Songs of the Dying Earth

When Dringo had finished, Cugel said to him, “We have much more to tell each other, and I think you have a great deal to teach me of magic. It is settled then. We will join forces to plan the ultimate prank on the Laughing Magician.”

They clasped hands in their oath. The dawn light had brightened the sky and the red orb crested the very hill they had earlier descended.

“I see the sun still rises,” said Cugel to his son. “It appears that this tired old earth has one more day in it. Let us get started.”

THE END

Afterword:

I discovered Jack Vance at the very beginning of my love affair with fantasy and science fiction. His Vandals of the Void, published by the John C. Winston Company, was either the second or the third hardcover book I ever bought; but it was primarily through the Ace Doubles, with their unique branding element of two novels published back-to-back and their imaginative cover art by such greats as Jack Gaughan, Ed Emshwiller, and Ed Valigursky, that I started developing a true appreciation of Jack’s remarkable skills. Having already worked my way through the Winston juveniles and the Robert Heinlein young adult novels at the local library, I hungered for more sophisticated reading. The Ace Doubles at thirty-five cents each were the perfect affordable next step. Big Planet and Slaves of the Klau; The Dragon Masters and The Five Gold Bands—now that was more what I was looking for!

For a young teen boy, though, his books were a challenge. I found myself using the dictionary much more often than normal. It took a couple of his books for me to realize that he even made up words, for cripes sake! His characters had weird names and often they were not very admirable. I was a DC comic guy and I was used to my Superheroes being, well, Superheroes. Still, there was something about this Jack Vance that appealed to me. It was the publication of The Eyes of the Overworld that made Jack Vance one of my favorite authors. It is the second of the four Dying Earth novels, and the first that introduces the character, Cugel the Clever. I mark that moment as the first time I read a book and actually savored the words that made up the story. Jack Vance’s novels had always transported me to strange worlds full of colors and languages and customs, but now for the first time I realized how he did it. There was a reason I had to occasionally look up a word. There was a purpose in Jack Vance making up a word.

Mark Twain wrote: “The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter — it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”

Jack Vance was asked once at a SF convention how he came up with the name “Cugel,” or, for that matter, any of his character’s names. He answered, “I come up with a name and roll it around on my tongue to see how it sounds.” Jack Vance has been called the Shakespeare of science fiction. I roll that around with my tongue and it sounds just right.

— Byron Tetrick

Tanith Lee Evillo the Uncunning

Tanith Lee is one of the best-known and most prolific of modern fantasists, with more than a hundred books to her credit, including (among many others) The Birthgrave, Drinking Sapphire Wine, Don’t Bite The Sun, Night’s Master, The Storm Lord, Sung In Shadow, Volkhavaar, Anackire. Night’s Sorceries, Black Unicorn, Days of Grass, The Blood of Roses, Vivia, Reigning Cats and Dogs, When the Lights Go Out, Elephantasm, The Gods Are Thirsty, Cast a Bright Shadow, Here In Cold Hell, Faces Under Water, White As Snow, Mortal Suns, Death of the Day, Metallic Love, No Flame But Mine, Piratica: Singular Girl’s Adventure Upon the High Seas, and a sequel to Piratica, called Piratica 2: Return to Parrot Island. Her numerous short stories have been collected in Red As Blood, Tamastara, The Gorgon, Dreams of Dark and Light, Nightshades, and The Forests of the Night. Her short story “The Gorgon” won her a World Fantasy Award in 1983, and her short story “Elle Est Trois (La Mort)” won her another World Fantasy Award in 1984. Her most recent books are The Secret Books of Paradys and a new collection, Tempting the Gods. She lives with her husband in the south of England.