/lit/ - Literature

>>23332565
I'm surprised you disliked the Dan Simmons story so much. I remember liking it quite well. I recognized at least half the authors throughout the whole anthology, so perhaps it was because I was expecting a Dan Simmons story rather than a Vance story? I thought his take on the Diabloist was well thought out and the flying ships fit the Dying Earth aesthetic, at least for me, but I admit I've lost the finer details of the story through time. Grolion is definitely the best story of the whole lot and almost indistinguishable from Vance, but I was mostly reading to see authors I knew doing a pastiche of Vance, not an imitation. Strange that you mention Dan Simmons feeling out of the style of DE but make no mention to the masturbating wizard in GRRM's story.

>>23332958
It's not unreasonable to reuse characters, the issue arises when they reuse them poorly. Sylgarmo's Proclamation is an example of one that I hated. I suppose the author started with the potentially interesting intention to turn the tables and portray Cugel from the point of view of someone else. But despite being "morally dubious" in the original saga, Cugel never felt any more malicious than anyone else around him, and yet this one he's almost cartoonishly evil. Plus, the rest of the story reads like generic pulp adventure and presumes far too much from the original stories.

The Collogeum of Mauge is the best example of Cugel just being there for no real reason. Somehow, Iucounu returned, and the story lacks any real substance. It's just faffing about with its denouement being simply, "Look, it's Cugel!" It's basically the epitome of what you're complaining about.

While it would be nice if all the authors wrote completely original stories perfectly imitating Vance's style, at the end of the day, only Vance could write like Vance. All things considered, I liked the majority of the stories in the collection, but only Grolion of Almery, The Traditions of Karzh, and Guyal the Curator felt distinctly Vanceian to me. Some others had hints of it here and there, but sometimes it felt like the authors were attempting to invoke Vance merely through propinquity of his characters rather than their writing style.