AndreasD reviewed Tales of Talislanta by Stephan Michael Sechi
Maybe not as great as I had hoped
3 stars
Steve Sechi is a big fan of Jack Vance. This is not only something he freely admits, it's very clear if you read a bit about the world of Talislanta. In this anthology he has found some other writers, and together they manage to cover a lot of the weirdness, colourful language and dashing characters typical of Vance style fiction. Even the type of characters with sardonic wit and rascals who meet their fitting end is in the style of Vance.
But, Talislanta is not the Dying Earth. It's its own thing, and while it play off stereotypes and cultural tropes it manages to do so in a fashion that almost always come across as a loving homage. In this collection it skirted clear of almost all of the slightly cringe worthy elements.
None of the stories where any great revelation about the world, as I know it quite well …
Steve Sechi is a big fan of Jack Vance. This is not only something he freely admits, it's very clear if you read a bit about the world of Talislanta. In this anthology he has found some other writers, and together they manage to cover a lot of the weirdness, colourful language and dashing characters typical of Vance style fiction. Even the type of characters with sardonic wit and rascals who meet their fitting end is in the style of Vance.
But, Talislanta is not the Dying Earth. It's its own thing, and while it play off stereotypes and cultural tropes it manages to do so in a fashion that almost always come across as a loving homage. In this collection it skirted clear of almost all of the slightly cringe worthy elements.
None of the stories where any great revelation about the world, as I know it quite well already, and none struck me as particular inventive as far as character and story goes either. Probably the one that I felt was the most inventive when it came to plot twists where Steve Sechi's own Rogues which contained enough different character viewpoints to make it stand out a bit. Many of the others where a bit weak. The Ring by Simon Shapiro I found to be perhaps the weakest of them all, with an un-engaging main character and a story that mostly rested upon the "yuck factor", even though it did contain the weird magician.
I had not slotted this into my Talislanta collection until now, and it's not without a slight feeling of being underwhelmed that I put it on my shelf.