"Galactic Effectuator" is an omnibus containing two of the famous detective "science fiction" stories written by the grandmaster of the genre, Jack Vance. This is a classic Vance: breathtaking adventures on colorful and dangerous planets, exotic customs of races evolved in unique conditions, and, of course, moving fast on the vivid background of it all, a brave and clever man, moderately quixotic but never forgetting his self-interest. Vance's protagonist, Miro Hetzel, is a top-notch interstellar private investigator who solves two tangled and risky cases.
In the first story, "Dogtown Tourist Agency," Hetzel travels to planet Maz: there he has to investigate a mysterious shipping company. Axistil, the hypnotically strange capital of this grotesque planet, serves as a diplomatic rendezvous point for at least four mutually hostile Galactic races, including humans. Meanwhile, a young man, after being subjected to a weird mental torture, is accused of a triple murder; trying to save this confused victim of unknown evil forces from an imminent execution, Hetzel discovers that young man's improbable story is intricately connected with the case that he investigates, not to mention the deadbeat lover of a rich woman, whom Hetzel was tasked to find, and whom he also unexpectedly encounters on the same faraway planet. Inevitably, there is also a lovely innocent girl that may not be so innocent after all...
In the second, shorter and somewhat more sarcastic story, "Freitzke's Turn," Miro Hetzel deals with his former classmate from the Academy, an evil genius who almost killed Hetzel many years ago, and then escaped to lead a life above all laws, those of men as well as, seemingly, those of the nature. Working for a wealthy client whose health and happiness will never be restored without Hetzel's help, galactic effectuator gathers pieces of evidence on several planets, minutely going through risky turns and stunning discoveries, and finally tracks the criminal down in the remote tropical paradise of his last refuge - only to lose the sight of him again...
Jack (John Holbrook) Vance (August 28, 1916, San Francisco - May 26, 2013, Oakland) was a famous American mystery, fantasy and science fiction author. Most of his work has been published under the name Jack Vance. Vance's stories written in the 1940s and 1950s cover many science fiction themes, with a tendency to emphasis on mysterious and biological themes (ESP, genetics, brain parasites, body switching, other dimensions, cultures) rather than technical ones. By the 1960s, Vance had developed a futuristic setting which he came to call the "Gaean Reach." Thereafter, all his science fiction was, more or less explicitly, set therein. The Gaean Reach is loose and ever expanding. Each planet has its own history, state of development and culture. Within the Reach conditions tend to be peaceable and commerce tends to dominate. At the edges of the Reach, out in the lawless "Beyond," conditions are sometimes, but not always, less secure.
Alexander Feht (born in 1961 near the Siberian city of Novosibirsk), a Russian American poet, translator, and music composer, spent more than 15 years preparing and polishing his Russian translations of Jack Vance's masterpieces. He personally discussed with Jack Vance some daunting difficulties involved in translation of Vance's rhythmical and complex prose, whose mesmerizing character and timeless nobility are often lost in poor translations.
