The Dying Earth Gateway Essentials eBook Jack Vance
Download As PDF : The Dying Earth Gateway Essentials eBook Jack Vance 
New races of man had evolved, new species of beast; science had vanished and magic had arisen to dominate the twilight of our world as it dominated the earth's morning. The Dying Earth is Jack Vance's finest work - a stunning evocation of a world peopled by wizards, witches, demons, monsters, dashing princes and forlorn maidens. A bejewelled gallery of strange and wonderful beings in the eminent tradition of Tolkien and William Morris.
Jack Vance's preferred title for this collection is Mazirian the Magician, but while we have elsewhere deferred to his wishes, in this case the book is so famous under a title of which he apparently strongly disapproves that we concluded it would be absurd to change it.
All Jack Vance titles in the SFGateway use the author's preferred texts, as restored for the Vance Integral Edition (VIE), an extensive project masterminded by an international online community of Vance's admirers. In general, we also use the VIE titles, and have adopted the arrangement of short story collections to eliminate overlaps.
The Dying Earth Gateway Essentials eBook Jack Vance
I was uncertain on what this was at first.It's a collection of interrelated short stories from 1950. The Pocket books paperback you're probably looking at is a reprint from March 1977.
The six stories are interrelated and share many of the same characters.
It's fantasy fiction, with wizards and monsters and so forth. It's a short book, though: 146 pages. One thing that's kind of annoying is that there's one of those heavy card stock cigarette ads right in the middle of the book (for Kent and Newport) that can't be removed. They used to do this with mass market paperbacks in the 70s. Thank God that went out of style.
It's a bit confusing at first: Vance gets right into his world and all the names and allusions can be quite disorienting, especially when you realize that no clarification will ever be forthcoming (e.g., you never get any specifics on why the world is "dying").
However, the writing is superb. If you can get into it, it's quite a feast for the imagination and Vance proves himself a capable wordsmith. I am not alone in my high opinion of this book: in 2001 it won a "retro-Hugo," an award designed to recognize superlative SF that was overlooked or unappreciated at the time of publication.
I actually read this through twice. It's not that it contains a lot of deep, subtle lessons. It's that it's such a pleasure to be in the hands of someone who's got such a disciplined style with English.
Note that Vance's conception about how wizards know and use spells was seminal in the Gygax's conception of them when he created Dungeons and Dragons with Dave Arneson.
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The Dying Earth Gateway Essentials eBook Jack Vance Reviews
So many big names have lauded Jack Vance that I had to buy the book to find out what it was all about. I found it disappointing.
There's a randomness to the plots and the people. Most stories involve new characters, with little real development and no chance to engage with them, or feel any concern for their well being. Essentially, a flowery hit-and-miss that has not transcended its era.
Maybe best at illustrating this fact is the Martin collection. The only chapter I connected with was the last, by Neil Gaiman, and that was due to the fact that he departed from the fanciful tribute style adopted by every other author and gave a straight-up and totally inspired story. I can't imagine any better 'Dying Earth' material than that. But I have no intention of searching it out anyway.
Artistic prose and a beguiling, awe inspiring imagination combine to produce a magical mystical world that true science fiction n fantasy readers would be woefully amiss not to read.
Just perfect! THANKS!
Is this book great literature? No. Of course not.
But, it is fun. And different. And a good read and a source of much that is found in role-playing games.
So, I recommend it as a fun piece of pulp and a romp of the imagination.
Genius, ground-breaking, wickedly imaginative, darkly comic, witty, poetic, elegant, and understandably treasured. A SciFi/Fantasy must! The man is a gift to the genres, and his writing deserves the reverence that it has received.
I'm a 20-years-long ardent fan of almost everything Jack Vance. Mostly I prefer his SF over the fantasy. Or, I did so at first. The Dying Earth really takes two or three re-readings to appreciate in all of its depth. I am very glad to have it in audiobook format on this account. I've re-listened to this one three times now and am sure I'll do so again.
This is one of the all-time great classics which every reader of science-fiction and fantasy should have. In many ways it is a brilliant example of what one could term science-fantasy sharing aspects of both genres. Each of the six stories is a masterpiece and one can see why Jack Vance was selected as one of the "Grand Masters" of science fiction.
The ebook is well formatted with an excellent table of contents and includes information about the author, a link to the Gateway Science fiction website, and a useful list of other books by Vance organized according to the various series to which each work belongs.
This is an excellent buy!
I was uncertain on what this was at first.
It's a collection of interrelated short stories from 1950. The Pocket books paperback you're probably looking at is a reprint from March 1977.
The six stories are interrelated and share many of the same characters.
It's fantasy fiction, with wizards and monsters and so forth. It's a short book, though 146 pages. One thing that's kind of annoying is that there's one of those heavy card stock cigarette ads right in the middle of the book (for Kent and Newport) that can't be removed. They used to do this with mass market paperbacks in the 70s. Thank God that went out of style.
It's a bit confusing at first Vance gets right into his world and all the names and allusions can be quite disorienting, especially when you realize that no clarification will ever be forthcoming (e.g., you never get any specifics on why the world is "dying").
However, the writing is superb. If you can get into it, it's quite a feast for the imagination and Vance proves himself a capable wordsmith. I am not alone in my high opinion of this book in 2001 it won a "retro-Hugo," an award designed to recognize superlative SF that was overlooked or unappreciated at the time of publication.
I actually read this through twice. It's not that it contains a lot of deep, subtle lessons. It's that it's such a pleasure to be in the hands of someone who's got such a disciplined style with English.
Note that Vance's conception about how wizards know and use spells was seminal in the Gygax's conception of them when he created Dungeons and Dragons with Dave Arneson.
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