I loved "The Dying Earth", and I didn't think I would. The genre (fantasy) is not one that I have read beyond "Lord of the Rings" and the Thomas Convenant series (by Stephen Donaldson).
Jack Vance was profiled in the New York Times in the Summer of 2009 by Carlo Rotella, author of "Cut Time". "Cut Time" is one of my all-time favorite sports books, so when Mr. Rotella says that Jack Vance is as terrific a genre writer as he has read, I picked up this book. I was well-rewarded.
Consider this passage: "I am no one, nothing. I am an abstraction, an emotion, the ooze of terror, the sweat of horror, the shake in the air when a scream has departed." This is such an arresting sentence that I had to hold back the desire to point this sentence out to the person sitting next to me (I was on an airplane at the time). That was from the story "Guyal of Sfere", one of six in this fantastic fantastic book. If you're entering the worlds of Jack Vance, this is a great book to start with.
Jack Vance was profiled in the New York Times in the Summer of 2009 by Carlo Rotella, author of "Cut Time". "Cut Time" is one of my all-time favorite sports books, so when Mr. Rotella says that Jack Vance is as terrific a genre writer as he has read, I picked up this book. I was well-rewarded.
Consider this passage: "I am no one, nothing. I am an abstraction, an emotion, the ooze of terror, the sweat of horror, the shake in the air when a scream has departed." This is such an arresting sentence that I had to hold back the desire to point this sentence out to the person sitting next to me (I was on an airplane at the time). That was from the story "Guyal of Sfere", one of six in this fantastic fantastic book. If you're entering the worlds of Jack Vance, this is a great book to start with.
