The Dying Earth

Written by Jack Vance

Narrated by Arthur Morey

The stories included in The Dying Earth introduce dozens of seekers of wisdom and beauty, lovely lost women, wizards of every shade of eccentricity with their runic amulets and spells. We meet the melancholy deodands, who feed on human flesh and the twk-men, who ride dragonflies and trade information for salt. There are monsters and demons. Each being is morally ambiguous: The evil are charming, the good are dangerous. All are at home in Vance’s lyrically described fantastic landscapes like Embelyon where, “The sky [was] a mesh of vast ripples and cross-ripples and these refracted a thousand shafts of colored light, rays which in mid-air wove wondrous laces, rainbow nets, in all the jewel hues....” The dying Earth itself is otherworldly: “A dark blue sky, an ancient sun.... Nothing of Earth was raw or harsh—the ground, the trees, the rock ledge protruding from the meadow; all these had been worked upon, smoothed, aged, mellowed. The light from the sun, though dim, was rich and invested every object of the land...with a sense of lore and ancient recollection.” Welcome.

“The Dying Earth and its sequels comprise one of the most powerful fantasy/science-fiction concepts in the history of the genre. They are packed with adventure but also with ideas, and the vision of uncounted human civilizations stacked one atop another like layers in a phyllo pastry thrills even as it induces a sense of awe [at]...the fragility and transience of all things, the nobility of humanity’s struggle against the certainty of an entropic resolution.” —Dean Koontz, author of the Odd Thomas novels

“He gives you glimpses of entire worlds with just perfectly turned language. If he’d been born south of the border, he’d be up for a Nobel Prize.” —Dan Simmons author of The Hyperion Cantos

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Feb 15, 2010
• ISBN: 9781441814593

Jack Vance

Jack Vance (richtiger Name: John Holbrook Vance) wurde am 28. August 1916 in San Francisco geboren. Er war eines der fünf Kinder von Charles Albert und Edith (Hoefler) Vance. Vance wuchs in Kalifornien auf und besuchte dort die University of California in Berkeley, wo er Bergbau, Physik und Journalismus studierte. Während des 2. Weltkriegs befuhr er die See als Matrose der US-Handelsmarine. 1946 heiratete er Norma Ingold; 1961 wurde ihr Sohn John geboren. Er arbeitete in vielen Berufen und Aushilfsjobs, bevor er Ende der 1960er Jahre hauptberuflich Schriftsteller wurde. Seine erste Kurzgeschichte, »The World-Thinker« (»Der Welten-Denker«) erschien 1945. Sein erstes Buch, »The Dying Earth« (»Die sterbende Erde«), wurde 1950 veröffentlicht. Zu Vances Hobbys gehörten Reisen, Musik und Töpferei – Themen, die sich mehr oder weniger ausgeprägt in seinen Geschichten finden. Seine Autobiografie, »This Is Me, Jack Vance! (»Gestatten, Jack Vance!«), von 2009 war das letzte von ihm geschriebene Buch. Jack Vance starb am 26. Mai 2013 in Oakland.

Reviews for The Dying Earth

[AndrewSonOfJames · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Take it on its own terms. It's great stuff, and it has a certain seriousness of purpose.

[j.e.schier · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Like weird fairytales from another world. Good stuff!

[pgiunta_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of Jack Vance’s most influential works and the first in a series, The Dying Earth is comprised of six fantasy adventures that are tangentially connected. They take place in Earth’s far future, during a time when the sun is approaching the end of its life and has become, it seems, a red dwarf. The human population has diminished significantly and most of the planet’s history long forgotten.Each story involves magic and sorcery with a loose foundation in science. Some level of technology still exists, but it is not always well understood by the characters.The six thoroughly enjoyable tales include:"Turjan of Miir” – Although skilled in creating humanoid life, a magician seeks the necessary spells to imbue it with intelligence. To do so, he must travel to another realm and seek the legendary sorcerer known as Pandelume."Mazirian the Magician" – The diabolical Mazirian captures Turjan and tortures him into revealing the necessary spells to imbue his creations with intelligence. However, Mazirian is distracted by the appearance of a beautiful young maiden who visits his property each day on horseback but flees whenever he confronts her. Eventually, Mazirian decides to set off in pursuit."T'sais" – An artificial woman created by the wizard Pandelume, T’sais once despised all living beings, including herself. This personality flaw made her combative, unreasonable, and violent. After speaking with her “twin sister” T’sain—created by Turjin to be gentle and kind—T’sais is persuaded to end her treacherous ways. She journeys to Earth to find love and encounters a benevolent man named Etarr who once made the mistake of falling in love with an evil witch. The witch exchanged his face for that of a demon, forcing Etarr to wear a mask. Together with T’sais, Etarr sets out to confront the witch and reverse the spell."Liane the Wayfarer" – In order to win the heart of a beautiful but reclusive young witch, an arrogant, callow adventurer undertakes a quest to retrieve the other half of a tapestry that hangs in the witch’s home. To do this, he must steal it from the castle of the dreaded creature known as Chun the Unavoidable."Ulan Dhor Ends a Dream" – An apprentice wizard arrives in the city of Ampridatvir on a quest to recover a pair of ancient tablets that, according to myth, provide access to ancient and powerful magic. Ulan is immediately mistaken for a raider due the color of his clothing and soon learns that color has meaning in this strange land. He meets the lovely Elai, who instructs him on the ways of her people and accompanies him on his quest. After a series of mishaps, the pair awaken the high priest of the region who is perturbed by the population’s lack of intellectual progress and decides to do something about it."Guyal of Sfere" – Rather than continuing to vex his father and the other elders of Sfere with his unquenchable thirst for knowledge, young Guyal sets out in search of the legendary Museum of Man and its omniscient curator. During his journey, Guyal encounters several dangers, including a hovering ghost on his way into the village of Saponce, where he inadvertently breaks a law and is sentenced to a strange punishment—he must choose the fairest maiden in the village during a pageant. He chooses Shierl, the daughter of a high-ranking Saponce official. In doing so, Guyal unwittingly dooms Shierl as a sacrifice to the demon that resides in the Museum of Man.

[bespen · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Dying Earth is not at all what I expected. I knew that Jack Vance had written about a decaying and declining Earth of the far future, when the Sun has swollen with ruddy light. What I got was a collection of loosely connected short stories and novellas about searching for knowledge, love, and hope in a world of cruelty and despair.The volume I read was an omnibus edition, Tales of the Dying Earth, which contains the 1950 Tales of Dying Earth, along with the much later The Eyes of the Overworld (1966), Cugel’s Saga (1983), and Rhialto the Marvellous (1984). However, I wanted to stop and review The Dying Earth because it was specifically cited in Gygax’s Appendix N.The Dying Earth is famous, or infamous, as the source of Vancian magic, the system of magic used in D&D. Reading the book, the influence is obvious, but I also feel like Gary’s peculiar style in his TSR products come from here too. The melodramatic names, the overly complicated vocabulary, the slightly stilted presentation, all of that is in The Dying Earth.Also, the post-apocalyptic mood of D&D and AD&D comes from here. The Earth is largely depopulated, full of ruins and terrible monsters that roam at will. The people that remain have mostly sunk into physical indolence and moral turpitude, but there are hints that justice has not yet been utterly vanquished. Yet, it is perhaps in rather short supply.The Pulp Archivist has identified the period of 1945 - 1954 in American science fiction as the Age of Despair. I can see how The Dying Earth could fit in that characterization, as the world Vance describes is cruel and callous, a time of casual depravity. But unlike Van Vogt’s Centaurus II, I see hope in Vance’s collection. Not every story or character in this collection instantiates hope. Several of them have a theme of justice instead of, or in addition to hope. And when the world is cruel, justice can be harsh. Let’s look at one in particular, “T’Sais”. My editorial policy is that I discuss spoilers when I feel like it, but I will at least provide some warning. The eponymous T’Sais is a woman created through magical means, but due to a mistake by her creator, she finds beauty repellent, and good to be evil. She sets out on a quest to discover goodness and beauty on the ruined Earth. Little did T’Sais know that her creator had sheltered her from the terrors of the dying Earth. T’Sais, exhausted from defending herself against monsters and brigands, seeks shelter in a lonely cottage. She collapses inside, not knowing who resides within. The man, a victim of a witch, shelters T’Sais, tenderly laying her in bed, and feeds her when she awakes. Perhaps recognizing one another as kindred spirits in a perilous world, they tell their stories. The man, Etarr, is moved by pity, and T’Sais, while not quite capable of pity, it at least intrigued by the hints of goodness she sees as through a glass, darkly. Together, Etarr and T’Sais set out to seek justice and beauty.This story, regardless of its setting, fills me with hope. It also illustrates how good stories of this era are casually slandered by lazy reviewers. The most upvoted review on Goodreads asserts that the characters in this book seek to catch women, cage them, and rape them. I’m convinced that I didn’t read the same book that reviewer did. Especially since the one character who could be described that way is from the story that reviewer says is his favorite in the collection. A character who get what he deserves, by the way.Other than that cautionary tale of justice served, what we really have here are tales of adventure and romance set in a world approaching oblivion. I’m rather pleased by The Dying Earth, and I’m glad to have made its acquaintance.

[edwinkort · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Had hier veel over gehoord, en wou het boek maar eens gaan lezen.

Maar tjonge jonge, er zat wat mij betreft helemaal geen lijn in. Het boek bestaat uit meerdere verhalen die zich afspelen tegen het einde van het bestaan van de aarde, en mensen hebben nu magische krachten. En dat is eigenlijk alles wat mij bij gebleven is van dit boek.


Misschien dat een volgend boek van deze schrijver me meer kan bekoren. Dit in ieder geval niet.

[ashleytylerjohn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I haven't really read Vance before, but heard that Matthew Hughes was Vancian, and I like him, so thought I'd give this a whirl. It was great! It turns out that Hughes is particularly drawn to the idea about the structure and ethos of different societies, and that appeals enormously to me--the actual derring-do going on in each location is of slightly less interest.

These are very dry tales, so it's hard to reach 5 stars without an emotional response from me, but on all others levels this was thoroughly enjoyed, and I'm looking forward to tackling his entire oeuvre.

(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).

[wvlibrarydude · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A collection of stories with some overlap of characters and places. Vance weaves stories that will transport and captivate your imagination. His characters are complex and at times original. Many of his plots follow a Dunsany pattern, but with his own stamp of mystery.
A great book of classic fantasy that I am happy to discover, but sad to have overlooked for so many years.

[staticblaq-1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Couldn't finish it. Got halfway through and had had enough. The stories were arranged in an order that was all over the place. The characters caricatures. The dying Earth itself didn't play much part in the parts I red, wich is not want I was after. This was not the book for me.

[jimmaclachlan · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I've read a short story in this series & it was OK. I think it was in one of the early "Flashing Swords" anthologies. I don't care for the style of writing. The world is certainly imaginative, but too chaotic & there is no real characterization. Also there are too many weird names to keep track of in the bits & pieces I listen to. Nope, just not going to work for a whole book. Moving on.

[selindberg · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Vance's Prismatic Charm of Beautiful, Untiring AdventureReview Summary: The Dying Earth, is beautiful, pulpy adventure. It is a series of six connected short tales (chapters), each being a mix of (Sword & Sorcery) and (Sword and Planet)...so consider it (Sword & Sorcery & Planet). And, it is an important classic, first published in 1950; Jack Vance's codification of magic items & spells proved influential in RPG-game design.Dying Earth Series: Tales of the Dying Earth: The Dying Earth/The Eyes of the Overworld/Cugel's Saga/Rhialto the Marvellous is an omnibus edition of the four novels written by Jack Vance (1916-2013) between 1950 and 1986; the first is simply The Dying Earth, which is itself a collection of six short stories. With the recent passing of Jack Vance (1916-2013), many are reflecting on his work this Summer: The Dying Earth (1950) is the first in the series (the next three in sequence are: (2) The Eyes of the Overworld (1966), (3) Cugel's Saga (1983), (4) Rhialto The Marvellous (1984)). The Dying Earth The Eyes of the Overworld Cugel's Saga Rhialto The MarvellousCodifying Magic - Role Playing Game (RPG)s: Tolkien maybe credited for inspiring "fellowships" of Dwarves, Elves, and Humans to go adventuring (a key trope for RPGs), but his magic-system was never codified well. Some ontology, or approach to classifying, was also needed ...and already provided, actually. Before "Lord of The Rings", Vance delivered The Dying Earth, and seems responsible for providing RPG-franchises with the needed approach: captivating brand names. Vance's Items and Spell titles simply exhibit self-evident credibility : Magic Items such as Expansible Egg, Scintillant Dagger, and Live Boots...and Spells such as Excellent Prismatic Spray, Phandaal's Mantle of Stealth, Call to the Violent Cloud, Charm of Untiring Nourishment. Three decades after The Dying Earth was published, the broader fantasy culture apparently caught on to the branding of spells and magic items (i.e. 1980's Dungeons & Dragons… or even magic-based card games like Pokemon, etc.). Pace & Style: The title evokes gloomy adventure. The stories follow suit. The poetic, weird narratives will remind readers of predecessor Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961)'s Lost Worlds; the swashbuckling adventure and planetary exploration evoke Vance's contemporary Roger Zelazny (1936-1995)'s The First Chronicles of Amber. Each tale moves at breakneck speed. Often times, within just one page, teleportation will propel the protagonist across multiple planetary systems and vast continents. Actually, the pace is too fast and the stories appear rushed (keeping this from receiving a 5-star rating). Most encounters involve some haggling/negotiating, and some of these lead to sudden brutality:"Then you may die." And Mazirian caused the creature to revolve at ever greater speeds, faster and faster, until there was only a blur. A strangled wailing came and presently the Deodand's frame parted. The head shot like a bullet far down the glade; arms, legs, viscera flew in a direction." -- Ch2- Mazirian the MagicianThe brisk pace belies the serious, philosophical undertones that persist throughout. The milieu does involve the decline of earth, after all, but Vance does not dwell on it. The action is at the forefront, but darkness is continuously dosed. One moment he'll be describing some present urgency, and then he will sneak in a bit of epic, chronic darkness: "At one famous slaughtering, Golickan Kodek the Conqueror had herded here the populations of two great cities, G'Vasan and Bautiku, constricted them in a circle three miles across, gradually pushed them tighter and tighter, panicked them toward the center within his flapping-armed sub-human cavalry, until at last he had achieved a gigantic, squirming mound, half a thousand feet high, a pyramid of screaming flesh."-- Ch2- Mazirian the MagicianBeauty Theme: The tales share many of the same characters, but each has a different protagonist. The protagonist from the six tale (Guyal) seems to speaks on behalf of the author's muses; he invites readers to consider:"Where does beauty vanish when it goes?" Guyal's Father Answers: "Beauty is a luster which love bestows to guile the eye. Therefore it may be said that only when the brain is without love will the eye look and see no beauty." - Story 6- Guyal of SfereVance's work seems genuinely motivated by an appreciation of art and the mourning of lost beauty. He seemed to be following in succession from like-authors. Mary Shelley, Edgar Allen Poe, Clark Ashton Smith, H.P. Lovecraft all delved into evoking emotions through their art; they were serious writers who philosophized and wrote essays regarding "Weird Beauty" in literature. The undercurrents of dark muses in literary horror fascinate some (link). Below are excerpts and comments of Beauty's themes in The Dying Earth (per story):1) Turjan of Mirr: The books opens with a sorcerer trying to create living things. His craft, his art, is "life." He mirrors the plight of Victor Frankenstein:"[Turjan] considered its many precursors: the thing all eyes, the boneless creature with the pulsing surface of its brain exposed, the beautiful female body whose intestines trailed out into the nutrient solution like seeking fibrils, the inverted inside-out creatures...Turjan sighed bleakly. His methods were at fault; a fundamental element was lacking from his synthesis, a matrix ordering the components of the pattern.""For some time I have been striving to create humanity in my vats. Yet always I fail, from ignorance of the agent that binds and orders patterns.""This is no science, this is an art, where equations fall to the elements like resolving chords, and where always prevails a symmetry either explicit or multiplex, but always of a crystalline serenity."Turjan needed more knowledge to complete his goal. This compels him toward making a woman who appreciates beauty (to compete with another woman who cannot detect beauty).2) Mazirian the Magician: This chapter has significant overtones of Clark Ashton Smith's Maze of Maal Dweeb, Xiccarph tales (1935, 1930)...in which an alien sorcerer had the "caprice to eternalize the frail beauty of women," maintaining them in a garden. Here, the beautiful T'sain dies to save her maker, Turjan, in a magic-filled chase through an alien sorcerer's garden. This excerpt demonstrates how Vance never ceases to pour out the colors! "Certain plants swam with changing iridescences; others held up blooms pulsing like sea-anemones, purple, green, lilac, pink, yellow. Here grew trees like feather parasols, trees with transparent trunks threaded with red and yellow veins, trees with foliage like metal foil, each leaf a different metal--copper, silver, blue tantalum, bronze, green iridium. Here blooms like bubbles tugged gently upward from glazed green leaves, there a shrub bore a thousand pipe-shaped blossoms, each whistling softly to make music of the ancient Earth, of the ruby-red sunlight, water seeping through black soil, the languid winds…"3) T'sais: The titular character, once an antagonist piece-of-art, searches out the ability to see beauty on Earth. As she describes:"Pandelume created me," continues T'sais, "but there was a flaw in the pattern." And T'sais stared into the fire. "I see the world as a dismal place: all sounds to me are harsh, all living creatures vile, in varying degrees--things of sluggish movement and inward filth. During the first of my life I thought only to trample, crush, destroy. I knew nothing but hate. Then I met my sister T'sain, who is as I without the flaw. She told me of love and beauty and happiness--and I came to Earth seeking those."Etarr, an ugly companion of T'sais who had his hansom face switched with a demon's, goes with her to witness a Black Sabbath. As they watch the demons congragate, Vance philosophizes:"Even here is beauty," he whispered. "Weird and grotesque, but a sight to enchant the mind."4) Laine the Wayfarer : Laine the arrogant magician is challenged to repair a piece of art: Lith's tapestry. Therein is depicted the Magic Valley of Ariventa, but it has been cut in half. Can he restore it? 5) Ulan Dhor: This is a fun piece, with more sci-fi than the others given the reactivation of ruined technology. The artistic elements are less covert here. There are two embattled groups that literally cannot see another. They signify themselves not with classic blazonry...but by simply by color: Green vs. Grays (vs. Reds)! 6)Guyal of Sfere: Guyal's insatiable search for knowing everything leads him on a quest to speak to the Curator of humankind's knowledge. En route, he partakes as a judge in a beauty pageant; here he meets with the maiden Shierl. They go on to explore sacred ruins, battle a demon who consumes beauty, and look upon the treasure trove of beauty, a sanctuary:"This is the Museum," said Guyal in a rapt tone. "Here there is no danger...He who dwells in beauty of this sort may never be other than beneficent…"All in all, a recommended read to any sci-fi and fantasy buff, and to any reader who also likes RPGs.

[eurekas_5 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Dying Earth is a collection of 5 short stories connected by the fact that they all occur at a time when the earth's sun is failing. My only criticism of it is that the female characters lack depth. The male characters are done well. The reason I gave it five stars is that the stories are very inventive and interesting, and the descriptions of an earth about to phase out of existence is poignant and poetic.

[drfp_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm not really one for these types of pulp fantasy / SF stories. They can be entertaining - but only on a superficial level as authors rarely have have the space or the willpower to craft nuanced characters or intricate plots. However, in this book Vance's imagination has enough bright ideas to make this an above average sort of collection. Vance expertly conjures a melancholy setting and peoples it with enough interesting peoples and creatures to make this one of the more notable books of its kind. It's still a little shallow but it's definitely enjoyable to read.

[brucecoulson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Prose poetry. Is it fantasy? Science Fiction? Does it matter? These are haunting and beautiful stories, that will stir your imagination. Set millions of years in the future, where the sun is red and flickering, and yet people are still the same, despite the impending end of the world. "Here, in the Earth's last fleeting moments, humanity festers, rich as rotting fruit..." Every fan of fantasy or science fiction should read this.

[crazybatcow · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Ummm... if you like reading D&D pre-made modules, you'll really like this. (I'm not even sure they still make such things - now that I'm all grown up I don't get to play D&D anymore).Lots of mage activity, magic stuff, some sword fighting... really, it's a D&D game done in story form. The story is somewhat entertaining, but there's no real "meaning" behind it; no angst, no overarching plot that needs to be resolved. Just some fighting or magic casting and "whoops there it's done".That, and there's no real gore or sex (to be fair, it *is* a classic)... so, while entertaining, it feels like it's for a rather young audience (10-15 year old boys would be my guess).

[clong_818048 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Jack Vance is not particularly an author you go to for profound ruminations on existential philosophy or human identity. And I can’t deny that has given us an occasional clunker or two over the years, books seemingly written to reach a minimum required word count to collect a promised paycheck. But even at his worst Vance is reasonably entertaining, and at his best, he offers inspired settings, fresh societies, healthy doses of dark humor, and complicated, driven protagonists. The various works in the Tales of the Dying Earth series appear to be among his most popular works, yet somehow I had managed to make it this far without having read any of them . To my taste, the Dying Earth, a collection of six short stories originally published in 1950, is one of his most original and best works. This is a collection of linked short stories set in a far future in which Earth lumbers towards extinction, and the dwindling remnants of mankind live in a quasi-feudal society where remnants of advanced technology still pop up from time to time, and a few learned leaders practice “magic”. Over the years, Vance seems to have given us several books that inspired flourishing subgenres, and this is one of them. As I was reading this book I was often reminded of favorite stories that would clearly follow in Vance’s footsteps by authors such as M. John Harrison, Gene Wolfe and George RR Martin. And I gather than many of the basic tenets of the magic system from D&D were based on this book.I liked all six stories in this book. My favorites were “Liane the Wayfarer,” a story about an adventurer of little moral compass who seems end up dead in every story in which he makes an appearance; “T’sias,” a story about a women who finds everything ugly, who comes to Earth from a protected alternate world to seek love and beauty; and “Guyal of Sfere,” an extended story about a young man on a quest for the insights hidden in the legendary Museum of Man.Good stuff.

[antiquary_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Beautiful but grim stories set in a world of bizarre monsters and powerful unscrupulous mages. Generally considered one of Vance's best. The magic system in these stories (mages must memorize spells and lose them as they are used) became the basis of the D&D magic system.