22 short stories revising and completing Vance's Dying Earth Universe !
This anthology is one of the greatest I ever read... Special circumstances of course : if, like me, you met fantasy with Vance's Turgal, Cugel or Rhialto, and if, consequently, you entered RPGs in the late 70s / early 80s as a magic-user with the AD&D rules... the travel organized by George R.R. Martin and
Gardner Dozois to roam the Dying Earth again, in almost 700 hardcover pages and 22 different short stories, IS such a delightful feast. Thanks to
Robert Silverberg,
Matthew Hughes,
Terry Dowling,
Liz Williams,
Mike Resnick,
Walter Jon Williams,
Paula Volsky,
Jeff Vandermeer,
Kage Baker, Phyllis Eisenstein,
Elizabeth Moon,
Lucius Shepard,
Tad Williams,
John C. Wright,
Glen Cook,
Elizabeth Hand,
Byron Tetrick,
Tanith Lee,
Dan Simmons,
Howard Waldrop, George R.R. Martin and
Neil Gaiman, we learn many new pieces of history about Turgal, Tsais, Lith and Chun the Unavoidable, Cugel and a few of his sons, or Rhialto...
The pleasure to read new so typical 'vancian' Dying Earth sentences is present all along. A few examples:
"Grolion had more to say, but the resident spoke over his remarks." The invigilant comes every other day to deliver my stipend. I expect him soon. I will ask him to let me engage you as my assistant." "Better yet," said Grolion, his face brightening as he was struck by an original idea, "I might assume a supervisory role. I have a talent for inspiring others for maximum effort." (
Matthew Hughes)
"Amberlin may have fallen a long way to his present desperate straits, but never for a moment did he forget that any adept's reputation depended on one part magic to five parts showmanship." (
Terry Dowling)
" "Is it not obvious? I desire to be liberated." "I find that possibility problematical." Carefully he regarded her. "Were you at liberty, you would attempt to install yourself as the ruler of Abrizonde, ans as I have just declared myself the new Protostrator, we would find ourselves in immediate conflict." (
Walter Jon Williams)
"My belief in you is not strong," Whisper Bird said. "In any part of your story." (
Jeff Vandermeer)
"Arguments commenced, only to be shut down by the host when the spells supporting them threatened damage to his solarium. The magicians were accustomed to making their points briskly, with enthusiasm." (
Glen Cook)
Every short story comes with its quite interesting afterword, in which every writer remembers his or her first contact with Vance and with Dying Earth, and explains the influence it bore on his / her work. For instance:
"Only two other authors have so captivated me that for a time I became immersed in their work to the exclusion of all other reading." (
Dean Koontz)
"By my mid-thirties, I had pretty much stopped reading sf in favor of crime fiction. But I still bought and read anything new by Vance; once, when I was supposed to be on vacation, I lay on a hotel bed and did nothing all day but read "Suldrun's Garden", the first Lyonesse book. Now, forty-five years after I first encountered him,
Jack Vance is the only author I reread, and I never cease to fall under the spell." (
Matthew Hughes)
"But then, as now, I had a special love for his tales of the last days of a dying Earth in a worn-out solar system. (So did a lot of other writers – not just the ones in this tribute volume, but dozens of writers over the years have emulated his style and borrowed some of his concepts, not as plagiarists, but as a loving tribute to his skills and his enormous influence throughout the field." (
Mike Resnick)
"In the Dying Earth novels and stories, I very much enjoyed the scheming of Vance's sophisticated, amoral wizards, obsessed with politesse, possessions, and prestige, and I thought to tell a story of a character who had not yet earned a place among the elite." (
Walter Jon Williams)