Excellent review of Jack Vance's "Tales of the Dying Earth"

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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/01/18/excellent-review-of-jack-vance.html

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Is that the one that features enchanted/cursed contact lenses?

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Jack Vance’s Dying Earth weirdness for the win.

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Not that spell, but those lenses are in the first book.

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Vance was also an influence on Gene Wolfe and his amazing “Book of the New Sun” which takes place so many millions of years in the future that almost all current history is forgotten and the sun is going red. Whole villages exist by mining for artifacts through the layers of past cities, strange new religions mimic the satisfaction of an absent but expected savior, and the again-remote moon glows green with the dust of lost terraforming from the long vanished ages of space travel. An amazing read!

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Vance is my favorite SF and fantasy author, and a recommendation for his LYONESSE trilogy - it’s his high fantasy masterpiece.

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I’m really struggling with “Tales of the Dying Earth”. I’m normally not a fantasy reader, but after reading all of the Robert E. Howard “Conan” books I was really surprised how well the stories were written and how well they held up. “Dying Earth” on the other hand is a slog so far, and I really hope it picks up.
That’s why there’s more than one author out there, different styles for different people.

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Returning soon to the RPG world with DCC: Dying Earth from Goodman Games.

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No, the spell is in Eyes of the Overworld/Cugel the Clever (the one with the lenses that let you see higher planes).

It’s also directly lifted for the AD&D spell “Imprisonment”, the reversal of which is “Freedom”. (In fact, Vance is one of two sources from which the concept of spell “reversal” – getting the opposite effect out of spell, probably because you screwed it up – comes from.)

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I’m seeing a bunch of Lyonesse books on Amazon and it’s confusing. Can you link to the right ones? Thanks!

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Amazon has the three:

Lyonesse, The Green Pearl, Madouc

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I think the lifting may be in reverse: as I understand it, the whole “fire and forget” D&D magic system comes from Vance.

Edit: Sorry, I read “from” instead of “for”!

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Yes, as I said, D&D lifts a lot from Vance.

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I remember reading this when I was younger. I was awestruck. When this came out a few years ago, I devoured it. If you loved Vance, these are wonderful. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3689171-songs-of-the-dying-earth

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Vance inspired many writers (including myself) with his distinct and alluring prose, one of my favourites is Michael Shea, whose ‘Tales of Nifft the Lean’ impressed Vance so much he was allowed to set a tale the Dying earth universe.
He passed away only a couple of years ago but his son maintains Spatterlight Press to ensure his fathers work doesnt fade away.

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Also still present in “the world’s favourite role playing game” 5th edition. :smiley:

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Don’t forget the mysterious picture of a man wearing strange armor standing next to a stiff, striped banner in the middle of a desolate landscape.

It’s clearly meant to be a forgotten Buzz Aldrin.

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Let’s say “inspired by Vance”; spellcasting in no edition of D&D has quite worked the same as in Vance’s books. (Which only makes sense, since RPGs and fantasy novels are fundamentally different, if also related, things.)

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The Dying Earth stories are an immense influence on my fantasy RPG writing. Not just atmosphere, but some of Vance’s style, where he casually rattles off outlandish details of something that happens far off-camera, and that becomes part of the world.

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See also: Thundarr the Barbarian!

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