A 1976 tale set in Jack Vance's Gaean Reach fictional universe. Vance's hero Jubal Droad gets caught up in the nefarious plot of an unscrupulous nobleman.

Another example of Vance's talented world-building, from the complex social structures Droad has to navigate to the world itself. Maske: Thaery has also a lot of humour in it, from Droad's encounter with licensed punishment operatives to his final revenge on the nobleman.

Droad is in the tradition of Vance's heroes who are rogues, a certain amount of fighting skills but more skilled at subterfuge. Droad also grows into a new understanding throughout the book so some have labelled it a bildungsroman.

Maske: Thaery also has (ahead of its time perhaps) an ecological message. The villain is seeking to convert a natural forest into a tourist resort, he is rewarded by the apparently primitive Waels by being turned into a tree. Another example of the primitive or alien in Vance possessing mystical powers.