A Goodreads user
asked
Ann Leckie:
I love Vance, but I've only read his Dying Earth books. Which are your favorites of his? Which ones do you feel are most influential on the Imperial Radch books?
Ann Leckie
I'm not a hundred percent sure I could say which Vance is/are the most influential on the books, but I'll say that I love the Demon Princes books. Particularly #2, The Killing Machine. But read them all. Oh, and the three Alastor books (Wyst, Trullion, and Marune).
The first Vance I ever read was a short story called "The Mitr," which I came across in a Brian Aldiss-edited anthology called Space Opera (this was also my introduction to the term itself). I was about twelve or thirteen at the time, and there were things I didn't notice about the story because of that, but the language really drew me in. I noted the author's name, and a while after I saw Wyst: Alastor 1716 on the paperback rack at a department store (yes, I am that old), saw the author's name and immediately put down my allowance for it.
Oh, and if you want a smaller sample of his SF, look for "The Moon Moth" which is a novella, and fairly frequently anthologized, and awesome. That story did have a very direct (and obvious) influence on the Radch-universe short story "Night's Slow Poison."
The first Vance I ever read was a short story called "The Mitr," which I came across in a Brian Aldiss-edited anthology called Space Opera (this was also my introduction to the term itself). I was about twelve or thirteen at the time, and there were things I didn't notice about the story because of that, but the language really drew me in. I noted the author's name, and a while after I saw Wyst: Alastor 1716 on the paperback rack at a department store (yes, I am that old), saw the author's name and immediately put down my allowance for it.
Oh, and if you want a smaller sample of his SF, look for "The Moon Moth" which is a novella, and fairly frequently anthologized, and awesome. That story did have a very direct (and obvious) influence on the Radch-universe short story "Night's Slow Poison."
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