Cugel's Saga

Cugel's Saga
Cugel's Saga  
Cugels saga.jpg
Dust-jacket from the first edition
Author(s) Jack Vance
Illustrator Stephen E. Fabian
Cover artist Stephen E. Fabian
Country United States
Language English
Series Dying Earth series
Genre(s) Fantasy novel
Publisher Underwood-Miller
Publication date 1983
Media type Print (Hardback)
Pages 334 pp
ISBN 0934438838
OCLC Number 14344660
Preceded by The Eyes of the Overworld
Followed by Rhialto the Marvellous

Cugel's Saga is a 1983 work of science fantasy by Jack Vance, and the sequel to his 1966 book The Eyes of the Overworld. The story picks up where the protagonist, Cugel the Clever, had been left at the end of the previous book: sitting disconsolately on a barren beach far to the north of his homeland of Almery.

As in The Eyes of the Overworld, Cugel's goal is to return home and avenge himself upon Iucounu, the Laughing Magician, whom Cugel regards as indirectly responsible for his second banishment. Taking a different route this time, Cugel obtains a deadly relic of an Overworld being, Sadlark; takes service as worminger (a crewmember responsible for the maintenance of huge marine worms) aboard a worm-propelled merchant ship, which he steals along with its owner's wife and his three comely daughters. Cugel is outwitted by the owner's wife and forced to abandon ship and females; and has various other adventures and setbacks, until with the aid of some new friends, he encompasses the defeat of Iucounu. Like its predecessor, the structure of the story is picaresque, and Cugel remains as ambiguously appealing a character as before.

The book is currently out of print in its original form, but is included (with The Eyes of the Overworld) in the omnibus collection, Tales of the Dying Earth. In the Vance Integral Edition, it is volume 35, retitled by its editor as Cugel: The Skybreak Spatterlight.

An earlier sequel, A Quest for Simbilis by author Michael Shea, was published in 1974.

References

  • Chalker, Jack L.; Mark Owings (1998). The Science-Fantasy Publishers: A Bibliographic History, 1923-1998. Westminster, MD and Baltimore: Mirage Press, Ltd.. pp. 669. 
  • Vance, Jack (1984). Cugel's Saga. Pocket Books. ISBN 067146499X. 
1986 UK edition front cover