Tuesday 15 December 2009

FANTASY REVIEW: Songs of the Dying Earth - Ed. GRR Martin, Gardner Dozois

BOOK BLURB:
Return to the unique and evocative world of The Dying Earth in this tribute anthology featuring the most distinguished fantasists of our day. 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 intriguing and darkly beautiful world to other fantasists, to play in as their very own. The list of twenty-two contributors eager to honour Jack Vance by writing for this anthology includes Neil Gaiman, Tad Williams, Elizabeth Hand, Tanith Lee, Dan Simmons, Robert Silverberg, and George R.R. Martin himself.


REVIEW:

When I originally heard about the line up for this tribute based on Jack Vance's world I was not only very excited but looked forward to its release by counting down on my calendar. What I thought was going to be not only an excellent tribute to the much loved author was not only that but really was something special. However, that said, my only real gripe was the apparent nervousness as it felt like a number of them who had been asked to contribute really weren't fans of Vance's writing as they weren't as confident about some of the facts that they'd placed within their texts.

Now that I've got that out in the open it is one of the best tribute novels out there and will hopefully lead to more novels for not only Jack Vance but other authors who've helped build the genres. It is well written and perhaps my favourite was the tale by Dan Simmons however whichever you enjoy you know theres real quality available within.

No comments: