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Tales Of The Dying Earth (Fantasy Masterworks)
 
 
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Tales Of The Dying Earth (Fantasy Masterworks) (Paperback)

by Jack Vance (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
RRP: £9.99
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Tales Of The Dying Earth (Fantasy Masterworks) + The First Book of Lankhmar (Fantasy Masterworks) + The Second Book Of Lankhmar (Fantasy Masterworks)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 752 pages
  • Publisher: Gollancz (13 April 2000)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1857989945
  • ISBN-13: 978-1857989946
  • Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 4.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 15,891 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #1 in  Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Authors, A-Z > V > Vance, Jack

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

Somewhere at the end of time, the sun gutters towards final death, science has long ago been replaced by alchemy and demonic invocation and the few inhabitants of the world wander around with a near-psychotic ennui and yearning. The original six stories Vance wrote early in his career are moody and poetic and genially depraved; when he came back to his dying earth, years later, it was in a rather different mood and the two volumes of adventures in which Cugel the Clever proves how little he deserves his sobriquet have much of the poetry, but also a sly wit that was not the early stories' strength. Cugel is incapable of leaving alone anything not nailed down, and much that is; he wanders his world miraculously surviving his own cupidity and treachery--yet is no worse than the smarter, more beautiful people he meets and more often than not better. More recently, he produced the slighter and almost whimsical tales of the magician Rhialto the Marvellous; Vance's poetic and comic strains of invention work effectively in tandem. The Dying Earth collects all of these stories, tragic, comic and charming--they take us to one of the strangest places and attractively affected styles in all fantasy. --Roz Kaveney


Product Description

The fourth in the Fantasy Masterworks series, the Dying Earth saga inspired writers like Michael Moorcock and Gene Wolfe, who freely acknowledges his debt to Vance in his own Book of the New Sun. Here, in one volume, is Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Award-winning author Jack Vance's classic Dying Earth saga comprising The Dying Earth, The Eyes of the Overworld, Cugel's Saga and Rhialto the Marvellous. Travel to a far distant future, when the sun bleeds red in a dark sky, where magic and science is one, and the Earth has but a few short decades to live . . .
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Customer Reviews

22 Reviews
5 star:
 (12)
4 star:
 (5)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:
 (2)
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 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (22 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Simply superb, 12 Jan 2003
This book is worth reading simply for Cugel's Saga alone.
Perhaps the ultimate anti-hero, Cugel's trials and tribulations are often hilarious, sometimes sad, always audacious, and the procrastinator varies between being extremley clever and incredibly unsighted by his own vanity.
Overall, the melancholic atmosphere evoked in this work is almost oppresive at times, and certainly portrays the last days of Earth in a suitably fatalistic manner.
The inhabitants of the Dying Earth are indeed only concerned with living out their final days in as much comfort and splendour as possible, and will take whatever action is necessary to reap profits from others' misfortunes.
Vance is a superb author, and never have I seen a greater use of language than in his works, this being perhaps the most refined and grandiose example of them all. If you want to learn vocabulary, forget the dictionary, read Jack Vance books.
This is indeed a Masterwork, and it is good to see Jack Vance getting some of the recognitian he richly deserves.
This book certainly deserves five stars.
Just so! Precisely so!
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38 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Good book, but avoid the Fantasy Masterworks Edition!!!, 5 Mar 2002
By John Davies (Chorleywood, Hertfordshire United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
Quite a good book, but do yourself a favour and avoid this issue, the Fantasy Masterworks edition. Why I hear you ask? I looks as though the book has never been proof read.........

1. The book is bound in such a fashion that you cannot read the left hand pages to the margin without irreparably damaging the spine of the book. This abates at around 100 pages into the book.

2. There are numerous spelling mistakes including a central character being spelt differently three or so times in the book.

3. On page 610, 50 pages into Rhialto the Marvellous, there is a footnote about the "Blue Principals". For further information, according to the footnote, you need to see the forward section of the book. OK I think to myself, and begin leaving in from the cover of the book, looking for an explanation as to what these Blue Principals are. They have been mentioned numerous times on this, and subsequent pages, and low and behold, there is no forward section. Anyone care to tell me what all that is about then?

I have enjoyed the works of literature within this abysmal excuse for a "work of art", as the "Fantasy Masterworks" title would have you believe. The books contained within are good and entertaining, but the avoid this edition like the plague.

The main reason I read this collection was due to someone posting on Amazon that Gene Wolfe's breathtaking saga "The Book of the New Sun", was a "copy" of this collection. Unfortunately, that person was sorely mistaken. This is a very enjoyable collection of stories, Cugels adventures are very good, but in this edition the first 100 pages of the book and Rhialto the Marvellous are marred by bad design and sheer stupidity on behalf of the publishing house. I would recommend purchasing a different edition and definitely NOT this one.

It is also worth bearing in mind when reading this book, that The Dying Earth is in fact a collection of very good short stories, sharing characters in-between stories.

Rant over. Did enjoy it though :)

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A real masterpiece, 19 Oct 2005
By Uncle Paulo (Maidstone, Kent United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
This is my favourite book of all time and it grows in my estimation each time I read it.
A word to the uninitiated, it carries a wordy prose, and I wouldn't recommend pausing to pull out a dictionary every time you get to a word you don't understand, just soak up the overall ambience.
The book is a semi-dystopia, set in a time when the sun is at the end of its rein. The world is an inherently selfish place with most individuals out to screw over their counterparts (though this is not always the case). The book really captures the romance of decay (as the poets of Venice used to obsess about), and so the stories, despite containing many villainous fiends, are overwhelmingly beautiful tales, and are not in anyway sadistic horror stories.
Tales of the Dying Earth also contains the most reluctant hero ever, Cudgel, who carries all of the selfish traits that embrace this dying and fascinating world. The stories about Cudgel are absolute peaches and very amusing to boot.
Jack Vance (and this is the greatest book to realise this) had the most fantastic imagination and ability to tell his stories in a sublimely clever fashion.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Vance can dance

This is my first read of JV which at 56 I must have missed him. What a corker too. Got into it whilst researching into origins of dnd. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Ted Edifier

5.0 out of 5 stars Its a kind of unique sci-fi fantasy mash up
I confess that this book first seized my attention because I thought it was apocalyptic science fiction (which it isnt really) and because of some truely fantastic cover art work... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Lark

4.0 out of 5 stars An acquired taste, but delicious!
Tales of the dying Earth is just that: a compendium of several stories set around the theme of a far, far future when the sun is on the verge of finally going out. Read more
Published 9 months ago by M. J. Bourne

5.0 out of 5 stars A Classic and Defining Work of Fantasy
Jack Vance's Dying Earth series is set in the distant, remote future when technology and magic have become entwined. Read more
Published 12 months ago by A. Whitehead

2.0 out of 5 stars Not Vance at his best
I know that many of Jack Vance's readers think his Dying Earth books are the best, but I fail to see it. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Russell Hafter

5.0 out of 5 stars Sheer Magic
Utterly ineffable. Words fail me. In fact, I think the only person capable of describing this masterpiece in words would be Jack Vance himself. Read more
Published on 4 Jun 2007 by >KārK<

3.0 out of 5 stars Thoughts after reading the first book....
Having just finished The Dying Earth by Jack Vance, I can say that I don't feel especially satisfied. Read more
Published on 4 Jun 2006 by Michael de Waal

4.0 out of 5 stars Read it before the sun fades away!!!
This is probably Jack Vance's finest series of works. Dying Earth can be disjointed and ethereal but the two Cugel volumes are highly enjoyable romps through an earth populated by... Read more
Published on 4 Jun 2001 by J. Bloss

5.0 out of 5 stars Slightly faded original
Read Dying Earth and you know where a lot of Harrison came from. With Leiber, Dick and Bester, Vance was one of the few sf writers celebrated by the New Wave. Read more
Published on 16 May 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars Wierd stuff
I read these decades ago, and have done again a couple of times. They're all an easy, involving read - great for trains, buses, waiting rooms. Read more
Published on 27 April 2001 by jlchurch@callnetuk.com

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