Jack Vance ,The Dying Earth

I'm reading ""The Dying Earth" by Jack Vance.

Disclaimer: The below is merely my opinion. I just read the book.

Categories: SciFi, Fantasy

This is a compilation of four original novels. All set in "the dying earth" which is to say, the Earth but in the far distant future when the sun is red and is probably going to snuff out any day now. In this time, people are tired. Magicians and strange creatures inhabit the earth but people don't seem much different inside.

The first "book" is really a bunch of short stories centering around a small group of characters. To me, the fact that it was written in 1950 gives a glance into that era and the way people thought. This book was, I think, ahead of its time. By way of comparison, Asimov wrote "I, Robot" the same year and the "Foundation Trilogy" was published the next year while Tolkien's fantasies were published in 1948 though the writing started 20 years earlier. This first book, reminds me of the early Asimov robot stories in that they contain short, isolated incidents solved by clever thinking.

The other three books seem to be part of a single story about Cugel a con-man who is far too clever for his own good. He has several long journeys and the books chronicle his adventures.

In all the books, the language is just fun. The humor is dry, dry, dry with the tongue firmly planted in the cheek. There are a lot of made up names for things and places but there are also a lot of words that I never saw before.

I'm pretty good with vocabulary but when I found three pages in a row that had words I had to look up I had to pay homage to a word master. (Obloquy, supererogatory and the name of some Australian grass)

It has: Giant man-eating birds, a mechanical library of all the worlds knowledge (1950), magic shoes, a boat that flies, vats to build people, a city where the men hide their faces, mining of dead cities, a demon that hates light, magic eyeballs to make the world look wonderful, too many fantastic ideas to list

What did I like: Great fun with words, a story that keeps you turning the pages (but not the 1st book), always a different culture waiting around the bend for Cugel, a con-man who wins and loses both

What didn't I like: I had to make myself keep reading the 1st book but I don't much care for short stories.

Rating: 4 of 5, I enjoyed it a lot.