Tales of the Dying Earth

I will always remember the first time I read "Cugel's saga" (part of this omnibus) several years ago. I was entranced by the dialogue and the way the words flowed smoothly. Jack Vance is a true storyteller. He is descriptive without being too wordy, wise without being too righteous.
My favourite part is Bunderwal v/s Cugel in the pub, especially when they choose their champions...Truly a masterpiece. Another part is the village of the "reclining men" who must strain ever higher to catch the feeble rays of sunlight. To me this signals the strength and folly of social norms, even in our present day society.
I recommend this book. Definitely among the best in any genre.

I have to quote another reviewer, Mr. Ventura Angelo:

"...the absolute unpleasantness of the protagonist of most stories, Cugel the "clever". He is not. He's a cold, mean, incompetent shifty scoundrel absolutely devoid of any charm. The stories involving him see him bungling and stumbling about in a mean way to the loss of everyone involved, including him. [...] Maybe Vance intended it as humorous, but it' s only annoying."

I fully agree. It was really annoying.

The book is actually composed of four books:
- The Dying Earth
- The Eyes of the Overworld
- Cugel's Saga
- Rhialto the Marvellous.

The second and the third are completely spoilt by what is described above. The first has parts that are OK, and others that are boring. And Rhialto the Marvellous varies from OK to good.

I wouldn't recommend it.

All praise TOR books for reprinting this collection of Dying Earth - it will save Vance lovers the bother of searching used bookstores for these fantasy gems. As other reviewers have stated, this is actually four books in one, and each is highly entertaining. Vance is one of the most original fantasy and science fiction writers of all time, and these books are representative of his seemingly inexhaustible imagination.

A friend, knowing my tastes, recommended this book to me. I was not impressed. Although the background is that the earth is slowly dying, the stories are all about magic. I'm much more interested in sci-fi than fantasy.

I was looking for some classic science fiction, and when I saw the name Jack Vance, and this intriguing title I immediately purchased this tome - but what a shocking disappointment! This is not science fiction (a genre I love); it's "fantasy," a genre I absolutely detest, with its swords and sorcery, pseudo-chivalric dialogue, fair maidens in distress, etc. etc. I was quite taken in by the book cover as pictured here: totally deceptive. Okay, maybe I missed something, but I skimmed ahead through the book and all I saw was the usual pretentious "fantasy" clap trap. Hey, if you're a Tolkien freak, you'll probably love it. Oh, where or where in the star-studded cosmos is the great Jack Vance of my childhood when my dad got on a ski-fi kick and brought home all those thrilling paperbacks with their gorgeously painted covers? I left this on the freebie shelf at Starbucks. Just not my cup of blue Arcturian wine.

Jack Vance has created an engaging and enticing world set in the last days of Earth, when our sun has all but sputtered out. In this dying age, madmen, magicians and otherworldly fiends strive for dominance in a world of Machiavellian sorcery and science, where a person's every act is viewed with suspicion - and an act of generosity even more so!

There is no wordsmith active today that can write a better sentance that Jack Vance. Any aspiring author that does not spend hours reading Vance is doing his or her own readers huge disservice. Jack Vance's fantasy works are him at his best. The character Cugel that features in two of the works collected in Tales of the Dying Earth is a unique anti-hero that readers will love. Rhialto is another facinating creation of Vance's fertile mind.

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. Jack is the master of Science Fantasy and romantic sci-fi adventure. Awesome.

This collection of short stories, originally published over the period of 1950 to 1983, are loosely linked through the setting attributed to Vance of a dying earth, existing far in the future yet evidencing many of the characteristics associated with fantasy rather than science fiction (the sci-fi depiction on the cover is misleading). This setting has since been mined successfully by a number of authors, effectively creating a subgenre of fantasy and science fiction, most notably by Gene Wolfe in his critically acclaimed "The Book of the New Sun" and its successors. And in many ways this collection does justice to the fertile ground it lays.
Vance's strengths are in his descriptive detail and the imagination in which he invests the world that he creates. Additionally, in the character of Cugel, the protagonist in two of the four "novels" included here, the author has created a delightful scoundrel, in many ways reminiscent of Leiber's Grey Mouser, and written with a similar sense of humor. Some have also noted Vance's ironic style of writing, as well as a tendency to formalism in language, though, in my opinion, at times the latter is overdone, particularly in the first section that here forms the novel "The Dying Earth."
While this first section contributed in large part to establishing the notion of a decaying and failing world as a convention for future writers, in many ways it is the weakest series of stories in the collection. All of Vance's work in thinly plotted, and this group of stories is only tied together by its common setting, tales of various magicians whose stories exist in large part individually, though some crossover occurs in "Turjan of Mir" and "Mazirian the Magician," as well as less significantly elsewhere, through a sharing of differing characters, secondary players in the stories often appearing elsewhere as the main protagonist. However, except for this loose association, and that of setting, the stories here must be considered separately, some more strongly plotted and written than others, with certain magical events--a strong element throughout the book--occurring with little explanation or foundation.
The second two "novels" in this volume pertain to the plights and ongoing adventures of Cugel the Clever, an amoral rapscallion who more often than not complicates his situation through his attempts to outwit his opponents. Essentially a loosely strung series of adventures, whose establishing premise repeats itself between "The Eyes of the Overworld" and "Cugel's Saga," the two "novels" comprising this section, over time, regardless of Vance's inexhaustible inventions, become somewhat contrived and tiresome, a series of episodic encounters sustained only by Cugel's ongoing misfortunes and adventures met upon a twice-told if differing journey back to his home in Almery to face his nemesis, Iucounu the Laughing Magician.
The last "novel" in this collection, entitled "Rhialto the Marvellous," concerns a colloquy of wizards, the last of their number at the very end of the last days of the dying earth. Much reduced in circumstance and abilities, they nonetheless wield considerable powers, for the most part directed at themselves in a series of separate and inept intrigues contained in the three chapters comprising this section. While connected both by their magical order and the figure of Rhialto, like the first section, these are clearly three separate stories, though more linear in their composition. The final chapter, "Morreion," unlike all the stories that have preceded, is as equally influenced by science fiction as fantasy.
Women reading this collection may well find parts that are unpalatable, as there is a distinct undercurrent of misogyny present in chapters of "The Eyes of the Overworld," the hero Cugel abandoning one female companion to sexual enslavement, and raping another female character, who immediately after drowns, under the pretense of a fictitious marriage. While both women are unsympathetically portrayed, at least in terms of Cugel's goals and perspective, this does not entirely obviate the protagonist's actions. Further, in "Rhialto the Marvellous," the first chapter, "The Murthe," concerns a thinly veiled battle between the sexes, here portrayed as a struggle for dominance between the former rule of a sorceress and the male colloquy of wizards. The sorceress is able to undermine the wizards by transforming them into women, by implication threatening their masculinity and thus nullifying their power. There are episodes of burlesque in which the former wizards attire themselves in dresses and jewelry, primping and becoming shrill of voice and nagging in complaint. The sorceress is finally defeated by summoning her earlier male nemesis, a paragon of masculinity, who counters her magic while at the same time implying that all could be resolved if the sorceress would abandon her obstinate demands for power over the wizards and succumb to his magnetism and desire. It is doubtful, however humorously presented, that many contemporary women will not view this chapter with a jaundiced eye.
In a final aside, I must mention the presence of poor editing, particularly in the first "novel," on the part of the publisher, Orb. Part of the Tom Doherty Associates family, which also comprises St. Martin's and Tor, this is the fourth book I have recently read published by this house that has contained obvious oversights in spelling, as well as other editing problems (the other books being "Winter's Heart, "Daughter of the Forest," and particularly "The King's Peace"). Recently given the Locus Award for best science fiction and fantasy publisher (Tor), it would seem to me that St. Martin's/Tor/Orb should acknowledge that it has a responsibility, both to its authors and its readers, to present their books at a level that reflects the quality of their authors.
All said, despite its flaws, there is much to recommend this book--its imaginative world and the detailed description of its construction. Much of the work is written with skill, even if the story line at times lags or seems contrived. Further, the work must be acknowledged for the precedent it established in the creation of its setting, a world that has proven inspirational for succeeding authors. However, for all its successes, it is doubtful, given the context of the many excellent works being currently written, that without its historical significance for the genre, I would have given it more than three stars.

In both conception and execution, a work of genius. It is compulsory reading for all lovers of fantasy fiction. Jack Vance's writing is uniformly brilliant and it is a mystery why it hasn't been awarded the accolades it richly deserves.

A couple of exquisite stories in the original bunch of "Tales" ("Mazirian the Magician" is my favourite) lose their lustre in the subsequent "novels" -- actually a poor cobbling together of loosely linked incidents -- in the other three quarters of this collection. Vance has a colourful eye; his vision of an Earth at the end of time is wistful, poignant, strange, memorable. However, when he moves his brush away from composition to the banal mechanics of narrative and character development, Vance loses interest. EYES OF THE OVERWORLD and CUGEL'S SAGA, for example, are basically the same novel lumbered with the same obnoxious hero and EXACTLY the same (slim) premise.
A better buy would be a slim volume the "Tales"; the rest is just paper weight.

I read the first two novels in this compilation volume with the intent of reading all of them. I quit when, after finishing Eyes of the Overworld, I found myself confronted with Cugel's Saga. I can't stand the character of Cugel,and the thought of enduring another round of his exploits was more than I could stomach (I say this with the awareness that Vance may have desired such a reaction on my part). I thoroughly enjoyed The Dying Earth, but as I continued my exploration of Vance, I found he did not have enough to say to me; or perhaps I just lost interest in listening. He is a master of prose and a true satirist, but after the letdown that was Eyes of the Overworld, I found myself wondering if he isn't just another Larry Niven (see my review of Ringworld), that is a writer so enamored of sarcasm that he forgets that it needs a point in order to have impact. I recently read a review of Vance's lifetime ouvre and the commentator noted that Vance is under-appreciated in the U.S. because he is ensconced in the pulp genre. This commentator suggested that if Vance had been a Latin American rather than a North American writer, he would have won a Nobel prize by now. I could not disagree more. Vance is a great writer, but he is by no means a true fabulist or magical realist. This is not Fuentes or Garcia-Marquez, there is nothing transcendent in this writing. It is a cynical romp for the mere sake of taking one.

Iain Mavro Coggins is the author of Lost Apple, available at the store.

The first section, "The Dying Earth" is has quite good stories, and I recommend them. That's the only reason I give this book two stars.

The rest of the book is tediously dull however, especially the middle two books involving a loathsome character named Cugel. They are a very boring recounting of Cudgel cheating people, murdering people, and sexually abusing women. I've read books about evil characters that have been interesting (The First Law Saga) but these are just tedious. I only finished because I was hoping something nasty would happen to Cugel in the end. No luck there.

The book improves a little bit with "Rhialto the Marvellous" but it is still rather dull.

The first section of stories is the only thing worth reading here.

Very disappointed when I started reading this book. Like some others, I wasn't expecting stories riddled with magic and fantasy. Most SF requires a "suspension of disbelief", ie, faster than light travel, wormholes, time travel, etc., but stories like these are so full of magic and fantasy, they can hardly be called SF. When the reader is expecting a good yarn about a possible, remote future, based on REAL possibilities, this sort of story is quite a letdown.

It is well written, plus the character studies and interactions are interesting, but not what I expected. I was looking for Science Fiction, and this book barely passes as Science Fantasy (Just because it's in the future, doesn't mean it should have science attached). Nothing wrong with that, but it should be marketed as such.

I wish the "Look inside feature had been available when I purchased it, because then I would have passed.

If you enjoy escapist fantasy, you should read Vance's Tales of the Dying Earth. The stories are light-hearted, and not what I would think of as serious literature. However, for sheer entertainment value, they can't be beat.

I have a very eclectic reading taste, and usually find something to enjoy in pretty much any book I pick up to read. And yet this work was impossible for me to enjoy. And I tried. What others call "purposely obscure prose" I call just plain lousy writing.

The stories may actually have had some merit were the prose more pleasant...but then, I doubt it, which brings me to the next problem I found with this work. None of the characters were likeable and the world, though others have called it well designed, is just a collection of random whimsy and fancy. The two combined would make the stories difficult to enjoy even if the prose weren't so painful to read.

All in all, out of the thousands of fantasy books that I have read, this is the worst of the bunch. It is the ONLY one I had to continually push myself not to toss in the trash without finishing...ever. I found nothing in the entirity of this book worth even a tenth of the time it took to read.

Oye, I feel this was written by a sexually frustrated teenager with narcissistic, near sociopathic fantasies.
Only useful as a historic reference as one of the inspirations for the famous Dungeons and Dragons role playing game.

I looked forward to a bunch of great stories about the future of earth and how mankind was dealing with it. Instead this was three or four books obviously done at different times that were were slapped together to form a somwhat continuous story for the most part. I liked the first couple of stories and then the repetitiveness of Cugel wore me out. Unrepentent, scurrilous Cugel was funny for the first 30 pages but after what seemed like 1000 pages I wanted to bump him off myself.

Please beware of the other reviews. Unless you want a semi humorous fantasy novel telling a bunch of semi linked stories about a dying earth with lots of magic then stay the heck away from this.

Maybe just a bad book. The terribly is because some people feel the author is deserving of a Nobel prize and would get it if his name were perhaps Hispanic and he from a different country (check Google for this). This book is (as far as I could stand to read it) a compendium of fantastical and (this is the difficulty) boring adventures. The second tale which finally made nauseous was a sort of reverse Candide where an definitely not innocent encounters all sorts of adventures with not very nice people and manages to out screw them all. Better authors include, J K Rowling, Ann Rice, and Dorris Lessing. The first two will never win Nobel Prize and the author won't even winning a dress.Tales of the Dying Earth