/lit/ - Literature

>>23050613
Okay I finished 'Tales of the Dying Earth' by Jack Vance, started on Jan 29th and finished Feb 9th.

Ill go ahead and say it is a 5/5. Very excellent work with few low points.

I wrote this to describe the book to a friend halfway through it and it still mostly stands, "It is 4 'books' in an omnibus, those 4 books are of themselves also fix-ups and collections of short stories all set in the same universe. The earth is dying, the sun has turned red with age, the mountains have smoothed with wind, thousands of civilizations have risen and fell, science has come and gone, now magicians wield what is left of science. It is a book of journies thus far, lots of small and large adventures with a great degree of variety. In some ways it's similar to the oddysey."

The science portion I described is admittedly most referenced in the first few stories from the first 'book', later it gets forgotten or atleast not as focused on.

I only disliked (read as apathetic/disinterested) was the weird second half of Rhialtos story about the perciplex, and the story about the eye ball cape.

The prose is great, I only was startled by it for the first page and remembered someone here joking you need a dictionary to read Vance, I think that's hyperbole but still funny.

The audio book versions by brilliance audio were all excellently narrated.

I miss Cugel at this point. I want more of his story, more different stories by him. I wouldn't like a third magician adventure lol. How his story occurs is rather poetic in some ways and I enjoyed it a lot.

Cugels story should definitely be a movie or TV show, my favorite scene is at the Manse where he gets the scales. I like the opening scene where he keeps turning around while knocking on the door to the manse and the hyperborean sloths keep appearing closer and closer while he argues with the butler to be let inside. Very comical and subtle.

Anyways, 5/5 very nice. I'll read Gene Wolfe in a bit. My next read is 'We' by Yevgeny Zamyatin.

Should I also read the spin-off Cugels story that other guy wrote?

Holy shit I am literally on page 1 of dying earth tales by Jack Vance, I saw a meme here that was like you need a dictionary to read jack Vance and holy shit that is spot fucking on. I know most of the words but God damn that's funny, brilliant analysis.