“There was a time when I could put the palm of my hand flat on the front of a tattered paperback called The Dying Earth and feel the magic seeping through the cardboard: Turjan of Miir, Liane the Wayfarer, T’sais, Chun the Unavoidable. Nobody I knew had so much as heard of that book, but I knew it was the finest book in the world. (Castle of Days, 211)”