Talk:Dying Earth (genre)

Instrumentality
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)

Trimming Examples
Maybe the "examples" should be limited to those which knowledgable sources have identified? The Notebooks page is not authoratative in any way. Or at least the short descrition should say WHY is is considered Dying Earth. At the moment some of them specifically say they are not DE!

Many of the current ones are simply far future SF - Not set on a planet which is reduced due to entropy or even apathy. I try to remove those i've read (Eg. the Instumentality mentioned above), and do some research on others....Yobmod (talk) 10:21, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

and here i keep a list of books i'm certain of, as i search for references:

Jack Vance - Tales of the Dying Earth

Gene Wolfe - The Book of the New Sun

William Hope Hodgson - The House on the Borderland & The Night Land

Clark Ashton Smith - Zothique stories

Brian Aldiss - Hothouse

Damien Broderick, ed. — Earth is But a Star

C. J. Cherryh — Sunfall

Arthur C. Clarke — The City and the Stars

Philip Jose Farmer - In Dark Is the Sun

Edmond Hamilton — The City at World's End (1951) Edmond Hamilton —"Superman Under the Red Sun" from Action Comics #300 (1963).

Michael Moorcock — The Dancers at the End of Time series.

Michael Shea — A Quest for Simbilis

Yobmod (talk) 10:21, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

and the next 2 i will remove, unless someone disagrees:

Robert Silverberg — Nightwings. Is this Dying Earth, I'm quite sure it is a far future (with vibrant society!)and alien invasion?

The Einstein Intersection - Delany. The Earth is not dying, the replacment of humans with aliens is only the interperetion of one character (i think they are mutants). Society is reduced due lingering radiation from a nuclear war, not from entropy or apathy. 134.169.58.89 (talk) 10:33, 27 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I was considering adding John Brunner's The Traveller in Black. published 1971, later revised and expanded republished in 1987. Short review at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/6422/rev0872.html
 * Although in the story, reality itself and its natural laws are changing from day to day, rather than dying "planet earth" or its human population. Actually this probably belongs to another subgenre, which takes place in worlds where time and/or physics are being distorted, although I don't know what that subgenre might be called.  If it has a Wikipedia article, a link should probably be included in this article! Cuvtixo (talk) 19:01, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Suggested move
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)

Gene Wolfe
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)

Scope
Which of these points is fundamental, according to reliable sources, or in the opinion of those who speak boldly in talk space?
 * 1) planet is dying because its star is dying? specifically cooling?
 * 2) the dying planet is Earth, thus the conceit that any story narrates our future?
 * 3) magic works? or humans(?) again believe in magic? or there are demons/angels/deities whose superhuman activity seems magical?
 * 4) 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)

Jack Vance, Dying Earth
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)