Tales of the Dying Earth

Searching out classics of science fiction and fantasy is a hit-and-miss affair. Some of them haven't aged well, but 'The Dying Earth' is a hit.

Vance's fantasy world is temporally inverted. The standard mode for fantasy is the one Tolkien operates in, using mythology as the template for fictional events which purportedly happened in the distant past. The idea that these are tales from the infancy of humanity gives them a potency. They are like the seed of our culture and thoughts, the DNA of our morals and truths.

In "The Dying Earth", the mythological events take place in the far future instead of the distant past. Their potency come from the idea that this is what is to come. What we might be at the dying of our world sheds light on what we are now. It doesn't quite reach the heights of Gene Wolfe's "The Book of the New Sun" and Michael Moorcock's "The Dancers at the End of Time", but it's a nice addition to this sub-genre.

I began reading an omnibus edition of the four books in the series, but it proved to be a poor-quality uncorrected scanned file. Avoid that one. I later discovered "proper" e-books of the separate volumes, but I will persist here treating them as a single book.

The first book is a collection of short stories detailing the conflicts and quests of various wizards and heroes. The strongest threads linking them are the characters T'sain and T'sais, the result of a stumbling magical experiment to create the perfect human. T'sain has one major flaw - she is unable to perceive beauty or pleasure, and has a bitter hatred of all life and herself. Later, when T'sais is, erm, decanted, that imperfection is ironed out. But her rage-filled sister is the one who must use reason to fight against her bitter instinct.

Vance's philosophical propositions are sumptuously wrapped in marvelous fantastic inventions and alluringly revived archaic prose. His rediscovery of old words is a joy. You can easily get the meaning from the context, but for the lexicographically inclined, having a dictionary on hand could bring added pleasure.

Books two and three shift gears into picaresque mode. They deal with the villainous anti-hero Cugel as he feuds with the avaricious and powerful wizard Iocunnu. Cugel is selfish and vain, but the authorities, the mayors and the holy men he encounters are no better... they are institutionalised versions of Cugel's own sociopathic nature.

Cugel's philosophy, or lack thereof, is beautifully summarised when a scheming wizard offers him a gift, asking:

“Is this the conduct of a ‘sly and unpredictable villain’?” “Decidedly so, if the villain, for the purposes of his joke, thinks to simulate the altruist.” “Then how will you know villain from altruist?” Cugel shrugged. “It is not an important distinction.”

Later Cugel baldly summarises another of his anti-philosophies: "duplicity is valuable for its own sake." Chaotic neutral seems to the the preferred alignment for Vance's characters.

The third book is like a remix of the second. It follows a broadly similar plot as Cugel is banished by Ioconnu and must traverse the perilous lands of the dying earth to find his home and seek revenge. But the diversity and delectable weirdness of the two books is actually emphasised by the recycled plot.

I am normally repelled by cynical amoral curmudgeonly attitudes, but I was won over by Vance for a few reasons: firstly, his writing is (to use the formal term) fucking hilarious. Another review I read said it is whimsical in the manner of Lewis Carroll. Secondly, I think his amoral characters and their doomed world contain an assumption of a moral compass in the mind of the reader. They are bad stories for good people. Maybe badass stories is a better description.

The final volume tells tales from the perspective of the wizards rather than their adversary. The strong start for female characters is in contrast with the men's golf club atmosphere that pervades these yarns. But they have a delectable science fantasy vibe, with wizardly space travel to the edge of the universe, and a new collection of anti-heroes to cheer or to fear, or both at the same time.

I am flinching a bit, half expecting to learn that Vance was some sort of Reagan-esque right-wing culture warrior. It would be a shame, but one would hope the books would rise above such an unsavoury past. So far all the closets have been skeleton-free. Actually I think the Vance I detect from these stories would be above that.