Jack Vance died last Sunday, at the fine old age of 96, after a long and prolific life. I don't know how many people here have read Jack Vance's stories: he's maybe, now, a bit of an acquired taste. But I'd urge anyone with even the most passing interest in SF and fantasy - and the muddled country in between - to give his books a try. His The Dying Earth and Lyonesse books are true high-water marks of fantastic fiction, and his SF novels set in the Gaean Reach (a brilliant, evocative name) are vivid, humorous and wildly inventive: the Demon Princes books make a great introduction. To list the authors influenced by Vance is to list nearly all the great names of modern non-mainstream fiction, from Michael Moorcock to George R R Martin to Neil Gaiman to Iain Banks.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/ma ... -rr-martin
Edited to add: a good, long article about Vance, from 2009:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/magaz ... .html?_r=0
Jack Vance, RIP
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Disembodied
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Cody
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Re: Jack Vance, RIP
Ah... another great author gone.
I would advise stilts for the quagmires, and camels for the snowy hills
And any survivors, their debts I will certainly pay. There's always a way!
And any survivors, their debts I will certainly pay. There's always a way!
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Eric Walch
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Re: Jack Vance, RIP
I read several of him. According the Dutch wiki: "Vance is in the Netherlands, other than in his own country, one of the most popular fantasy writers."Disembodied wrote:I don't know how many people here have read Jack Vance's stories:
UPS-Courier & DeepSpacePirates & others at the box and some older versions