it's a picaresque.

Apollon Zamp, master of Miraldra's Enchantment, does not scruple to disable his rival's showboat, yet finds it outrageous when his rival repays his trick with interest. He also shamelessly manipulates Throdorus Gassoon into turning his museum-boat into Zamp's new showboat and paying all the expenses. Zamp is an unabashed trickster and con man. Yet, like other roguish Vance protagonists, Zamp is a sympathetic and likable character—not least because nearly everyone around him is worse!

Vance's novels tend to have thin plots, and Showboat World is no exception. Its storyline sends the characters up and down the river, tricking and chicaning one another until it's time for the climax. While the climax has some nice little twists, no one should read Showboat World expecting a deep, intricate plot. Read it to experience one of the field's finest world-builders and picaresque authors doing what he does best.