Jack Vance is often considered one of the patron saints of old-school D&D, thanks to Gary Gygax's "almost famous" Appendix N stuck in the back of the first edition of the Dungeon Masters' Guide. Besides contributing the game's "fire-and-forget" magic system, his picaresque tales were a great inspiration to the whole feel of the game in its infancy. Closer to home, his clever, baroquely-described Lyonesse series has left inspiring touches and homages all over the Hill Cantons. (Just ask the mage, August, who had the great misfortune of picking up a certain odd emerald-colored pearl a few sessions back.)
So, it's with great excitement that I note that Songs of the Dying Earth, a collection of novellas and short stories set in Vance's Dying Earth (naturally)--and edited by one of the few other fantasy authors that can write worth a damn, George R.R. Martin--is now finally being put to press. Besides the formidable Martin, contributors to the book look like a veritable All-Stars team including Dan Simmons, Neil Gaiman, Glen Cook, and Robert Silverberg. The book should be hitting bookstores around August. Yay.
Wow! I'm shocked that I never heard of the project. Good find my man. You forgot to add that Tanith Lee and Tad Williams are contributing stories to the anthology. Also cool to see Vance's explicit contribution to D&D noted on the jacket. Should help raise his visbility in gaming circles some more.
ReplyDeleteGreat news for Vance fans, bad news for GRRM fans... yet another project that has been taking up his time rather than working of SoIF.
ReplyDeleteAh yes, sigh, the long-awaited fifth book. I feel your pain, brother.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I'm still a little ticked off about Feast of Crows, what a colossus bad call to cut out all the POVs that most of us loved. How many years have we all waited now to find out what happened to all of them?
Still HBO is about to starting shoot the series in Northern Ireland, so perhaps there is the good news for the GRRM hordes