Dying Earth

Dying Earth
Cover of The Compleat Dying Earth omnibus edition
Dust jacket of the 1999 omnibus edition

The Dying Earth (1950)
The Eyes of the Overworld (1966)
Cugel's Saga (1983)
Rhialto the Marvellous (1984)
AuthorJack Vance
Cover artistvarious
Gerald Brom, depicted[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
GenreSpeculative fiction, Dying Earth subgenre
Published1950–1984
Media typePrint
No. of books4 by Vance (see sequels)

Dying Earth 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 Dying Earth series has been described as a "sword and sorcery" series, as the plots of the various stories often revolve around picaresque exploits, swordplay, and magic.[5][6]

  1. ^ The Compleat Dying Earth (first omnibus) publication contents at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Retrieved 2012-06-05.
  2. ^ a b Dying Earth series listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database Retrieved 2012-05-09.
  3. ^ "Best All-time Fantasy Novel Results, 1987". Locus Online. Retrieved 27 August 2013.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference isfdb-1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Jones. Howard Andrew and Rhodes, Robert. "Sword and Sorcery Fiction" in Womack, Kenneth (ed.) Books and Beyond : the Greenwood Encyclopedia of new American Reading. Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn., 2008. ISBN 031333742X (pgs. 973-993).
  6. ^ Shanks, Jeffrey. "History, Horror, and Heroic Fantasy: Robert E. Howard and the Creation of the Sword-and-Sorcery Subgenre" in Hoppenstand, Gary. Pulp Fiction of the 1920s and 1930s Salem Press, Ipswich, Massachusetts, 2013 ISBN 9781429838436 (pgs. 11).