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?
Past Master was really great. Completely unique. I dimly recall Lafferty creating a scandal by supporting the Vietnam war.
I actually looked it up, here is a huge list published in a 1968 Galaxy (Pohl editing) of sci-fi writers for and against the war.
http://www.natsmusic.net/articles_galaxy_magazine_viet_nam_war.htm
It’s pretty fascinating, all these famous names for and against.
I am a huge john C wright fan, I have read the golden age series ( I think he was still an atheist at this point?) and the first book of the hermetic millennium. But I have read a lot of his blog, which tackles writing, politics and religion, all from a conservative pint of view.
Freegards, good luck with Vance.
Sorry, yes, ‘Ransomed’ comes from the Lewis space trilogy.
Freegards