World-building in short stories

Interesting comments regarding "Semley's Necklace". It strikes that me that one quite famous novelette--Jack Vance's "The New Prime"--builds not one world but six, each in a dense vignette. That story dates from the Fifties. Vance had the cheek to make contemporary Earth one of the six, a place no less exotic and bizarre than the rest. --Nick Gevers.

Yes, I did think of "The New Prime," which is an interesting story for a number of reasons. But as you say, the worlds are very sketchy -- this is not detrimental to the story at all . . . in a way, this is a Vancean approach to Le Guin's technique in "Semley's Necklace" in that Vance presents several all at once, but he is making them from Vance-scratch rather than using sf and fairy tale stock. (Granted that "Vance-scratch" involves a patented blend of sf and fairy tale stock!) I do like the story. It has some unusual twists, even for Vance. It would seem to follow what I said about "Moon Moth": every social detail/world has a direct crucial bearing on the story and the conclusion; it is longer than a short story. =mantis= Sirius Fiction booklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley http://www.siriusfiction.com/ eBay Auctions http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItems&userid=mr.sirius