Very exhausted from prison ... There is much to do.

169 pages into Vance's Lyonesse ... : Wow. So many influences, forward and backward from this one. I see shades of Robert E Howard and Lord Dunsany , but also I can imagine the influence this has had on other things I've read - Patrick Rothfuss's badly named but pretty good kingkiller chronicle , game of thrones, and not the least, disc world... Anyway. It's still possible that I could be disappointed. But this is so far pretty exquisite. The language is excellent. The arc of the story is shrouded, the characters subject to capricious fate. But this is not presented as a momentous twist, or teased and foreshadowed in cheap suspense , as is often the case. Instead, these things are just told in the same manner of course as everything else, which makes them seem less shocking but more real and bitter. There's something about the way the supernatural elements are dealt with that I can't quite explain that is also unique and impressive. I get the idea Pratchett loved these wizards. They do things like " Split time into seven strands " . Somehow the supernatural elements don't impugn on the mundane elements in the way that they do in so many stories. This is 3.5 DND, not pathfinder magic is rare and dangerous, it is removed from mortal affairs. Maybe similar to Conan stories where magic is presented as an anomaly to be handled with prejudice and caution ? In any case, its made an impression on me. Maybe if more of the fantasy genre today were like this or " Beyond the Black River " or " The Maze of Mal Dweb " , I'd be more interested in it. Modern fantasy so rarely smacks of originality and skill such as this ...