(urth) Vance and Tokien as influences on D&D

[Dave Lebling]

Bob Miller wrote:
> I guess I'm a minority person on Vance.  I always thought the Dying Earth 
> stories relatively weak beside much, not all, of his other stuff.  Of 
> course, I never did read anything from Cugel's Saga inclusive on.
Well, chacun a son gout, as the French folks say. I've always found 
Vance's fantasy stuff to be his best work (with the exception on the SF 
side of of the first couple of Demon Princes novels).

A couple of things to remember about the Dying Earth stories. First, 
they are just that; the "novel" is really just a story collection. The 
Cugel books are pretty episodic as well, and were broken up for 
publication; I don't know whether they started as a novel or as a bunch 
of stories. The later things (like "Fader's Waft") were also stories. As 
stories they stand pretty tall. Second, keep in mind when the original 
Dying Earth stories were published, and compare and contrast against 
what else was coming out in the fantasy genre: not much. It was 
post-Unknown, and F&SF was doing contemporary fantasy more than Cabell- 
or Lord Dunsany-influenced works. The only similar things that were 
happening were Leiber's Grey Mouser stories, also heavily influenced by 
Dunsany and Cabell. Howard was already in the past. Vance was a breath 
of fresh air. By today's standards he's a bit mannered, and if you read 
a huge chunk of his writing you see the same themes, even the same 
phrasings, pop up again and again.

In my opinion, D&D was influenced heavily by Vance, Leiber and Howard, 
and of course Tolkien. It goes without saying that contemporary fantasy 
computer games are utterly in their debt as well.

Dave Lebling, aka vizcacha