 Front cover of first edition | |
| Author | Jack Vance |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Jack Gaughan[1] |
| Language | English |
| Series | Dying Earth |
| Genre | Fantasy, Dying Earth subgenre |
| Publisher | Ace Books |
Publication date | 1966 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (paperback) |
| Pages | 189 (first edition)[1] |
| OCLC | 429122 |
| Preceded by | The Dying Earth |
| Followed by | Cugel's Saga |
The Eyes of the Overworld is a picaresque fantasy fix-up novel by American writer Jack Vance, published by Ace in 1966, the second book in the Dying Earth series that Vance inaugurated in 1950.[1] Retitled Cugel the Clever in its Vance Integral Edition (2005),[1] the story takes place in Vance's Dying Earth setting, where the Sun is dying and magic and technology coexist. It features the self-proclaimed Cugel the Clever in linked episodic stories. Cugel is an anti-hero character; while he is typically a crafty scoundrel who seeks to turn a profit from a situation, he retains some good values at times. In the novel, Cugel is caught stealing from a wizard, who forces Cugel to travel to a faraway realm to find a rare magical jewel.
The components of the fix-up were five short works published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction from December 1965 to July 1966, and one original to the book.[1]
The 1934 film The Spectacle Maker, based on the 1913 Frank Harris story "The Magic Glasses",[2] also features magic spectacles which show the wearer beautiful illusions instead of reality, as the eponymous "Eyes of the Overworld" do.