Contributor John C. Wright announces the table of contents of Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honor of Jack Vance, edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois (we originally announced plans for this book in this article. Subterranean will be publishing the book in August, but they’ve already sold out of the lettered and limited editions. And with a planned printing of only 1,474 trade hardcovers (at $40 each), there’s a chance the book may be sold out before it is published.
The book will contain:
Preface by Jack Vance
Appreciation by Dean Koontz
“The Green Bird” by Kage Baker
“The Good Magician” by Glen Cook
“The Copsy Door” by Terry Dowling
“The Last Golden Thread” by Phyllis Eisenstein
“An Invocation of Curiousity” by Neil Gaiman
“The Return of the Fire Witch” by Elizabeth Hand
“Grolion of Almery” by Matthew Hughes
“Evillo the Uncunning” by Tanith Lee
“A Night at the Tarn House” by George R.R. Martin
“An Incident in Uskvosk” by Elizabeth Moon
“Inescapable” by Mike Resnick
“Sylgarmo’s Proclamation” by Lucius Shepard
“The True Vintage of Erzuine Thale” by Robert Silverberg
“The Guiding Nose of Ulfant Banderoz” by Dan Simmons
“The Final Quest of the Wizard Sarnod” by Jeff VanderMeer
“The Traditions of Karzh” by Paula Volsky
“Frogskin Cap” by Howard Waldrop
“Caulk the Witch-Chaser” by Liz Williams
“The Lamentably Comical Tragedy (or The Laughably Tragic Comedy) of Lixal Laqavee” by Tad Williams
“Abrizonde” by Walter Jon Williams
“Guyal the Curator” by John C. Wright
Subterranean describes the book’s raison d’être: “Jack Vance was a seminal figure in the development of modern fantasy, so much so that it’s nearly impossible to imagine the genre as we know it today existing without him. In the course of his more than fifty-year career, he has published dozens of major novels, as well as collections filled with marvelously crafted stories, winning the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the Edgar Award, the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and several World Fantasy Awards, including the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. Vance’s masterpiece, The Dying Earth, may be the most influential fantasy novel of the Twentieth Century, surpassed only by J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy; it has not only inspired several generations of fantasy writers, from Gene Wolfe and Michael Moorcock to Neil Gaiman and George R.R. Martin, but its influence has reached deep into the realms of graphic novels, comics, fantasy role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, and even computer gaming.
“In Songs of the Dying Earth, we have called on one of the most distinguished casts of authors ever assembled… to write stories in honor of the genius of Jack Vance, stories using the bizarre and darkly beautiful far future setting of the Dying Earth, near the very end of Earth’s lifespan, where mighty wizards duel with spells of dreadful potency under a waning and almost burnt-out red sun, and adventurers and cutpurses strive to hoodwink and out-trick each other in haunted forests full of demons and monsters strange almost beyond comprehension.”