The sun is dying on this far future Earth and with it goes the light, and so perhaps, life as we know it, is coming to an end. That’s not enough to stop the sordid, scheming, carousing, damsel stealing, and dueling of this collection of anti-heroes, villains, hedge wizards, and schmucks who have urgent business to conclude before the end of the world. This particular edition is comprised of three collections of stories and two novellas all published between 1950 and 1984 and generally has high reviews for two reasons. The first being the fantastic writing with it’s blend of esoteric words and humor, the second being the depth of the dying earth setting. Allegedly it is one of the sources of many of the most famous dungeon and dragons spells such as color spray and phantasmic prism and so on or so I’ve read.
Been working through this one for a while and I gotta say it is generally excellent. Though the setting itself is probably better known for the novellas Cugel the Clever, and Rhialto the marvelous stories like “Mazirian the Magician” and “Chun the Undeniable” are really good. My favorite overall hmmm..
In many ways though Vance’s storytelling here at least is outmatched by the wordplay, and world building. Here, Vance has crafted a truly fantastic blend of Science-Fantasy tales that will take readers through the realms of both high and low fantasy settings to far future mysteries, to the edges of the mythical past and back again, encountering some remarkable number of dragons, ersts, erbs, gargoyles, demons, devils, demi-humans, aberrations, and monsters of all sorts as our varied protagonists trounce back and forth over the decadently lush and dangerous but still dying Earth. The sheer range of content and subject matter is impressive and for escapism Tales of the Dying Earth may be unequaled.
Though to my own knowledge there is nothing quite like the dying earth out there. Recommendations for those who liked Tales from the Dying Earth include: