Songs of the Dying Earth
Return to the unique and evocative world of The Dying Earth in this tribute anthology featuring the most distinguished fantasists of our day. Here are twenty-one brand-new adventures set in the world of Jack Vance's greatest novel.A dim place, ancient beyond knowledge. The sun is feeble and red. A million cities have fallen to dust. Here live a few thousand souls, dying, as the Earth dies beneath them. Just a few short decades remain to the long history of our world. At the last, science and magic are one, and there is evil on Earth, distilled by time … Earth is dying.Half a century ago, Jack Vance created the world of the Dying Earth, and fantasy has never been the same. Now, for the first time, Jack has agreed to open this bizarre and darkly beautiful world to other fantasists, to play in as their very own.The list of twenty-one contributors eager to honour Jack Vance by writing for this anthology includes Neil Gaiman, Elizabeth Hand, Tanith Lee, Michael Moorcock, Terry Dowling, Lucius Shepherd, Dan Simmons, Robert Silverberg, Tad Williams, Walter Jon Williams and George R.R. Martin himself.
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SONGS OF THE DYING EARTH
STORIES IN HONOUR OF JACK VANCE
Edited by
George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois
with an Appreciation by Dean Koontz
ROBERT SILVERBERG, MATTHEW HUGHES, TERRY DOWLING, LIZ WILLIAMS, MIKE RESNICK, WALTER JON WILLIAMS, PAULA VOLSKY, JEFF VANDERMEER, KAGE BAKER, PHYLLIS EISENSTEIN, ELIZABETH MOON, LUCIUS SHEPARD, TAD WILLIAMS, JOHN C. WRIGHT, GLEN COOK, ELIZABETH HAND, BYRON TETRICK, TANITH LEE, DAN SIMMONS, HOWARD WALDROP, GEORGE R.R. MARTIN, NEIL GAIMAN
HarperCollinsPublishers 77-85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 2009
Copyright © George R R Martin and Gardner Dozois 2009
Full copyright information here
The authors assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007277483
Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2009 ISBN: 9780007290666 Version: 2014-11-28
to Jack Vance, the maestro, with thanks for all the great tales, and for letting us play with your toys.
Table of Contents
Thank You, Mr. Vance DEAN KOONTZ
The True Vintage of Erzuine Thale ROBERT SILVERBERG
Grolion of Almery MATTHEW HUGHES
Caulk the Witch-chaser LIZ WILLIAMS
The Traditions of Karzh PAULA VOLSKY
The Final Quest of the Wizard Sarnod JEFF VANDERMEER
The Last Golden Thread PHYLLIS EISENSTEIN
An Incident in Uskvosk ELIZABETH MOON
Sylgarmo’s Proclamation LUCIUS SHEPARD
The Lamentably Comical Tragedy (or The Laughably Tragic Comedy) of Lixal Laqavee TAD WILLIAMS
Guyal the Curator JOHN C. WRIGHT
The Return of the Five Witch ELIZABETH HAND
The Collegeum of Mauge BYRON TETRICK
Evillo the Uncunning TANITH LEE
The Guiding Nose of Ulfänt Banderōz DAN SIMMONS
A Night at the Tarn House GEORGE R.R. MARTIN
IN 1966, at 21, fresh from college, I was a fool and possibly deranged, although not seriously dangerous. I was a well-read fool, especially in science fiction. For twelve years, I pored through at least a book a week in that genre. I felt that I belonged in one of the other worlds or far futures of those tales more than I did in the world and time in which I’d been born, less because I had a wide romantic streak than because I had low self-esteem and longed to shed the son-of-the-town-drunk identity that fate had given me.
During the first five years that I wrote for a living, I produced mostly science fiction. I was not good at it. I sold what I wrote—twenty novels, twenty-eight short stories—but little of that work was memorable, and some was execrable. All these years later, only two of those novels and four or five of those stories might not raise in me a suicidal urge if I reread them.
As a reader, I could tell the difference between great science fiction and the mediocre stuff, and I was drawn to the best, which I often reread. Considering that I was inspired by quality, I should not have turned out so many dreary tales. I was driven to write fast by economic necessity; Gerda and I had been married with $150 and a used car, and though bill collectors were not breaking down the door, the specter of destitution haunted me. A need for money, however, is an insufficient excuse.
In November of 1971, as I moved toward suspense and comic fiction and away from writing SF, I discovered Jack Vance. Considering the hundreds of science fiction novels I had read, I am amazed that I had not until then sampled Mr. Vance’s work. With the intention of reading him, I bought numerous paperbacks of his novels but never opened one, partly because the covers gave me a wrong impression of the contents. On my shelves today is an Ace edition of The Eyes of the Overworld, with a cover price of 45 cents, featuring Cugel the Clever in a flaring pink cape against a background of cartoonish mushrooms like giant genitalia. A 50-cent Ace edition of
