Originally in : Tales of the Dying Earth.
From a collection that was a tribute to Jack Vance’s seminal ‘Tales of the Dying Earth’ fantasy novels. Clearly the more familiar you are with the Vance stories the more you will get from the stories penned by a range of big name authors in that collection. If you’re not at all familiar with them, then you clearly have to treat them a a singleton fantasy story, albeit guessing that it is written in a style similar to Vance’s, a slightly wordy style.
There are a couple of footnotes in the story, presumably also a Vance affectation, in which Thiago Alves is accompanied by the scarred beauty Drew Coreme, who are each seeking one Cugel, a cousin to the former, and the instigator of the scarring of the former. All manner of beasts are described in melliflous detail, with a restrained eroticism in the description of the bodies, nudity and athleticism of the protagonists.
An interesting peek in the world of Vance’s ‘Dying Earth’.
