Their people are ruled by two hundred lords whose forefathers arrived 1500 years earlier and rebuilt a world devastated by many wars.

Later, all mass manufacturing was outlawed and the people became artisans, selling their handmade work to a single company controlled by the lords.

A few years later, Ghyl goes to a ball and encounters the girl, now an appealingly attractive woman, for the third time and finally learns her name, Shanne.

An acquaintance, the dynamic but unscrupulous Nion, persuades Ghyl and three others to hijack a space yacht and hold the passengers for ransom.

Escaping a horrible execution undetected, he steals the best works from a warehouse, takes his cargo to Earth, and sells it for a fortune.

They found refuge on its moon and eventually struck back with warriors they had bred, but by then, their enemy had departed and humans had arrived, only to be attacked.

Joanna Russ found Emphyrio to be "a fine book," saying Vance's "tone is perfectly controlled" and that "one would swear he had read Bert Brecht and decided to produce a novel that would be one extended Verfremdungseffekt".

[1] Richard Horton wrote in his SF Site review: This is one of Vance's better novels, and in many ways a good introduction to this author.

On display are many of the hallmarks of his mature style: his elegant writing, his wonderful depiction of local colour, his unusual social systems.