Dan Simmons and Jack Vance

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Omphalos
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Dan Simmons and Jack Vance

Post by Omphalos »

I found this on Dan Simmons website today. For those of you who dont know Jack Vance was a New Wave era writer who published a few very memorable pieces, including this series of stories, The Dying Earth, which inspired Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. Vance seemed to me to often write fantasies more than SF, but he did blur the lines quite a bit.
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Post by A Thing of Eternity »

That looks super cool, even Tad Williams is on the list.
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Post by SandChigger »

Could be fun.

Hadn't heard about the Drood book yet, either. I really enjoyed The Terror last winter. ;)
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Post by tanzeelat »

Vance wasn't New Wave! He predates it by a decade at least. If not more. He wrote, chiefly, baroque space opera, and some of it was excellent - the Demon Princes series, for example.

The Songs of Dying Earth will be published by Subterranean Press - see here for the latest update.
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Post by Omphalos »

Yea, youre right. I guess I just got the 60's stuck in my head.
Something is about to happen, Hal. Something wonderful!

-James C. Harwood, Science Fiction Writer, Straight (March 5, 1956 - May 25, 2010)



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Post by Robspierre »

I have the collected Demon Prince series, excellent reading. Vance wote damn good material.

Rob
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Post by SandChigger »

What do you all think of Dean Koontz?

I can't recall reading anything by him. I know he collaborated with The Beast (KJA) on a book or two....

They seem to be making a big deal of him over on the Subterranean Press page. Was just wondering.
"Chancho...sometimes when you are a man...you wear stretchy pants...in your room...alone."

"Politics is never simple, like the sand chigger of Arrakis, one is rarely truly free of its bite."

Arrakeen is an unawakened ghola.
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Post by Omphalos »

SandChigger wrote:What do you all think of Dean Koontz?

I can't recall reading anything by him. I know he collaborated with The Beast (KJA) on a book or two....

They seem to be making a big deal of him over on the Subterranean Press page. Was just wondering.
I always thought of him as Stephen King's more optimistic mini-me. IMHO his books are barely suitable for a flight or a long shit. Though when I was a kid I really liked him. Ive read dozens of his books.
Something is about to happen, Hal. Something wonderful!

-James C. Harwood, Science Fiction Writer, Straight (March 5, 1956 - May 25, 2010)



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Post by Liege-Killer »

Didn't Simmons make a passing reference to Vance in Hyperion? I know he mentioned several sf writers in there, and I think Vance was one of them.
SandChigger wrote:What do you all think of Dean Koontz?
I read a bunch of his stuff when I was a teenager, and really liked him back then. I have no idea how he'd strike me today. I haven't been too interested in that sf/horror/mystery/thriller blend for a long time. But I have generally favorable memories of his books.
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