Posted by Richard Chandler on February 09, 1998 at 04:58:30:
In Reply to: Lyonesse Trilogy posted by Elizabeth McCollum on February 06, 1998 at 17:04:12:
My suspicion is that persons who do not like Vance are deficient, either in vocabulary or imagination. I would challenge anyone to find a passage by another author which surpasses the following for setting a scene, and this is only one of many that Vance simply tosses off, seemingly without effort, in Lyonesse.
“. . . . This was the Forest of Tantrevalles, itself the source of a thousand fables, where few folk ventured for fear of enchantment. The few who did so, woodcutters and the like, walked with cautious steps, stopping often to listen. The breathless silence, broken, perhaps, by a far sweet bird call, was not reassuring in itself and soon they would stop to listen again.
In the depths of the forest, colors became richer and more intense; shadows were tinged with indigo or maroon; and who knows what might be watching from across the glade, or perched at the top of yonder stump?”
Jack Vance, Madouc, p. 2.
Richard Chandler