/lit/ - Literature

Jack Vance is hilarious, especially Eyes of the Overworld and Cugel's Saga

>>21666424
Finished Dieing earth a while ago. Am a good ways through Eyes of the overworld and holy hell this is some entertaining shit. Vance just has this way of deliberately making people and cultures, familiar and alien, feel like robust entities in themselves. there is a cohesive attention to detail in how things play in in how people communicate, and how they think. Its an absolute pleasure to read, particularly eyes of the overworld where he catches his stride. I totally understand how this shit was so influential.

Its not really a tolkienesque formation of this grand interwoven tapestry, as extreme care in creating setting isolates. Things that may only ever be relivent in the chapter, but have a self vidication about themselves. IDK quite how to put it. Hell aproach things from a completely new angle, and as long as you have a decent vocabulary, succeed in making a whole new unique setup in terms of location, society, understanding, relationships, world elements, everything. Its never static, but always cohesive feeling. Like this world has trully went through millions of ages and has taken millions of forms that no one person could know all of.

As a side note, anyone else feel like the term "vancian magic" is almost a misnomer? Like, yah, its explained in the first short story and is consistant within that, as well as the second, but like I mentioned, that seems like almost isolated. most of the rest of the magic has just as much dynamic qualities as the rest of the writing and doesnt stick to that formula.

I just finished reading this friends. It is now my favourite fantasy novel.