Reading in April 2006
- Thread starter Hobbit
- Start date
- Joined
- Jul 16, 2001
- Messages
- 18,525
Have you tried Dune before? Sometimes books need a run-at, ez. I know I had to give it a go twice when I was 14. I still have books about that I've tried and had to put down to 'try again another time'. (Erm: Hal Duncan's Vellum is one of my latest, I think.)
And if you look up the Dune threads there are some who feel it's not as good as it could/should be. Feel Free to join in and put your view in!
Hobbit
ezchaos
Next to Arch Stanton
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2002
- Messages
- 906
Sorry, meant to add more to my previous post but I had to run...
I did try Dune a few years ago when I picked up a used copy. However, I didn't make if very far in, but not because the book was bad. It just wasn't the right book to read at that time.
It was funny because I'd never watched any of the various Dune movies all of the way through. But, between that and reading about the Dune series on the web, I already knew quite a bite about the story. Kind of like if I had waited till now to read tLotR.
I'd have to put Dune it in my top 10 sf reads of all time list. That's how mush I enjoyed it. At this point in my life, I found it refreshing to read a sf story not bogged down in technology and "ideas". I'll definitely be reading the next few in the series.
I did try Dune a few years ago when I picked up a used copy. However, I didn't make if very far in, but not because the book was bad. It just wasn't the right book to read at that time.
It was funny because I'd never watched any of the various Dune movies all of the way through. But, between that and reading about the Dune series on the web, I already knew quite a bite about the story. Kind of like if I had waited till now to read tLotR.
I'd have to put Dune it in my top 10 sf reads of all time list. That's how mush I enjoyed it. At this point in my life, I found it refreshing to read a sf story not bogged down in technology and "ideas". I'll definitely be reading the next few in the series.
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FicusFan
Anitaverse Refugee
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2002
- Messages
- 3,267
I finally finished the April book of the month for the SF group, Hammered by Elizabeth Bear. I will post my comments there. Have about 4 other books started, 2 non-fiction, a non-genre, and a fantasy. Not sure which I will continue with.
ArthurFrayn
the puppet master
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2003
- Messages
- 1,951
Tales of the Dying Earth
A belated entry:
I finished Jack Vance's Tales of the Dying Earth, literally at the last hour of the last day of the month of April.
I feel the need to give warning to the world -those people who have this on their list of TBR...
My main warning -don't feel compelled to read it in the ascribed chronological order!
The only books that are in any order are Eyes of the Overworld and Cugel's Saga.
The other two have not much to do with these two. All of these novels are compilations of shorter works.
The first novel, the one entitled The Dying Earth is a wonderful, creepy, occasionally sad thing that deserves all the praise it usually gets. It has that kind of energy one might get from reading something like Japanese ghost stories. Vance said he had Russian folktales in mind when he wrote it. He often has an offbeat imagination, and it's on great display here. This novel also features the elegant, baroque, prose style that he is famous for ( it's less present in the following novels -pretty much absent from Cugel's Saga).
Rhialto the Marvelous is 3 tales of a group of wizards, and their various exploits. Very entertaining fantasy read. Rhialto and his compatriots are much more compelling than Cugel, who you would have encountered first if you read the novels in their supposed order.
Eyes of the Overworld introduces one of the most charmless rogue characters that I have come across in all of the fiction I've read -the above mentioned Cugel. The novel has evocative episodes, but is not as compelling as TDE and RtM.
After finishing EotO, I had some trepidation in starting a novel 3 times larger than the other 3, entitled Cugel's Saga.I wished I had trusted my instincts. This is essentially a large collection of short pieces featuring the unloveable plot mechanism that is Cugel. I'll grant it's occasionally funny, but it quickly wears out it's welcome, as Cugel haggles over inn and tavern bills, and terms of employment, ad nauseum, each vignette ending with him being "run out of town on a rail"
Imagine one of the less funny Warner Brothers cartoons,with a running time of 3 hours.
It took an eternity to finish this. Reading it was like riding on a merry go round for a week.
So, in recommended reading order and with my evaluation, for what it's worth:
The Dying Earth****
Rhialto the Marvelous***1/2
Eyes of the Overworld***
Cugels' Saga *1/2 - this one is an infuriating waste of time; parts of it are nothing more than creative typing, to my eye
The Dying Earth is the must read.
If you skip Cugel's Saga, your life would not be the less for it,IMO.
The other two are entertaining - Rhialto the Marvelous and Eyes of the Overworld. I'm pretty sure EotO will fill all your Cugel needs. Cugel's Saga does conclude the story, but in an inconsistent, somewhat lazy, and unsatisfactory fashion.
We're talking about over 700 pages of reading here if you read the whole thing. More than half of your reading time will be spent with Ol' Cugel. You've been warned. As a character, he does not merit the attention.
A belated entry:
I finished Jack Vance's Tales of the Dying Earth, literally at the last hour of the last day of the month of April.
I feel the need to give warning to the world -those people who have this on their list of TBR...
My main warning -don't feel compelled to read it in the ascribed chronological order!
The only books that are in any order are Eyes of the Overworld and Cugel's Saga.
The other two have not much to do with these two. All of these novels are compilations of shorter works.
The first novel, the one entitled The Dying Earth is a wonderful, creepy, occasionally sad thing that deserves all the praise it usually gets. It has that kind of energy one might get from reading something like Japanese ghost stories. Vance said he had Russian folktales in mind when he wrote it. He often has an offbeat imagination, and it's on great display here. This novel also features the elegant, baroque, prose style that he is famous for ( it's less present in the following novels -pretty much absent from Cugel's Saga).
Rhialto the Marvelous is 3 tales of a group of wizards, and their various exploits. Very entertaining fantasy read. Rhialto and his compatriots are much more compelling than Cugel, who you would have encountered first if you read the novels in their supposed order.
Eyes of the Overworld introduces one of the most charmless rogue characters that I have come across in all of the fiction I've read -the above mentioned Cugel. The novel has evocative episodes, but is not as compelling as TDE and RtM.
After finishing EotO, I had some trepidation in starting a novel 3 times larger than the other 3, entitled Cugel's Saga.I wished I had trusted my instincts. This is essentially a large collection of short pieces featuring the unloveable plot mechanism that is Cugel. I'll grant it's occasionally funny, but it quickly wears out it's welcome, as Cugel haggles over inn and tavern bills, and terms of employment, ad nauseum, each vignette ending with him being "run out of town on a rail"
Imagine one of the less funny Warner Brothers cartoons,with a running time of 3 hours.
It took an eternity to finish this. Reading it was like riding on a merry go round for a week.
So, in recommended reading order and with my evaluation, for what it's worth:
The Dying Earth****
Rhialto the Marvelous***1/2
Eyes of the Overworld***
Cugels' Saga *1/2 - this one is an infuriating waste of time; parts of it are nothing more than creative typing, to my eye
The Dying Earth is the must read.
If you skip Cugel's Saga, your life would not be the less for it,IMO.
The other two are entertaining - Rhialto the Marvelous and Eyes of the Overworld. I'm pretty sure EotO will fill all your Cugel needs. Cugel's Saga does conclude the story, but in an inconsistent, somewhat lazy, and unsatisfactory fashion.
We're talking about over 700 pages of reading here if you read the whole thing. More than half of your reading time will be spent with Ol' Cugel. You've been warned. As a character, he does not merit the attention.
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