Dohojar
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 114 
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Post by Dohojar on Apr 4, 2015 10:25:00 GMT -6
So, 30 years after I first saw his name is the back of the AD&D dungeon masters guide, I finally read one of his books " The Eyes of the Overworld" and all I can say is wow, what a great story. I don't know if I should feel sorry for Cugel the clever or feel like he got what was coming to him lol.
Jack's writing style took some getting used to as I haven't read anything with a vocabulary like that since the AD&D dm's guide. Just goes to show how much fantasy writers have dumbed down thier books over the years. The vocabulary used in this book makes anything written in the late 80's up until recentely seems like it was written by grade school kids. It seems to me that those of us who grew up reading the AD&D books when we were kids have a larger vocabulay than kids today by far and for that I thank Gary and authors like Vance for making us kids have to grab a dictonary to figure out what the hell they were saying.
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Post by ragnorakk on Apr 4, 2015 12:48:40 GMT -6
So, 30 years after I first saw his name is the back of the AD&D dungeon masters guide, I finally read one of his books " The Eyes of the Overworld" and all I can say is wow, what a great story. I don't know if I should feel sorry for Cugel the clever or feel like he got what was coming to him lol. Jack's writing style took some getting used to as I haven't read anything with a vocabulary like that since the AD&D dm's guide. Just goes to show how much fantasy writers have dumbed down thier books over the years. The vocabulary used in this book makes anything written in the late 80's up until recentely seems like it was written by grade school kids. It seems to me that those of us who grew up reading the AD&D books when we were kids have a larger vocabulay than kids today by far and for that I thank Gary and authors like Vance for making us kids have to grab a dictonary to figure out what the hell they were saying. Jack Vance and John McPhee (non-fiction) are just about the only two authors who regularly send me to the dictionary. Vance really hit me in the second half of Lyonesse and I've read as much of his work as I can get my hands on now - never disappointed, at worst "less bowled over". |
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Post by Finarvyn on Apr 4, 2015 14:19:11 GMT -6
So, 30 years after I first saw his name is the back of the AD&D dungeon masters guide, I finally read one of his books " The Eyes of the Overworld" and all I can say is wow, what a great story. I don't know if I should feel sorry for Cugel the clever or feel like he got what was coming to him lol. You picked a good one to start with. "The Eyes of the Overworld" is my favorite of the DYING EARTH stories.  |
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Post by Red Baron on Apr 5, 2015 2:56:42 GMT -6
So, 30 years after I first saw his name is the back of the AD&D dungeon masters guide, I finally read one of his books " The Eyes of the Overworld" and all I can say is wow, what a great story. I don't know if I should feel sorry for Cugel the clever or feel like he got what was coming to him lol. Jack's writing style took some getting used to as I haven't read anything with a vocabulary like that since the AD&D dm's guide. Just goes to show how much fantasy writers have dumbed down thier books over the years. The vocabulary used in this book makes anything written in the late 80's up until recentely seems like it was written by grade school kids. It seems to me that those of us who grew up reading the AD&D books when we were kids have a larger vocabulay than kids today by far and for that I thank Gary and authors like Vance for making us kids have to grab a dictonary to figure out what the hell they were saying. Don't miss out on the dying earth and lyonesse! (you can skip the second cugel book though.) |
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Post by bigjackbrass on Apr 5, 2015 7:37:50 GMT -6
By coincidence, earlier this afternoon I finished A Quest for Simbalis by Michael Shea, an approved sequel to The Eyes of the Overworld from 1974. Very enjoyable, nicely capturing much of the tone of Vance's style and Cugel's ambivalent (though largely selfish) nature.
The only problem I find with reading Dying Earth books is a tendency for one's speech to adopt some semblance of the protagonists' as they pursue their crepuscular peregrinations beneath the senile star.
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