[terminus est]

I read Tales of the Dying Earth not too long ago and loved it. I especially loved The Eyes of the Overworld, which I consider to be the best part of the volume. Cugel's Saga was my second favorite.

That said, I tried Lyonesse and just could not get into it. It seemed like way too much happened in way too short of a time and I just could not grasp the story that well. Has anyone here read the books, and if so, what was your opinion on them? Did I just not give them a good enough chance?

[emphryio]

The Lyonesse triology was OK but didn't really stand out. Have you read much Vance? I own over 40 of his books. He has two types of main characters either the rogue (Cugel/Lian the Wayfarer) or the stoic hero type which dominates most of his sci-fi. Lyonesse is fantasy but has the stoic hero. Eyes of the Overworld is a great book, better than the Lyonesse trilogloy, no doubt. My favorite of the rogue type books is Eyes of the Overworld. Of the stoic type capable heros, Tschai (Planet of Adventure) is my favorite (but he's written a ton of books that are quite similar and also pretty good along those lines, not so many good ones with rogue type main characters.)

Anyway Lyonesse has the stoic type hero, maybe that doesn't appeal to you as much.

[terminus est]

Tales of the Dying Earth is all I've read by him. I read that one because I read in a number of places that it was an inspiration for The Book of the New Sun (which I love dearly).

I only read half of the first volume of Lyonesse but had to return it to the library because it was taking me too long to read it.

I'll give the ones you mentioned a shot, because Tales of the Dying Earth really impressed me. I especially liked the picaresque style where each chapter had mostly its own plot, as it can get a bit tiring reading epic after epic. :D

Has Vance done any other picaresques like those books?

[Lowlander]

Personally I really liked the Lyonesse trilogy. I admit it's rather slowgoing, although the third novel has more action and even some battle scenes.

But if you want to see Vance at his very best try the Demon Princes quintet. If I remember well Tor collected these in 2 hardcovers. The SFBC did even better and collected them in one giant hardcover, although I don't know if this edition is still available.

[Bard]

I love Vance's work...Cugel is a great scoundrel, but I liked Lyonesse just as much, wonderful storytelling IMO...Tschai, Durdane and The demonprinces series are recommended to, but his shorter works like for example Emphyrio, Chateau d'if etc. are excellent as well...Vance 's humor and his colourfull descriptions of all the exotic worlds and the habits, foods, religions etc. there are really one of a kind...
Luckily I have most of his books on a shelf at home :)

[Kleronomas]

Ah, I look forward to the day when I have cleared my ever growing To Read shelves and can simply settle down to multiple re-reads of Vances books. Many fans consider the Lyonesse sequence as Vance's Masterpiece. I've read it once and enjoyed it a lot.

This (http://greatsfandf.com/AUTHORS/JackVance.php) is a link to a great essay on Vance that I recommend anyone interested in reading him to check out.

The beginning of the first Lyonesse book seems to be considered the slowest part of the trilogy. Maybe read some of his other books as recommended above before giving it another go.

[emphryio]

Has Vance done any other picaresques like those books?

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/authors/Jack_Vance.htm
I think all his dying earth stuff is picaresque. I loved Liane the Wayfarer and Chun the Unavoidable. Then Showboat World was also and then some of his short stories which are I think all within the Dying Earth stuff. I suppose his most recent space opera stuff like Lurulu is sort of picaresque but it really isn't as good as his earlier stuff. The majority of his stuff is not picaresque.

Yeah Tschai, Durdane and The Demon Princes are great books. Also really liked The Dragon Masters, Blue World, and The Last Castle. And short stories like The Miracle Workers, The Narrowland, The New Prime, etc.

[emphryio]

http://greatsfandf.com/AUTHORS/JackVance.php
Nice article. Maybe I should reread Lyonesse. I disagree with the placement at the end of the article of some of the books (of course). I really liked Tschai, and Blue World. He has Eyes of the Overworld at the very bottom and I would put it at the top, it's definitely better than the somewhat tedious Rhialto the Marvelous. Just because the Gray Prince was a political polemic does not mean it sucks, although it was still only a so so book. (Actually I was really impressed with it at one time.)

The language thing I suppose is important but I have never cared enough to rave about it. Still I mostly agree with the author of the article.

I do think Emphyrio is overrated although I like that a clearly socialistic work of sci fi managed to get published at all.

[Shimrod]

Well it's no coincedence that my nickname is Shimrod. :cool:

[terminus est]

Ah, I look forward to the day when I have cleared my ever growing To Read shelves and can simply settle down to multiple re-reads of Vances books. Many fans consider the Lyonesse sequence as Vance's Masterpiece. I've read it once and enjoyed it a lot.

This (http://greatsfandf.com/AUTHORS/JackVance.php) is a link to a great essay on Vance that I recommend anyone interested in reading him to check out.

The beginning of the first Lyonesse book seems to be considered the slowest part of the trilogy. Maybe read some of his other books as recommended above before giving it another go.

That's a good article. I was reading the quotes he had from Vance, and one really struck my fancy. I googled the character name and apparently it's from a book called Showboat World. Is that a good Vance book? I read some reviews and it called it a picaresque, which goes with what emphryio was saying.

I don't think my local library carries it though. They have about 50 Vance books, but that's not nearly all he has done, and apparently this one is one they don't possess.

If I liked Tales of the Dying Earth so much, would any of you say this was a worthwhile purchase? I am a bit frugal with my book purchases, as I don't like to buy books I end up hating (as was the case with a couple Anne Rice books I bought), but I doubt I'd end up hating this book regardless.