Yeah, now that you quoted it I recall it being a little bit more serious. I don’t know. Is the story about Herbert fooling people into thinking he was an accomplished pianist at parties on that interview? Star ship sopha has at least one more recent JV interview.
I have always thought that the first Dune book was very Vancian what with all the footnotes. Both used the other’s and Poul Anderson’s name as anagrams of characters in their books. I think Vance wrote ‘blue world/the Kragen’ as a tongue in cheek nod at Herbert’s Dune.
It’s kinda funny, that first Dying Earth book is really nothing like his subsequent efforts for Dying Earth, I think a lot of folks have sorta are surprised when they read the rest. I think it’s brilliant, a sort of darker but still funny PG Wodehouse vibe.
Lyonesse is fantastic, JV doing pre-Arthurian.
I also recommend
Dying Earth series
Demon Princes series (sci-fi)
Planet of Adventure series (sci-fi)
To Live Forever (stand alone sci-fi)
RA Lafferty is a truly unique great writer, criminally unknown. But for my money I have to say that the best I have come across are Jack Vance and Gene Wolfe. It’s funny that both RA Lafferty and Gene Wolfe are/were conservative Catholics.
Here’s a NY Times Magazine article from 2009:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/magazine/19Vance-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Here’s Jack Vance’s official site:
Freegards
No, he was telling a story about a time when the three of them (Herbert, Poul,and himself) had a problem with their houseboat and Herbert basically said "to heck with this" and left.
Thanks for the recommends. I had planned reading the rest of the Dying Earth books but just never got around to it. Will do so soon, now that you have piqued my interest again. What i remember of the first book is that i wasn't too keen about it initially, but eventually it grew on me.
Lafferty is definitely an acquired taste. I didn't "get" the Fourth Mansion until i found out it was inspired by the writings of St. Teresa of Avila. The Past Master is my favorite, although i've heard that his short stories are where he really excelled (i've only read a few though).
His book on Alaric was interesting. He made the point that the world really can come to an end (in relation to how people say "oh don't worry about such and such, the world's not going to end no matter what happen") and in fact has done so many times. It came to an end when Rome was sacked by Alaric. An entirely new world came into existence, one that wasn't nearly so good.
I have been strongly reminded of that concept in recent years.
To me Wolfe is similar to Lafferty, except Wolfe at his best is better able to create works that can be enjoyed at the surface level even if the depths remain murky to the point of opaqueness. He has lost me a bit with some of his more recent works (didn't care for the Knight) but i still return to Severian every so often.
Another good conservative Catholic writer is John C Wright. I've only read The Golden Age but it's one of my favorites.
By the way, does your FR name refer to Ransom from CS Lewis' Space Trilogy?