In many ways, the Lyonesse Trilogy consists of three threads which connect sometimes very tangentially. There is the competition between the various kingdoms, the conflict between the mages, and the quests into 'fairyland'. Each of these stories is dispersed through the novels in varying doses. In...
Though this book is called The Green Pearl, the pearl itself bookends the story, the vast bulk of which is devoted to Aillas's efforts to defeat the Ska and Casimir's political machinations. Aillas proves to be every bit as crafty as his enemies though his subjects appear remarkably calm when their ...
This book is the first of trilogy set in that magical time of medieval anachronistic romance when knights charged about in the Dark Ages in a manner more befitting several centuries later. Vance has plonked several legendary realms (for example Ys, Avalon, and Lyonesse) on an archipelago in the Atla...
I read this because I kept hearing Vance was so good and I thought maybe I missed one of the great Fantasy writers of a bygone era. However, when I began reading, I saw it as very much a thing of its time. It was very dialogue heavy to the exclusion of description. I often wasn't sure who was who ...
I must admit going into this with the mistaken belief that The Dying Earth was a novel. In fact, it is a series of fantasy short stories that are loosely tied together through character and setting. As with most works of this type, I found the contents hit and miss. Some of the early stories struck ...
The first volume in Vance's Lyonesse trilogy felt like such a departure for the author--not that it didn't have his characteristic wit and oddness, but I really felt it was one of the first times that I was invited to feel for his characters. His usual fare is light and disconnected, skipping across...
Jack Vance has been one of my favorite writers ever since I first read his short story "Nopalgarth." I immediate read my way through everything of his I could find, and when I finally encountered The Dying Earth, my mind was blown. The merger of science and magic and the idea of an Earth so old nobo...
Let's do some quick math. Jack Vance's The Dying Earth was originally published in 1950. I was born in 1969. I first started playing Dungeons and Dragons, in earnest, in 1979. It is now 2014. On second thought, screw the math. You can plainly see that my reading of The Dying Earth is tardy, given th...
Vance is one of my favorite writers. The man could come up with the most outlandish ideas and turn them into great stories. Nopalgarth, which is basically a novella, is a great example. What if there were invisible creatures squatting on your head that fundamentally altered your perception of the...
This is a book that should be read aloud, even if only to yourself. It has this elegant, primeval, oral-tradition quality that just doesn't resonate as well when it's only bouncing around inside your head. For example: The light came from an unknown source, from the air itself, as if leaking from th...
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