The Review of the Dying Earth

Hi,

So last night I polished off Songs of the Dying Earth, a tribute anthology of stories set in the Jack Vance Dying Earth universe (home to Cugel the Clever, Rhialto the Magnificent and others. Some 23 short stories by a wide range of authors some very well known and others less so. We have stories that cover the darker Dying Earth style, the more comic style of Cugel and the baroque magic of Rhialto.

Anthologies are always a pretty dicey thing for me. It doesn't take too many bad or even mediocre stories before I decide that I've wasted my money. Further, the Dying Earth stories have a style that's easy to mimic but hard to do well. At 600+ pages of stories, I was a little nervous. I was happily surprised to find that pretty much every story is well done and a fair number of them go from good to great.

We have at least one story where Cugel is the protagonist and a couple involving Lianne and Chun the Unavoidable and Rhialto and Illdefonse make guest star appearances from time to time. Most stories simply use the setting to introduce their own characters and these are often the better stories in the collection.

If you're a fan of Vance, this collection of stories is worth looking into. If you haven't read Vance or his Dying Earth stuff, you should probably go pick that up instead and see what all the fuss is about.

later
Tom

The Review of the Dying Earth

Hi,

So last night I polished off Songs of the Dying Earth, a tribute anthology of stories set in the Jack Vance Dying Earth universe (home to Cugel the Clever, Rhialto the Magnificent and others. Some 23 short stories by a wide range of authors some very well known and others less so. We have stories that cover the darker Dying Earth style, the more comic style of Cugel and the baroque magic of Rhialto.

Anthologies are always a pretty dicey thing for me. It doesn't take too many bad or even mediocre stories before I decide that I've wasted my money. Further, the Dying Earth stories have a style that's easy to mimic but hard to do well. At 600+ pages of stories, I was a little nervous. I was happily surprised to find that pretty much every story is well done and a fair number of them go from good to great.

We have at least one story where Cugel is the protagonist and a couple involving Lianne and Chun the Unavoidable and Rhialto and Illdefonse make guest star appearances from time to time. Most stories simply use the setting to introduce their own characters and these are often the better stories in the collection.

If you're a fan of Vance, this collection of stories is worth looking into. If you haven't read Vance or his Dying Earth stuff, you should probably go pick that up instead and see what all the fuss is about.

later
Tom

Arg!

So they said "how about Saturday or Sunday -- the 11th or 12th?"

I said, "sure, Saturday the 11th then."

"Great", they said, "you're all signed up."

*some time later*

"Hey, the 11th is a Friday. Well, they must have misspoken."

*gnawing doubt*

*phone call*

"So? We're on for Saturday? The 12th?"

"Um...no, we have you listed for Friday the 11th. There's someone else scheduled for the 12th."

This isn't something I can easily reschedule, it really needs to be that week or it won't happen until, like, November which is just way too late. Work is good about letting me go, but I feel bad about asking since I'm already taking off a chunk at the end of September. It also means I'll probably be doing this on my own. The only upside is that I'll be done and back home on Saturday night so I'll have a day to sit around and go "ow".

darn it
Tom

Arg!

So they said "how about Saturday or Sunday -- the 11th or 12th?"

I said, "sure, Saturday the 11th then."

"Great", they said, "you're all signed up."

*some time later*

"Hey, the 11th is a Friday. Well, they must have misspoken."

*gnawing doubt*

*phone call*

"So? We're on for Saturday? The 12th?"

"Um...no, we have you listed for Friday the 11th. There's someone else scheduled for the 12th."

This isn't something I can easily reschedule, it really needs to be that week or it won't happen until, like, November which is just way too late. Work is good about letting me go, but I feel bad about asking since I'm already taking off a chunk at the end of September. It also means I'll probably be doing this on my own. The only upside is that I'll be done and back home on Saturday night so I'll have a day to sit around and go "ow".

darn it
Tom