Do note that while Jack Vance is wonderful, there's some really ugly stuff in subsequent Dying Earth books (Eyes of the Overworld and Cugel's Saga) that make it

Do note that while Jack Vance is wonderful, there's some really ugly stuff in subsequent Dying Earth books (Eyes of the Overworld and Cugel's Saga) that make it a bit hard to take for modern readers. It's not explicitly described, but having the protagonist (who is admittedly a dick, but not really portrayed as an anti-hero per se) commit multiple rapes might not be for everyone. Despite this, I love Vance's work (AFAIK I have read almost all of his work except the detective fiction and his one book for teens), but there's really some hard stuff to justify from a modern perspective about assault, gender and race in there.