unsatisfactory, so he proceeds alone and on horse-
back, although his mount grows increasingly ner-
vous during the descent and refuses outright to
enter the town limits.
Paradine continues on foot and is astounded
to find the entire Union brigade lying in the street,
as though they had all died in a single instant.
When he examines their bodies, however, he dis-
covers that they are still somehow alive although
not breathing and remain impervious to his efforts
to waken them. His shouting also fails to bring out
the local townspeople and, oddly, seems to have no
echo. He is growing increasingly nervous when an-
other man appears suddenly, identifying himself as
Teague, the local witch man.
Teague has a book of spells, one of which he
used to place the Union soldiers into a magical
coma from which only he can waken them, al-
though he did so only after the local population
had fled the area. He was never well respected and
apparently did not grasp the extent of his powers
until now, but having flexed his conjuring muscle,
he is determined to do more. Teague plans to im-
mobilize the rest of the Union army in similar fash-
ion, thus assuring a successful outcome to the war,
and he wants Paradine to help him.
Paradine has two strong reservations, how-
ever. First, Teague is clearly a megalomaniac who
wishes to establish himself as leader of the Con-
federacy in return for his services. Second, and
perhaps more important, he recognizes that in all
such magical deals there is always a price to pay
somewhere down the road, and the cost almost al-
ways outweighs the benefits. He waits for his
chance, then kills Teague, releases the soldiers
from the spell, and burns the book so that neither
he nor anyone else will ever be tempted to use it.
Years later, after the war is over, he insists that the
crucial battle of the war did not take place in Vir-
ginia at all, but in the town of Channon. Well-
man’s story is constructed like the folk tales of
Paul Bunyan and Davy Crockett, simply plotted
and with a clearly stated theme.
Vance, Jack (1916– )
Although the vast majority of Jack Vance’s pub-
lished work is science fiction, his most famous cre-
ation is his fantasy series set in a far future when the
sun is fading, technology has largely disappeared,
and the world is once again ruled by magic. The first
several episodes appeared as The Dying Earth
(1950), clearly influenced by the work of Clark Ash-
ton SMITHbut employing a unique prose style and a
very clever wit that has occasionally been imitated
but never with much success. Vance proved to be a
successful writer of otherworld adventures, and he
did not return to the dying earth series until after
more than a decade, with a second set of episodes
collected as The Eyes of the Overworld(1966), which
introduced the recurring character Cugel, a not par-
ticularly admirable but quick-witted wanderer who
survives a series of harrowing encounters. Another
long interval ensued, during which Vance allowed
Michael SHEAto write a sequel, A Quest for Simbilis
(1974), but Vance later produced his own sequel,
Cugel’s Saga(1983), followed promptly by Rhialto the
Marvelous(1984), a series of episodes about another
character, this one a wizard. The four separate titles
were reissued in one volume as Tales of the Dying
Earth(2000), unquestionably one of the master-
pieces of modern fantasy.
Vance’s second set of fantasy novels is much
more conventional and more serious in tone. The
Lyonesse trilogy, which includes Suldrun’s Garden
(1983), The Green Pearl(1985), and Madouc(1989),
is set in Europe sometime prior to the days of King
Arthur. The Elder Isles are a hotbed of political and
military plotting as various would-be rulers each seek
preeminence over the others. A young princess un-
expectedly becomes the fulcrum by means of which
the contending forces are reconciled.
Many of the stories incorporated into the Dying
Earth series stand well on their own. Other fantasies
worth noting are “Green Magic” (1963), in which a
very unusual method is employed to spy on a fantasy
world. “Noise” (1952) is also excellent, as is “The
Narrow Land” (1967) and “Chateau D’If” (1950).
Most of Vance’s non–Dying Earth fantasies can be
found in The Fantasy Realms of Jack Vance(1979) or
in his predominantly science fiction collections Eight
Phantasms and Magics(1970) and The Narrow Land
(1982). Several of his science fiction novels, most
notably The Dragon Masters(1963) and The Last
Castle(1967), are constructed and narrated very
much like fantasy.362 Vance, Jack