Reviews

The Guiding Nose of Ulfant Banderoz by Dan Simmons

shrikekali's review against another edition

4.0

I just finished both THE DYING EARTH by Jack Vance (just the first series of stories, not the entire collected stories) as well as Simmons' novella "The Guiding Nose of Ulfant Banderoz" and I thoroughly enjoyed them all.

I plan to return to THE DYING EARTH to finish the other stories by Vance, but as this is about Dan Simmons, I have to say he wrote a helluva tribute to Vance's Dying Earth Universe. He doesn't emulate Vance so much as put his own voice into rhythm with the characters and places of this new "universe" that inspired him as a 12 year old kid. His HYPERION novels were sort of an homage to Vance's books as you read in the afterword, or if you've read the books themselves, with the poet, Martin Silenus' endless series of popular books lovingly tilted, The Dying Earth.

Also of note, this novella, "The Guiding Nose..." also contains its share of HYPERION related references, or nods and winks to the Simmons readers.

4 out of 5 ****

Greg

fafhrdlong's review

4.0

Dan Simmons has, in this latter part of his career, sort of made a thing of writing books *about* another author in the *style* of the author and having them simultaneously exist as homage and critique and just flat-out Good Reads.

This is no exception.

This story made me ache to see how Vance himself would have told it.