![]() A story like “Guyal of Sfere,” for example, is a wonderful SF-Fantasy quest but it also has an underlying seriousness, and a level of invention throughout, that is matched by the seamless execution stylistically. ![]() ![]() What do I mean when I say I appreciate the stories more now? I don’t think I saw the real complexity and cleverness of the stories back then, or the skill Vance has with dialogue. (For example, the Greens, Greys, and Reds in the insanely masterful “Ulan Dhor.”) If anything, I think I appreciate the Dying Earth stories more now, and am somewhat gobsmacked to find more resonance between Ambergris and the Dying Earth than I thought. Thankfully, as with my return to writers like Cordwainer Smith and Fritz Leiber, this wasn’t the case. I remembered enjoying them very much back then, but would my reading tastes have changed so drastically that the stories didn’t hold up? I have to admit that I didn’t know what to expect, because I’d only ever read Vance’s Dying Earth stories piecemeal back when I was a teenager. I just read The Dying Earth by Jack Vance, in advance of writing the rough draft of my story “The Three Quests of the Wizard Sarnod,” destined (I hope) for the Vance DE antho being edited by Dozois and Martin. ![]()
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