"Vance sees himself in the tradition of popular fantasy writers, but his
classic writing style is also comparagle to Homer's Odyssey, and
Cervante's Don Quixote. Though the Cugel tales may lack the scope and
pathos of the greatest adventure yarns, in the twenty-first century,
they may be as close as one gets to the celebration of epic human
perseverance."--editor, Brilliance Audio Cugel's Saga, published 17
years after Eyes of the Overworld, is the second novel that features the
scoundrel and trickster, Cugel. Again, Cugel tests wits with Iucounu and
acquires rudimentary powers himself. "Cugel the Clever [is] a rogue so
venal and unscrupulous that that he makes Harry Flashman look like
Dudley Do-Right. How could you not love a guy like that? .... Judging
from the number of times that Cugel has come back ... you can't keep a
bad man down." --George R.R. Martin, author of A Song of Ice and Fire.
"Cugel the Clever [is] a liar and thief in a doomed world of liars and
thieves.... Probably the least attractive hero it would be possible to
find, struggling through a universe like a Hieronymus Bosch painting, a
hero only in that nearly everybody else he encounters in that universe
is on the make too, and yet the Cugel stories are howlingly funny."
--Kage Baker, author of Empress of Mars.
