RHIALTO THE MARVELLOUS 1
- RHIALTO THE MARVELLOUS 1 - A black ink and gray pencil drawing on an 11 x 14 size vellum paper. It appears in the book, "Rhialto the Marvellous" by Jack Vance.
In the late 1940s, Jack Vance wrote a series of six fantasy short stories that remained unpublished until they were combined and produced as a paperback book in 1950 with the title, "The Dying Earth". The stories take place on Earth in the far future when the sun has dimmed to a reddish glow, when science and technology are things of the distant past, when "magicians" have returned and are the major force dominating the land.
Over the following years Vance wrote more "Dying Earth" short stories and novelettes and in the late 1970s Underwood & Miller began collecting and publishing them in hardcover format. They produced four volumes; "The Dying Earth," "The Eyes of the Overworld," "Cugel's Saga," and "Rhialto the Marvellous". George Barr illustrated the first book, it was my privilege to illustrate the last three volumes.
I found it surprising as well as disturbing that in the huge volume, "The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction," compiled and edited by John Clute and Peter Nicholls, this is what is stated concerning Vance's "Dying Earth" series; "JV's only real failure in The Dying Earth - it would dog him throughout his career - lay in his inability to conceive narrative structure capable of sustaining his vision for more than novelette length".
Where did the critic who wrote that piece for the Encyclopedia get the idea that Vance lacked the ability to extend his visions into novel length form? Jack Vance's career is filled with outstanding science fiction and fantasy novels!
That such nonsense by the critic was accepted by the editors of the encyclopedia, which is supposed to contain "knowledge," is appalling!
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