tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post1353360149800309288..comments2024-03-28T09:41:39.187-04:00Comments on GROGNARDIA: Beloved NylissaJames Maliszewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00341941102398271464noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-25036917268585021502008-06-01T11:28:00.000-04:002008-06-01T11:28:00.000-04:00Re: Vance and CASI may be misremembering, but I th...Re: Vance and CAS<BR/><BR/>I may be misremembering, but I thought Vance claimed he'd never read Smith, which is odd, because Vance is probably the closest amongst modern fantasy/SF authors to Smith in both style and content. The <I>Dying Earth</I> series is very much like Zothique, right down to the language and dark humor.James Maliszewskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00341941102398271464noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-14216775212662261752008-05-30T10:36:00.000-04:002008-05-30T10:36:00.000-04:00As an aside, Jack Vance claims never to have read ...<I>As an aside, Jack Vance claims never to have read CAS, which I find odd, since there's such a strong similarity between their works.</I><BR/><BR/>Hmmmm, interesting. I have the <I>Jack Vance Treasury</I> (Subterranean Press), in which Vance gives brief literary, autobiographical, and other miscellaneous comments after each story. In one of them (I don't recall which off-hand) he mentions that he had in fact read Smith, but more or less denigrates him as a hack and downplays CAS's influence on his own writings. I suppose it's possible that he read CAS after making the claim you mention, but my guess is that he was fibbing. <BR/><BR/>Their styles and approach are just too darn similar to deny all influence, IMO. Maybe this is yet another case of an SF writer trying to appear more "literary" by disowning the genre's pulp ghetto roots. Vance never did quite get the mainstream attention he probably deserved. Contrariwise, Bradbury explicitly identifies CAS as his inspiration to begin writing, and he has certainly been accepted. <BR/><BR/>Too bad about the CAS-based RPG, that would've been cool. Most of his stuff has got to be public domain by now, though. I hope you'll resume this project at some point.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-73487528095640412642008-05-30T09:18:00.000-04:002008-05-30T09:18:00.000-04:00Eldritch Dark is a great website. I used to hang o...Eldritch Dark is a great website. I used to hang out there a lot once upon a time. I even received permission from the Smith estate to produce a RPG based on his stories, but that project got hung up on the issue of copyrights and Arkham House's claims over Smith's writings. It's a pity.<BR/><BR/>As an aside, Jack Vance claims never to have read CAS, which I find odd, since there's such a strong similarity between their works.James Maliszewskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00341941102398271464noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-43196434855168270332008-05-29T13:16:00.000-04:002008-05-29T13:16:00.000-04:00No problem. I share your appreciation of Smith, an...No problem. I share your appreciation of Smith, and though I'm not up on all of his poetry ("The Sorcerer Departs" appears at the beginning of the Arkham House collection of his tales) I always found this one particularly poignant and thought I'd share on the off chance you didn't know it. He seems to have had, at least the day he wrote it, an almost prescient sense of his own brilliance and future influence (on Bradbury and Vance, among others, and through them most decent modern SF authors). Assuming he was thinking of himself as the "Sorcerer", of course. Interesting juxtaposition with Lovecraft, who thought he was (and was, during his own lifetime) a complete flop, but who has subsequently come to rival Poe in the esteem of most genre literary critics.<BR/><BR/>Just in case someone reading this doesn't know, almost all of CAS's fiction and poetry can be found online at www.eldritchdark.com. There's also a fair amount of scholarly-type discussion of his work there, and even a few posters who knew him personally.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-15901028531346663942008-05-29T08:15:00.000-04:002008-05-29T08:15:00.000-04:00That's a great passage too. Thanks for this.That's a great passage too. Thanks for this.James Maliszewskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00341941102398271464noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-39326094475214448722008-05-28T16:19:00.000-04:002008-05-28T16:19:00.000-04:00That's one of my favorites of his. I won't belabor...That's one of my favorites of his. I won't belabor the obvious analogy, but here's another CAS quote that's maybe slightly more hopeful in the context of the present discussion, and also analogous to recent events and efforts:<BR/><BR/><I>I pass . . . but in this lone and crumbling tower,<BR/>Builded against the burrowing seas of chaos,<BR/>My volumes and philtres shall abide:<BR/>Poisons more dear than any mithridate,<BR/>And spells far sweeter than the speech of love. . . .<BR/>Half-shapen dooms shall slumber in my vaults<BR/>And in my volumes cryptic runes that shall<BR/>Outblast the pestilence, outgnaw the worm<BR/>When loosed by alien wizards on strange years<BR/>Under the blackened moon and paling sun.<BR/> --The Sorcerer Departs</I>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com