Tales of the Dying Earth

I really liked the first volume, with its unusual twist of having each chapter tell the story of a character who had come into the previous chapter. Lots of variety and a big broad scope. Even here, though, too many of the characters are not very sympathizable -- the author seems to like people who are either despicable, or just annoying. But it was okay because things kept shifting and you never got stuck with someone too long. The second and third books, however, focused entirely on one Cugel the Clever, who despite his name, is not only a somewhat reprehensible rogue, but not at all clever and almost always his own worst enemy, as well as the worst enemy of the people around him who he mistreats woefully. Cugel isn't even consistent -- one chapter he will wreak tremendous havoc to avoid the simplest effort, and in another he'll work assiduously for months at a time. He outstayed his welcome before the end of the second book, so by the end of the third, I was really hoping we wouldn't see him in the fourth. And we didn't, but the lead character in that book is also a bit of a jerk, and otherwise kind of a zero. The story was more interesting, at least, but nothing came close to equaling the first book.If what you came here for is the much-bandied influence on D&D and how magic works there, well, you won't have much more in your pocket after reading it than you had before. You already know that the idea of 'spell slots' came from Vance. Well, that's pretty much it. Some D&D spells have names that include the wizard who ostensibly created it (like all those Mordenkainen spells) and that also comes from Vance. But the spell slots thing is a tiny bit of the book and there's no more depth about it in the book than you already know if you know "the idea of spell slots came from Vance".

This is a classic, because it is one of the books credited with helping define the D&D system. It is NOT a single coherent story, but a list collection of short stories that are more or less set in the same world setting. Some main characters are legendary in others, some of it spans a great deal of time, and a good portion of the book follows a wannabe thief who is a bit cringe worthy.

I had been recommended Jack Vance many times but never picked him up. I saw the change to get the whole Dying Earth collection so figured it would be a great time. This collection is three different story collections from original short fiction submissions that were serialized. The first is the most chaotic, lots of scattered stories about post-apocalyptic Earth with the sun burning out. But the stories are much more about magic than they are futuristic, as the notable people all have magical powers, the ability to retain spells/rituals and all have dozens of awesome magic items. So it feels like a series of Dungeons and Dragons stories. In fact the Vancian magic system of memorization of spell slots is the basis for the DND magic system. Also plenty of the items referenced in the collection made their way into the game as well, most prominently Ioun Stones.The 2nd collection is the most stable and consistent, Cugel's Saga. 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. These are also the most entertaining stories in the entire collection.The 3rd collection is Rhialto the Marvelous, a magician in the cabal of the most powerful magic-users in the area. These stories were interesting, but Rhialto doesn't come across as fun a character as Cugel. The universe is still fascinating and these stories have a lot of wizard vs. wizard, and some devious intrigue. But they weren't as much fun as the first series and paled in comparison to Cugel's Saga. Still well worth reading though.Overall I went through this fairly lengthy collection in a week or so and prioritized the reading, which is usually a pretty good sign as I have a huge library. I recommend it whether you are an old Vance fan or someone who has never read the Dying Earth. You won't regret it.

It seemed at times to be predictable, but when magic and wizards were involved it was completely unpredictable. There is nothing like it.I am glad you got the Kindle version. I have a good vocabulary, but Vance uses words that are not so common and difficult to glean from context. Tapping and holding on a word brings up a dictionary entry for the work... Invaluable.A great read if you want to see how strange wizards can be. A must for TTRPG GMs/DMs, especially old-school.

I had a Gollancz edition but some of the first printing had the text sinking towards the spine and made it difficult to read, so I bought the Orb edition, which has a spaceship which really poorly sells the contents, there are flying ships and space travel but no spaceships like this, a completely different aesthetic. This series is far more fantasy than science fiction. Note that the first 3 novels have different titles in Vance's preferred Spatterlight editions.The Dying Earth is made of loosely connected stories (this was a minor controversy when it came to awards categorization) following different characters who sometimes appear in each other's stories. It establishes an atmosphere for the series nicely and there's some beautiful scenery but I'll never understand why some people like this book best from the series or even from Vance's entire oeuvre. I wasn't immediately aware that this book was supposed to be be funny. Liane The Wayfarer is the best character.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. Cugel seems like a recycled but less sinister version of Liane, much of the comedy comes from his regular displays of outrage as he dishonestly tries to paint himself as the victim of wrongdoing in any situation he tries to take advantage of.I thought Cugel's Saga retconned a bit of the previous novel's ending, it's the longest book in the series and by the end of it I was glad for a new bunch of characters in Rhialto The Marvellous. There's a scene in one of the earlier novels with wizards showing off to each other and I was happy that this has more of that; it's about a pompous group of wizards who are prone to backstabbing each other and the dialogue is more flamboyant than ever. It's even more questionable for the classification of novel than the first book, this is a collection of three stories and one is much longer than the other two.I've got mixed feelings about the series, it did make me a Vance fan and I plan to read many more of his books but I found this really uneven at times, I lost interest in a lot of the situations eventually; the imagery is sometimes really lush but often uses generic fantasy imagery and there's too many gaping voids through lack of description, many of the creatures are left completely blank. Later on there's quite a lot of made up words that I didn't get the gist of. The spell names are wonderful, I love the long dialogue exchanges and the idea that one of the wizards has disturbingly expressive feet. All in all I don't think I can give it less than 4 stars. I think Eyes Of The Overworld is probably the best of them but I maybe liked Rhialto The Marvellous just as much because it increased most of the best qualities of the series and Vance excels with arrogant characters.After reading other reviews I'm amazed that some people don't seem to realize that Cugel, Rhialto and friends are supposed to be very unpleasant people.

I picked it up as it is a staple of the "inspirations for great fantasy/RPGs"Yes, I'm sure maybe on release it was ground breaking with the idea of the Vancian magic system and a huge impact on D&D rules. But, it is actually not great as a book. The characters lack depth, and the full possibilities of magic are not utilitised. Worse, for a book set in the far future, there is nothing recognisable of old Earth or its technologies that make it interesting. Instead, although the past is talked about, it is a fantasy past so it is impossible to feel the sense of loss that the author seems to want you to feel. The promised blend of fantasy and technology is missing; instead everything is in a twee medieval setting, with random magic suddenly solving/causing problems.Most the characters are shallow, and astonishingly selfish - even when it is deeply stupid or actually harms them to be selfish. Sometimes plot points repeat themselves too. On the upside the prose is lucid, and it is reasonably well written, although it does leave some gaps.I'd personally say don't bother unless you are a hardcore fan of the history of D&D. Even then don't expect much.

My usual reading is military history so reading Jack Vance was a deliberate holiday. Set on Earth far in the future magic has replaced science and all is decay. Vance's use of language (often invented and often without explanation) gives a wonderful tone to the process and his inventive mind gives civilsation after civilisation to visit. Vance's subjects are typically anti-heroes, usually duplicitous, convincing themselves and others that they are being cheated. At times I felt close to Moorcock's The Dancers At The End of Time which surely must have been influenced by Vance

I bought this to finally learn what people meant when they said D&D has a "Vancian" magic system. It's OK, definitely feels like fantasy writing from another era though. It's a bit mysoginist and, being a collection of short stories, a bit lacking in theme. I think it suffers from that early fantasy writing problem where the magic of the world is supposed to make up for character development and plot.

For my money, 'Tales Of The Dying Earth' is Jack Vance's best work. I suspect that the stories were influenced by the Zothique stories of Clark Ashton Smith (praise indeed). The Fantasy Masterworks edition is fatally flawed in that the binding obscures the start of every line of text. This is very frustrating. The (later) edition published by Tom Doherty Associates does not suffer from this problem. My only reservation is that the cover artwork has absolutely nothing to do with the Dying Earth and, I assume, was created for one of the later SF stories by the author.