Wed 2 Jul 2025
SF Diary Review: ALEXEI PANSHIN – Star Well.
Posted by Steve under Diary Reviews , Science Fiction & Fantasy[6] Comments
ALEXEI PANSHIN – Star Well. Anthony Villiers #1. Ace G-756; paperback original; 1st printing, October 1968. Cover by Kelly Freas. Reprinted by Ace, paperback, August 1978. Cover by Vincent Di Fate.
An Anthony Villiers adventure, a costume piece of the 15th Century, common reckoning, or the year 3418 AD. Villiers himself remains an unknown quantity, but he has that something about him that causes events and crises.
In this instance, a smuggling operation working out of Star Well, a planetoid in the Flammarion Rift, is broken up by the coincidental visit of Villiers; an Inspector General; and a group of girls being chaperones to Miss McBurney’s Finishing School.
Emphasis on customs and costumes; clothes make the man, custom eliminates decision-making. Which will become more and more difficult as pressures of society grow and grow.
A conversational style of writing is used. Here and there, it reminded me Lafferty , and also of Delany. The story, not told precisely in chronological order, but never mind, is slight, and the effort may not hold up over an entire series.
Rating: ****
The Anthony Villiers series –
1. Star Well (1968)
2. The Thurb Revolution (1968)
3. Masque World (1969)
A fourth book in the series. The Universal Panthograph, was announced but never published and perhaps never finished.
July 2nd, 2025 at 9:39 pm
The model for Villiers according to Panshin was the Saint who was also the model for Lin Carter’s gentleman adventurer of the space ways Hautley Quicksilver.
July 2nd, 2025 at 10:14 pm
Modelling your character after Simon Templar, the Saint — well, what better hero figure might you pick?
I read the second in the series, but I never managed to get to the third one.
I have often wondered why Panshin never continued on with the books. Perhaps the last line of my review is relevant, but alas I didn’t provide any details, back then at the time.
I’d like to read this one again. It really is my kind of fiction.
July 3rd, 2025 at 5:08 am
There also appears to be a touch of Georgette Heyer influence.
July 3rd, 2025 at 11:25 am
I read these as they came out and enjoyed them quite a bit. Not sure I could get through them today. But the bit about being inspired by The Saint is definitely intriguing. I was a huge Saint fan at the time and don’t recall noticing that. Might be worth a second look.
July 8th, 2025 at 11:19 pm
According to an essay by Panshin on his original website, now at https://www.panshin.com/myden/followingmynose.html, mostly section X, Writing the Villiers Books, the series ended initially because Ace was purchased by Charter Communications and his editor,Terry Carr, left the company. Panshin wrote that he did not write the Universal Pantograph, despite all the work he had done on the novel, because he did not want to repeat himself, ala John D. Macdonald. And he noted having been inspired to write the Villiers series by the last chapters of Heyer’s book The Grand Sophy. I enjoyed the first two books in paperback and acquired the third, ten years ago, in an ebook collection of the three volumes, New Celebrations: The Adventures of Anthony Villiers. I wish he had written the fourth volume, if for no other reason than the title, too good to go unused.
July 9th, 2025 at 12:12 pm
Thanks for the link, Steve, and your other comments. I found Panshin’s comments on his early life fascinating. He was only a year older than me, but when he started at U of Michigan, he got there four or five years ahead of me. We seem to have met some of the same people, fans and writers, but not each other. We were also on career paths far different from the other as well, but it’s amazing how close we seem to have come.