Tales of the Dying Earth: Including 'The Dying Earth,' 'The Eyes of the Overworld,' 'Cugel's Saga,' and 'Rhialto the Marvellous': Amazon.ca: Jack Vance: Books

Product Description

Book Description

Jack Vance is one of the most remarkable talents to ever grace the world of science fiction. His unique, stylish voice has been beloved by generations of readers. One of his enduring classics is his 1964 novel, The Dying Earth, and its sequels--a fascinating, baroque tale set on a far-future Earth, under a giant red sun that is soon to go out forever.

This omnibus volume comprised all four books in the series, The Dying Earth, The Eyes of the Overworld, Cugel's Saga and Rialto the Magnificent. It is a must-read for every sf fan.

About the Author

Jack Vance is one of the greats of science fiction. He has been writing for more than 60 years, and in 1997 was honored as a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America. He is the author of dozens of science fiction and fantasy novels, including the World Fantasy Award winning Lyonnesse series, and the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning The Last Castle. He lives in Oakland, California.

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First Sentence
Turjan sat in his workroom, legs sprawled out from the stool, back against and elbows on the bench. Read the first page

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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover

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Customer Reviews

32 Reviews

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Average Customer Review

4.5 out of 5 stars (32 customer reviews)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Misogynist? Not quite ..., July 18 2003

By

"alowry69" (Ridgeland, MS) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tales of the Dying Earth: Including 'The Dying Earth,' 'The Eyes of the Overworld,' 'Cugel's Saga,' and 'Rhialto the Marvellous' (Paperback)

A long-time admirer of Vance's works, I have little to add to the praise of other reviewers. His style is his single best quality: elegant, dry, amusing. The purple passages of "The Dying Earth," while beautiful and stylistically meaningful in themselves (decadent prose for a decadent Earth), begin to give way in the book's last tale to the livelier, witty picaresque that becomes Vance's hallmark in the Cugel books, in "Rhialto," and in his Lyonesse trilogy. And, not sufficiently mentioned, Vance can be funny as hell, especially in the later works.

There are some interesting criticisms on this site, some with little merit. If you don't like short stories, or if the only acceptable prose is modeled on Hammett and Hemingway, then don't expect to like Vance. It helps to be an aesthete, or wish you were one.

And as for the lack of continuity in the Cugel stories, (1) they were originally published in magazines, not composed as a single narrative, and (2) the picaresque is, just about by definition, one damn thing after another. Vance loves strangeness for its own sake, weird cultures, bizarre customs. He has a touch of the Enlightenment-era anthropologist about him: with so many diverse ways of living, can we say that any one is the "right" way? The picaresque plots let him do what he does best, move from village to village (or, in his SF, planet to planet) and invent something new every time.

The misogyny complaint is the most accurate criticism that I see here. Vance is a conservative in many ways, in a classical sense rather than in the bible-thumping American sense. (Note the laissez-faire attitude to politics & religion in the Lyonesse books.) Men are men, women are women, and that's it. Any homosexual in his books is a degenerate villain. Cugel certainly is brutal to the women he meets in "The Eyes of the Overworld," though since he's a cutthroat and a scoundrel in any event, that's not to be wondered at.

But characters like T'sais in "The Dying Earth" show the promise of a broader perspective, and for whatever reason-the 20th century rubbing off on him, perhaps-Vance has more sympathetic females in his later works, including of course Suldrun, Glyneth, and Madouc in the Lyonesse books. The case of Cugel is interesting: he kidnaps and, effectively, rapes Soldinck's comely 3 daughters in "Cugel's Saga," but when their trick on him is revealed, they don't miss the opportunity to scoff at his erotic inadequacies.

As for Rhialto, he's a ladies' man, and he knows it. The rescued princess in "Fader's Waft" is treated as a free agent, albeit one who finds R. charming & accepts his advances. As for the tale of the Murthe, let's just say I found it a tad obnoxious *before* I got married, and now find it actually kind of sweet. Whether that tells something about Vance or just about me, how can I say?

Vance will never be a feminist (when Glyneth has kids, she drops off the map, and so on), but I think "misogyny" is too strong.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Jack Vance at his best, July 11 2009

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C. Turner (ON, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Tales of the Dying Earth: Including 'The Dying Earth,' 'The Eyes of the Overworld,' 'Cugel's Saga,' and 'Rhialto the Marvellous' (Paperback)

An ingenious, creative masterpiece.
Jack Vance's writing style is unparalleled. His rogue character, 'Cugel the Clever', is one of the most hillarious ever to grace the world of fantasy...

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5.0 out of 5 stars Optimism at the end of time, Jun 21 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Tales of the Dying Earth: Including 'The Dying Earth,' 'The Eyes of the Overworld,' 'Cugel's Saga,' and 'Rhialto the Marvellous' (Paperback)

What I found wonderful about these stories and most of Jack Vance's work in general, is that inspite of the bleakness of the situation (The constant death gasps of the Dying Sun), the cynicism of the times, Vance's hero's and heroines march on, not perky and euphoric, but determined that life will be better or that they can make it better. The other classic, a Hugo winner in fact, The Last Castle the protagonists free the slaves in spite of the fact that it means the end of their plush lifestyle. Vance's tenacity if not optimism is wonderful.

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars The cervantes of fantasy / sci fi
There is something unusual about Jack Vance which reminds me of two of my other favorite writers, Philip K Dick and Stanislaw Lem. Read more

Published on Jun 19 2004 by M. Dalton

5.0 out of 5 stars Life Changing
In the ancient Earth's Last Days, even the collected remnants of mankind's Forgotten Lore will make a man into a Magician King. My all time favorite fictional work. Read more

Published on Mar 29 2004 by M. Rasheed