4 ms·

This sort of question is hard, because ... is he under-rated (or "forgotten", as the original article had it)? I would have said he was both well-respected and

This sort of question is hard, because ... is he under-rated (or "forgotten", as the original article had it)? I would have said he was both well-respected and still remembered. Personally, I don't think I've read more than a novel's worth from any of the authors in the article -- hadn't even heard of half of them -- whereas I've read maybe ten of Vance's? He's maybe more remembered for his fantasy than SF, but I'd say he's frequently mentioned and reprinted.

glangdale 8y ago
Vance is found increasingly rarely on shelves since his death, I've noticed. It's easy to find the spot now; look for the enormous Vandermeer section :-) but in my experience there will be a token 1-2 Vance books there if that. Often it begins and ends with the books of his that made the F or SF Masterworks. Part of the problem is that there's no almost no such thing as a uniformly good Vance book (and I say that with regret, as he is one of my favorites). I love him, but one must navigate past a lot of things that maybe someone who didn't grow up reading JV might be less tolerant about. He is quite frequently lazy about plotting (repeating himself or just chucking the story on the floor), many of his main characters are enjoyable omni-competent ciphers who could easily be mistaken for each other, is a bit prone to using rapes and murders of women as a primary plot driver (Araminta Station!) and there's some weird if lightly-worn race and politics stuff that is best not examined too deeply.