The Dying Earth (Jack Vance, 1950) is a novel about, er, the dying Earth. Well, not quite. It’s a high fantasy novel full of magic, wizards, and grimness. The novel is set upon the dying Earth, so called due to a prematurely red sun, which threatens to exhaust and die. In reality, a red sun would mean the sun’s expansion and the heat death of the planet. But let’s not throw science at a novel which features magical teleportation, nine foot tall naked humanoid mounts, and wizards.
The novel is made up of six vignettes, each following a different inhabitant of this unrecognisable Earth. The stories are mostly unrelated, sharing the occasional character in a very superficial way, with some locations being name-dropped but rarely visited twice. They are of varying length, with the final story of Guval of Sfere’s quest for knowledge being the longest, taking up the final third of the book.
The stories range from grim warnings to heroic escapades. The grim chapters are very grim, the heroic chapters are full of daring acts. People die, monsters roam the lands, quests are outlined and carried out. One commonality between the chapters is the sense of wonder instilled by the Vance’s world. Vance has a fantastic and vivid imagination. For instance, in one memorable instance, Guyal of Sfere meets a tribe of people who ride giants and consider horses to be merely weird variants of the same. In another instance, Ulan Dhor encounters a race of of warring tribes so ingrained to their tribe’s doctrine that they cannot even comprehend the existence of the other tribe, unable to see an opposing member even when placed directly in front of them.
Being an older fantasy novel, some of the typical tropes are there: The most attractive woman in the story will fall in love with the hero, and be put in peril to be saved. Wizards are recluses who only seek knowledge. Everyone outside of a city is a savage or monster. It’s not too distracting, but if you’re expecting a subversion of the norm you’re not going to find it here. And why would you? Novels this old helped define the norm.
It is a short book, meaning that the vignettes can only be considered stand-alone short stories. While intense, this means Vance tantalises with hints of a deep, rich world and then promptly doesn’t expand on any of them. The magic system is hinted to be rooted in ‘the ancient abstract lore of Mathematics’. Nowhere else in the book is this made apparent, or this fact even used. This would have been awesome to investigate further.
Character development isn’t really a thing when it comes to this book’s format. The characters have their personalities and they stay the same, sometimes carrying their fatal flaws to their graves. There is a notable exception: T’sais’ chapter is dedicated to her discovery of the beauty and horror that is Earth. But even this ends up feeling a little forced by the end, with a dodgy twist that undermines her whole story.
The book makes up for it in the writing and plot, as dense as it is. Characters are introduced in one sentence and killed two later, but it keeps the suspense going. The ‘wandering’ chapters, wherein the protagonist ventures across the world, are full of interesting encounters and interactions. In the harsh dying Earth, anyone you meet might kill you, or end up a valuable ally in an uncaring world.
I enjoyed the novel, even if it was a little too short for my tastes, with many abandoned threads that would have been interesting to explore. Fortunately, The Dying Earth is the first in the Dying Earth series. The following book deals with a book-length adventure of a single character, so maybe we’ll see more development next time around. I recommend it for anyone with an interest in the history of fantasy novels, as well as general fantasy fans.
– Matthew
P.S. One last thing: There’s a demon orgy. That is all.
