The Dying Earth

In some ways this was exactly what I was expecting. It's hard not to have some expectation about a book so profoundly influential; an entire sub-genre of fantasy, and Dungeons and Dragons owe it so very much. As such I sometimes found myself let down. At it's core, this is 'just' a series of loosely related short stories set in the same decadently rich world. The sun has aged into a red giant, waves upon waves of humanity have escape into the galaxy, and all that remains are a handful of stragglers who roam through the rubble of lost civilizations. They reverie the last bits of ancient technology as though it were magic, using it to torture one another and fend off the myriad of 'demons' that populate the wild spaces. It's very clear in the first few tales that these stories were written for genre magazines in the 1950's, and as such fall into some of the trappings of that material; whether that be a telegraphed twist ending, cardboard characters, or damsels in distress.

But in other ways it also surprised me. I did not expect it to be nearly as darkly grotesque as it is (the gentlemen being spun in the air until his body flies apart in every direction, or the Saturnalia orgy, for example). I did not expect these stories to be quite so akin to adult fairy tales, something that suits Vance's erudite prose rather well. I did not expect to learn that Vance wrote most of these stories while he was in the military, writing on the side of his actual work. Sometimes the most naturally gifted writers, like Vance, can produce great work without much experience.

I enjoyed the stories the further I got into the collection. The last one is the longest, and I think it's because of that little bit of extra space that Vance's prose is able to luxuriate and take full effect in combination with enough plot to be interesting. Regardless of length, though, Vance is able to cram an enormous amount of world-building into the size of a pinhead, something that he is unmatched in doing among his contemporaries. I was reminded several times during reading The Dying Earth of the work of Abraham Merritt, though Vance surpasses him in basically every component. I just enjoy Vance's writing, regardless of if the story is particularly gripping, or the characters well-realized.