Interesting! I hadn''t heard that before... so bascially Gygax said, "Hey can I use this?" and Vance said, "Sure..." And then years later regrets not getting royalties. haha

Just finished the second book in this cycle. It''s pretty good. Can''t decide if it''s as good as the Dying Earth stuff. Turns out I hadn''t ever read any of the Planet of Adventure books, so I take back what I said earlier.

My one lament is that at the basic level it really is just trashy space opera. Not for those who prefer to have a little literature in their sci-fi... look somewhere else. (Might I suggest Gene Wolfe''s "Book of the New Sun?") But really this isn''t a bad thing.

I agree that the planet itself would make a nice setting for an RPG game. However, it would be very difficult to take real advantage of since most of the atmosphere and interesting bits of the culture would be pretty much impossible to reproduce in a computer game. The interaction of the characters and their constant jockeying for position it what makes the books so good... and the language of course that Vance uses. The language in particular is even better in Dying Earth.