Songs of the Dying Earth

Paperbacks, which cost (at that time) less than two dollars, were treats bestowed by the indulgence of a parent as rare as an oasis in a wasteland, a green garden-spot to which the imagination could escape the burning sun of reality for refreshment.

I remember the order of my first three fantasy purchases: the first book I ever bought was H.P. Lovecraft’s Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, edited by Lin Carter; the second was The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle; and the third was an eerie slim volume of tales from a world with a dying sun, where eldritch magicians, and eccentric rogues awaited the final darkness of the world with nonchalant elegance: Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth.

I am old enough to remember the days before Dungeons and Dragons, when the fantasy books were so rare and strange that no two were alike. Gormenghast sat on the shelf next to The Worm Ororboros next to Well At the World’s End next to Xiccarph. The sword of Shanarra had not yet been drawn; the dragonlance was decades away.

Most unalike of all was the fantasy of Vance, where the magic and the superscience were strangely blended. Human nature was on pitiless display, warts and all, but mingled with the finely-mannered and drily ironic affectations of over-elegant speech. It was an unforgettable mix.

Back in those days, fantasy avoided the journalistic prose of Hemingway, the simple straightforward taletelling of Heinlein, Clarke, and Asimov. Clarke Ashton Smith had a voice and vocabulary distinct from that of William Morris, from E.R. Eddison, from Mervyn Peake. These men penned symphonies, arpeggios, arias and arabesques of English language. Most distinctive of all was Jack Vance.

There were many a strange and brilliant idea to be found in these older fantasies. The central problem confronting any author of magical tales was how to write a convincing drama where the magic does not solve too easily any and all dramatic conflicts, and for this Vance had a unique and frankly brilliant solution: wizards can memorize only a certain number of the half-living reality-warping syllables of magical spells per day, and, once expelled from the mouth, the spell vanished eerily from the memory. Of course, this seems as a commonplace today, thanks to Gary Gygax borrowing the idea (and indeed the names of several spells) from Vance, but it is not a commonplace idea. It is still as strange and as brilliant as everything Vance does.

Even now, when fantasy is so common that it outsells science fiction, and every book seems oddly bland and similar, the work of Vance from half a century ago still stands out, an oasis for the imagination, an airy garden in the midst of an overfed swamp.

As I aged, my taste changed in many predictable ways. Few of the books I so adored in youth can I read again with undiminished pleasure. Jack Vance is the great exception.

And now, when book-buying money is abundant, but time is dear, and I have no idle hours to beguile with fantasies, Jack Vance is the author for whom I will always make time, to read and read again.

The Dying Earth will always for me live in the shining treasure house of imagination: that oasis will always for me stay green.

— John C. Wright

Glen Cook The Good Magician

Here a fleeting vision glimpsed high above the River Scaum sends Alfaro, the Long Shark of the Dawn, and a motley, ill-assorted collection of squabbling wizards, on a perilous quest to find a fabulous lost city — one which, it turns out, might have been better left lost…