Talk:Dying Earth (genre)

message: Not really sure that Cordwainer Smith's "Instrumentality" belongs here -- in the Instrumentality of Mankind universe, there are wars followed by thousands of years of history, which make almost all our current cultural references utterly irrelevant to future people, but nothing is really "dying". AnonMoos 04:19, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Instrumentality

message: I propose this article be moved to Dying Earth or Dying Earth (subgenre) as "Dying Earth subgenre" is not the name of anything and controverts Wikipedia's naming conventions. Skomorokh incite 09:52, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggested move 

message: IIRC, I read in one of Gardner Dozois' anthologies that Jack Vance's Dying Earth series is actually featured within The Book of the New Sun. I.e. one of the books appearing and talked about in The Book of the New Sun is Jack Vance's. Also, some of the characters in The Book of the Short Sun make a brief visit to Earth as it appears in The Book of the New Sun. SharkD  Talk  03:23, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gene Wolfe 

message: Which of these points is fundamental, according to reliable sources, or in the opinion of those who speak boldly in talk space?
#planet is dying because its star is dying? specifically cooling?
#the dying planet is Earth, thus the conceit that any story narrates our future?
#magic works? or humans(?) again believe in magic? or there are demons/angels/deities whose superhuman activity seems magical?
#humanity has declined in know-how and know --technology and science?
Regardless of how one describes the subgenre definitively (eg, answers above questions) to what extent has the latecomer Jack Vance, by his example, dominated the subgenre at least in English language writings? As one may say J.R.R. Tolkien has dominated some subgenre. Does the book industry (and perhaps game industry, etc) in fact during the last generation or two mainly or predominantly produce Dying Earth work that is Vancean in some particular ways. Has Vance narrowed the subgenre in practice? --P64 (talk) 20:42, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scope 

message: This article seems to be trying mightily to make the case that the Dying Earth subgenre was not created whole cloth by Jack Vance with his Dying Earth book of short stories.
It should state clearly, first paragraph, that the genre is named for his book.
Or, if it really wants to editorialize, it will have to demonstrate its existence *as a subgenre called Dying Earth* before 1950 when Vance's book was published. In short, that Vance named his book after the genre, rather than the genre being named for his book.
As it stands, the article just asserts that this or that previous book is an example of the genre. fin de siecle is not Dying Earth, and this article conflates the two
fin de siecle is a different literary genre, of which most of the examples given in the article are part, that has similarities to the Dying Earth genre. Each is marked by apathy in the face of existential doom.
The Dying Earth however is a specific genre with its own tropes: wizards living in manses, dangerous creatures wander at night, many of which can talk, the earth has lived through several Ages, much knowledge has been lost. These are as much tropes of the subgenre as cyclopean ruins and ichor are tropes of Lovecraftian horror.
Arguing the Vance did not actually create the Dying Earth genre because of fin de siecle is like arguing Lovecraft did not invent Lovecraftian horror because some previous authors wrote about terrifying gods.
Rendall (talk) 19:56, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jack Vance, Dying Earth