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43 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exaltation & Debasement, Hilarity & Wickedness, February 7, 2006
I'll try to be short, but I cannot resist this opportunity to bang the gong for one of our greatest American authors, the immortal JACK VANCE (b. 1917), and what will likely be his most enduring work, "The Dying Earth."
Folks, it's all here--drama, heroics, adventure, atmosphere, a keen understanding of human nature, all liberally garnished with one of the dryest senses of humor ever. I first encountered the lead-off short story of the opening collection "The Dying Earth" back in 1969 in a paperback short story collection, and it grabbed me by the throat even at age 12. I found a used paperback of "Dying Earth" just a few years later and discovered to my continuing delight that the promise of that anthologized tale, "Mazirian the Magician" was more than born out by the rest of the book.
Other critics have classified Vance as science fiction's "premier stylist" and I tend to agree. Characters in the end-of-time world Vance creates here speak in almost Shakesperian dialogue, with outlandish flourishes of verbosity. I can certainly understand if more literal minded readers are put off by what appears to be a pretentious or effete manner of writing. BUT if you can get on Jack's wavelength--and it isn't difficult--you are in for one of the most unique and imaginative collection of page-turners ever written.
I'll leave to new readers the pleasure of discovering for themselves Mazirian, T'sais & T'sain, Liane the Wayfarer, Chun the Unavoidable, and of course Cugel the Clever--not to ignore the redoubtable Rhialto the Marvellous. Fictional characters definitely, but also vehicles for Vance to express his sharply perceptive take on the human condition in all its extremes of exaltation and debasement, hilarity and wickedness. These stories represent Vance across his career as a professional author (the first of the "Dying Earth" tales were written while he was still a merchant seaman in the 1940's) through 1983, when "Rhialto" was published. Throughout, the quality and consistency of his writing is FORMIDABLE. His unique voice and style were apparent from the beginning, and if anything, as he matured, he tended more toward the sardonic humor that REALLY ran riot by the time "Rhialto" was published.
I envy you new readers the opportunity to laugh out loud for the first time at Vance's over-the-top characterizations and allegories; you like me will surely be dazzled by the threads of plot drawing all the early cast of characters together throughout "The Dying Earth" to make a complete (and intensely satisfying) story cycle. Really, the riches available here between two covers can be rediscovered for the rest of your life. For those of us who waited years between "Dying Earth" collections, you newcomers are on the shores of paradise; despite the crummy, knock off cover and shabby typos this omnibus collection is blighted with, the quality of the work outshines any such drawbacks.
-And don't stop there--Vance collections "The Demon Princes," "Lyonesse Trilogy" and "Planet of Adventure" are no less beguiling in their own uniquely Vancian way. However, for me, nothing can surpass "Dying Earth" for that thrill of discovery and the lingering golden-hour whisper of an exotic life of tingling weirdness awaiting man's last days on an indescribably ancient Earth where the sun spasms and casts long, ruddy shadows into eternity...
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44 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The cervantes of fantasy / sci fi, June 19, 2004
There is something unusual about Jack Vance which reminds me of two of my other favorite writers, Philip K Dick and Stanislaw Lem. That is the conceit of hiding subtle, and nuanced social commentary beneath a veneer of light escapism. Lem, writing from behind the iron curtain, wrote brilliantly clever Robot fairy tales with sly underlying critiques of power and human folly. Those who know Philip K Dick's work also know how much biting wit he hid behind what seem superficially goofy sci fi tales.I'm starting to realise Vance was doing much the same thing. The first time I read the Dying Earth (the original anthology of short stories) was when I found it on a bookshelf as a young teenager. I found the stories entertaining at the time, with hints of genius, but ultimately they seemed like nothing more or less than escapism, of the kind of fantasy found in the dungeons and dragons games I was into back then (no coincidence, Vance was a key inspiration for that game, for better or worse), albiet perhaps the best possible example of the genre I had encountered. As I ran into the other Dying Earth novels over the years, and read them again and again, I think I originally had the same reaction many other people did. I was a little put off at first by the grandiose words and odd use of language (I had to read the books with a dictoinary by my side) the flowery dialogue, the 'thin' unlikely plot. But early on I recognized something about it that was unique. Over the years, as I vorcaciously absorbed basically everything written in the Fantasy and Sci Fi Genres, it was Vance and one or two others that stuck with me. Returning again and again to the Dying Earth books in particular, it was the small things about them which increasingly struck me as more than merely clever and amusing... the ironic prose, the delightful come-uppances, the ruthless turn-abouts, the put downs and verbal contests. As so much else fell by the wayside, the words of Jack Vance stayed with me. As I grew older and began to experience people from all walks of life, some of these characters and situations resonated still more. It struck me, that what had seemed like haphazard or almost random human situations in those stories were actually archetypes of many dilemmas in the human condition, some of which I had never seen expressed as clearly anywhere else. The self serving morality, the technical obfuscation, the distorted spirituality... the facility of man to delude himself. These traits shine through from the characters in the books, and I recognized them more and more often in real life. How many times have I encountered the rationaization of the "laws of Equivalency" in real life, or felt the pang of self doubt that cugel does just as he realises he's been duped yet again... Of couse, while amusing, cugel is a fairly awful person, (though he seems to evolve ethically somewhat by the end of the second novel, finally learning something about the futility of revenge) . I think in general thinking of cugel as any kind of literal moral guide is silly. Similarly, those reviewers who thought the Murthe novella was 'mysogynisitc' miss the point. It is a swiftian parody of mans failure to understand, or even be willing to try to understand women. There is one hilarious passage where the learned Wizards discuss a profound tome purported to explain everything understood about the nature of woman at the very end of history, wherin the female genius is compared to a river which occasionally overflows it's banks. The only reccomended solution is to ride it out with 'stout boat of high freeboard'. My girlfriend found this hilarious. Yes, cugel is a lout and a bufoon. In a sense, he reminds me of an anti-heroic variation of Don Quixote. While Don Quixote's grandiose schemes of glory and noble chivalry fall through, Cugel's equally grandiose schemes of revenge and domination over his enemies also invariably fail, in both cases causing great chaos for those around them. Cugel of course lives in an even more cynical time at the very end of the world. A time where there ARE wizards and dragons and giants, but they are as petty and manipulative as the peasants and bandits faced by Quixote. As cugel travels from one scene to another, we are treated to a lurid landscape of all the myriad forms that human self delusion and inspired stupidity can take. Even as Cervantes uses the backdrop of Don Quixote's travels to lampoon 16th century Spain, Vance uses cugel's travels across the Dying Earth to do the same thing to all of humanity, from the very beginning of time to the day the sun winks out of existence. Ultimately, not just the protagonist cugel, but all of the characters in the Dying earth novels have one thing in common: they are all fools. Even at the very end of history, we have learned nothing except perhaps, a better vocabulary. I think this is something Vance is telling us about ourselves. One thing I can promise you about the Dying Earth, the laughs do come harder and longer with every read, even if you feel to some degree as if you are laughing at yourself. DB
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20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Some will definitely love it, others definitely won't., August 12, 2004
Vance's works in this volume have nearly everything one could wish for: irony that ranges from scathing to sympathetic, meandering wit and charm, originality as baffling and unstoppable as an exploded hydrant, descriptions of subtle and self-contemplating beauty. He is daring, too. He invents monsters, for example, the way no other writer I know does - by coming up with names that sound cool and then attaching, or not attaching, shape and habits. Hence the countless erbs, gids, vasps, deodants and (especially vague, hence dreaded) leucomorphs that populate the Dying Earth's wilderness. With equal largesse Vance scatters landmarks, invents countries, seas and mountain chains and pulls eons, traditions and long-dead wizard celebrities out of a hat faster than you could say "Great Motholam." It looks like there is always more to discover on the Dying Earth, and Vance makes sure there is!
In fact that's the main attraction of the works, novelty. Judging by his books, Vance himself is a particular and rare kind of character, what you would call an explorer, always eager to see what's over the next hill or, in our age when there are few hills still worth climbing, inventing fantastical worlds in his imagination. Vance really writes for himself, and it shows, for instance, in his refusal to let go of flowery banter, a turn-off to many readers. He's not for everyone, and there is another reason for it I'll get to shortly. But the taut and even unsettling sense of freedom one gets from reading these novels, "The Eyes of the Overworld" more than the others, has to do with just this fact of self-conscious carelessness: Vance writes, and knows that he writes, for no other reason than that he wants to.
Now I did say the books are "nearly" everything one could wish for, so what's stopping me from inviting everyone to read them? Not any flaw but, if anything, a merit: neither Vance nor his characters believe in ideologies. This is important: vapid notions such as good, evil, light, dark, "cosmic balance," nation, God, soul and so forth, all those tarnished ideas that cannot stand rational scrutiny but which, though discredited by inconsistency, still dominate belle lettres and official discourse - you'll find none of them in the Dying Earth stories. Vance's characters take skepticism to the level of global cynicism, which only tends to make their lives miserable, but at the bottom the selfish Cugel is simply an aware, astute person who has seen a few cooky bigots too many. Speaking of which, if you ever get your hands on another Vancian novel, "Brains of Earth," be sure to read it, it's almost clairvoyant in its treatment of convictions as what would nowadays be called "memes."
At any rate, Cugel's ultimate goal in this crazy world - quiet luxury - comes down to a desire to be left alone, to get away from insane wizards, scheming monsters, deluded peasants and corrupt powers that be. Not to whitewash the vagabond, of course, but he (always a traveler) does have within him this ability to see through others' madness and pretense, though not through his own conceit. In short, Vance is, or writes as, an existentialist: the universe, he tells us, is ultimately a lifeless and uncaring place, only animated by sparks of genuine intelligence and emotion, and rarely at that.
And that's why most fantasy readers will be unhappy with the Dying Earth novels, even if they could be motivated to peek into a dictionary every three lines and embrace unorthodox wit. They will be put off by Vance's honesty, integrity and the fact that he writes for adults. This is not a TSR paperback, not Prozak in print; it has as few heroes as there are in real life. Nor is this collection escapist in the traditional sense of looking for some kind of dissolution, nirvana, moral cuddling. If anything, the place Vance invites us to escape to is harsher than reality but, because vast and not entangled by a single ideology such as our ideology of progress, also freer and more beautiful. There is something Nietzschean about the Dying Earth where everyone is trying to get the better of everyone else: a laissez-faire arena for excelling or failing, except that the Old Moustached One wrote for fighters and Vance for rogues.
Important: If you end up buying the book and enjoying it, and if you have friends who are also sympathetic to Cugel, and if you wish there were more Dying Earth stories to read, listen to this: there is a role-playing game out there based on Vance's work and by him approved! The style, the humor are every bit as fine as those in the source books and there are hilarious and thought-provoking adventure modules. Search Amazon.com for it.
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