Tales Of The Dying Earth: The influential science fantasy masterpiece that inspired a generation of writers (FANTASY MASTERWORKS)

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He caparisoned the horse, honed the dagger, cast a last glance around the old manse at Sfere, and set forth to the north, with the void in his mind athrob for the soothing pressure of knowledge.

The Dying Earth is one of those magical places that doesn't exist in this new age of gritty, realistic fantasy. I have read Wolfe’s books more than once, there are things that you notice only the second time around, even in his shorter work like the fifth head of cerberus. Since his first published story, "The World-Thinker" (in Thrilling Wonder Stories) in 1945, Vance has written over sixty books. Then again, many fantasy authors are desperate to prove themselves 'mature authors in a mature genre', but as C. The Eyes Of The Overworld makes an important shift in the series: the comedy is increased, the destination becomes less important than the journey, typical action/adventure is dialed down in favor of farce and now we have main characters we follow all the way.

The Dying Earth (the author's preferred title is Mazirian the Magician) was openly a collection of six stories, all original, although written during Vance's war service. You can plainly see that my reading of The Dying Earth is tardy, given that Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson cited Vance's work as influences on the development of the Dungeons and Dragons game.

Instead of accepting the inevitable doom with resignation and epicurean lassitude, he is constantly asking questions : Why this? Cugel the Clever is a very hard luck character, mostly because very early his lack of any morality is introduced, and he is constantly rewarded for his bad behavior by bad luck. The Eyes of the Overworld (the author's preferred title is Cugel the Clever) was a fix-up of six stories, presented as seven. For example, it seems clear the towers the viewpoint character grows up in are ancient grounded spaceships. Vance's characters are not psychological studies, not realistic, but archetypal and foolish, traipsing from one peril to the next and then back out again, in the vein of Lewis Carroll.Each short story in the anthology is set on the Dying Earth, and concludes with a short acknowledgement by the author of Vance's influence on them.