Dying Earth

[Zareen Zapata]

DyingEarth is a speculative fiction series by the American author Jack Vance, comprising four books originally published from 1950 to 1984.[2]Some have been called picaresque. They vary from short story collections to a fix-up (novel created from older short stories), perhaps all the way to novel.[2]

The first book in the series, The Dying Earth, was ranked number 16 of 33 "All Time Best Fantasy Novels" by Locus in 1987, based on a poll of subscribers,[3] although it was marketed as a collection and the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB) calls it a "loosely connected series of stories".[4]

The stories of the Dying Earth series are set in the distant future, at a point when the sun is almost exhausted and magic has asserted itself as a dominant force. The Moon has disappeared and the Sun is in danger of burning out at any time, often flickering as if about to go out, before shining again. The various civilizations of Earth have collapsed for the most part into decadence or religious fanaticism and its inhabitants overcome with a fatalistic outlook. The Earth is mostly barren and cold, and has become infested with various predatory monsters (possibly created by a magician in a former age).

Magic in the Dying Earth is performed by memorizing syllables, and the human brain can only accommodate a certain number at once. When a spell is used, the syllables vanish from the caster's mind. Creatures called sandestins can be summoned and used to perform more complex actions, but are considered dangerous to rely upon. Magic has loose links to the science of old, and advanced mathematics is treated like arcane lore.

The Dying Earth exists alongside several Overworlds and Underworlds. These help add a sense of profound longing and entrapment to the series. While humans can, with relative ease, physically travel to the horrific Underworlds (as Cugel does on several occasions, to his dismay) the vast majority of the population are only capable of mentally visiting the wondrous Overworlds through rare artifacts (e.g. through the "Eyes of the Overworld") or dangerous magic phenomena (such as the ship Cugel encounters in the deserts). Though they can look at the wonders and pretend they are really there, humans can never truly inhabit or escape to these utopias as their physical bodies remain stuck on the Dying Earth and will die with the sun regardless. These siren-like visions of paradise lead to the deaths, insanity, and suffering of many, especially during Cugel's journeys.

While most remaining civilizations on the Dying Earth are utterly unique in their customs and cultures, there are some common threads. Because the moon is gone and wind is often weak (the sun no longer heats the earth as much) the oceans are largely placid bodies of water with no tide and tiny waves. To cross them, boats are propelled by giant sea-worms. These worms are cared for and controlled by "Wormingers". In addition, the manses of magicians, protected by walls and spells and monsters, are relatively common sights in inhabited lands.

According to pulp editor Sam Merwin, Vance's earliest magazine submissions in the 1940s were heavily influenced by the style of James Branch Cabell.[8] Fantasy historian Lin Carter has noted several probable lasting influences of Cabell on Vance's work, and suggests that the early "pseudo-Cabell" experiments bore fruit in The Dying Earth (1950).[9]

All four books were published with Tables of Contents, the first and fourth as collections. The second and third contained mostly material previously published in short story form but were marketed as novels, the second as a fix-up and the third without acknowledging any previous publication.

WorldCat contributing libraries report holding all four books in French, Spanish, and (in omnibus edition) Hebrew translations; and report holding The Dying Earth in five other languages: Finnish, German, Japanese, Polish, and Russian.[a]

The whole first volume (of six stories) has been translated also into Esperanto together with two Cugel stories and made available on-line as e-books by a long-time fan and Vance Integral Edition co-worker. Permission to translate and distribute (only into Esperanto) was obtained informally direct from the author and, since his death in 2013, continues with ongoing permission from the author's estate. To date these are three: Mazirian the Magician, The Sorcerer Pharesm, and The Bagful of Dreams available for free download as EPub, Mobi and PDF.[16]

The Dying Earth subgenre of science fiction is named in recognition of Vance's role in standardizing a setting, the entropically dying earth and sun.[clarification needed] Its importance was recognized with the publication of Songs of the Dying Earth, a tribute anthology edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois (Subterranean, 2009). Each short story in the anthology is set on the Dying Earth, and concludes with a short acknowledgement by the author of Vance's influence on them.

Michael Shea's novel Nifft the Lean (1982), his second book eight years after A Quest for Simbilis, also owes much debt to Vance's creation, since the protagonist of the story is a petty thief (not unlike Cugel the Clever), who travels and struggles in an exotic world. Shea returned to Nifft with 1997 and 2000 sequels.[19]

The original creators of the Dungeons & Dragons games were fans of Jack Vance and incorporated many aspects of the Dying Earth series into the game. The magic system, in which a wizard is limited in the number of spells that can be simultaneously remembered and forgets them once they are cast, was based on the magic of Dying Earth. In role-playing game circles, this sort of magic system is called "Vancian" or "Vancean".[21] Some of the spells from Dungeons & Dragons are based on spells mentioned in the Dying Earth series, such as the prismatic spray. Magic items from the Dying Earth stories such as ioun stones also made their way into Dungeons & Dragons. One of the deities of magic in Dungeons & Dragons is named Vecna, an anagram of "Vance".[22]

The Talislanta role-playing game designed by Stephan Michael Sechi and originally published in 1987 by Bard Games was inspired by the works of Jack Vance so much so that the first release, The Chronicles of Talislanta, is dedicated to the author.

There is an official Dying Earth role-playing game published by Pelgrane Press with an occasional magazine The Excellent Prismatic Spray (named after a magic spell). The game situates players in Vance's world populated by desperately extravagant people. Many other role-playing settings pay homage to the series by including fantasy elements he invented such as the darkness-dwelling Grues.

Goto [ Index ]The Dying Earth Roleplaying Game is the most recent design from the mind of Robin D. Laws, also the creator of Feng Shui and HeroQuest. Based in the world of Jack Vance's Dying Earth, this RPG is a modern roleplaying game with a heavy storytelling twist.

The overall design of the book is pleasing to the eyes, but not overdone. Graphical borders run along the tops and bottoms of the pages, but don't overpower it. Almost all of the artwork in the game, including these borders, is sophisticated grayscale work. It's all quite attractive. There's a small smattering of plain black & white line art, which doesn't fit with the rest of the style of the book, but is thankfully rare.

Constantly running along the top right of every page, and also marking each new chapter, are quotes from Jack Vance's four Dying Earth books. Despite their ubiquity, they're fairly unobstrusive, and do an excellent job of getting you into the language of the game, which is quite unique.

The character sheet is plain, but mostly utilitarian. There were, however, two notable absences. One is the lack of space for specific adventages and disadvantages that players acquire based upon their styles of combat, persuasion, and magic. The second lack is a space to list "trumps" for those same main abilities.

Overall, the rules are well-organized. They're easy to follow as you read through them, and the only places I ever had to reread the text for clarification was in a few sections of the character creation section, but those questions were largely resolved via an example provided in the text.

The rules were also quite easy to reference during gameplay, once you remember which order the 13 chapters are in (something which was innately obvious to me by the time I was ready to run my first game).

Notably missing from the book is a set of gamemaster's aids to, for example, list all of the skill trumps, list the names of the 6 levels of success and failure, list some standard reasons for specific levies, books, or penalties, list important standard rules, etc. At a few times during the game I GMed, I decided to ignore trumps rather than try and figure out what trumped what, and my decisions about levies, boons, and penalties was a bit more off-the-cuff than I would have liked. At least the list of trumps can be found in an appendix also downloadable. I suspect the rest would become more intuitive with continued gamemastering of this RPG.

Before closing out on "Ease of Use", it's worth noting that the rulebook is, quite simply, fun and easy to read. It's funny in a moderate way that doesn't spoil the rulebook's purpose as a rulebook but does make it a quicker, easier read.

Historically, I feel like most licensed RPGs have done at best halfway jobs of adapting their source materials. Games like MERP and Stormbringer, for example, I found to be perfectly enjoyable systems, but respectively they never shouted J.R.R Tolkien or Michael Moorcock to me. Some other games, such as WEG's Star Wars have been slightly better, at least getting the dramatic feel right, but true successes at adapting not just a background, but also an ethos and a style have been quite rare. (I think Victory Game's James Bond 007 is one of the few exceptions.)

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