Rather than take more of Bill's bandwidth on Jack Vance -- I'm attempting a complete collection; I love to reread them. My favorites are some of the Alastor Cluster books, also the Lyonesse trilogy.

Have you seen the new authoritative editions? Apparently Vance & his wife are working with devoted fans to reissue everything in Vance-approved editions.

My faves are the ones set in Alastor too. Some that aren't set in Alastor that I've read over and over are "Planet of Adventure" and "Blue World".
I've looked into getting the special complete edition. It's like $500 or more.
Did you get Lurulu? Very disappointing and most surely his last book.

Yes, I was disappointed in Lurulu, and also Ports of Call. Night Lamp, however, was excellent, and I'll consider it Vance's last novel.

You've got to give the guy credit -- he's almost 90.

I forgot to mention Blue World -- what a wonderful book. Also the Durdane trilogy.

I don't know what it is about Jack Vance -- maybe his ability to conjure up an exotic, alien, but completely human context, in all its gritty detail, with such an economy of description. Also, the fact that all his books are mystery stories -- not just the "John Vance" books.

BTW, for short stories, nothing beats "The Moon Moth" or "The Last Castle".

You know, I hear people say that, but I really enjoyed "Ports of Call."
I love how he can create entire worlds. I love hussade and wish I could watch a game in real life. I love his wit and how you never know if an unencountered word is real or something he made up.

Cox and Forkum did a far more bandwidth-friendly bit on fact-obsessed bloggers a few days ago.

Never did care for Cox and Forkum. I always feel like they're hitting me in the head with a frypan. No subtlety.

Ah, finally someone else who shares my opinion of C&F.

Of course I do, Fad. We're simpatico.

And all that despite the age and Starburst ingestion differences.

That you even had a Starburst disaster to share is amazing.
I really was surprised to find you're such a young pup. I graduated college your Year of the Starburst.

That's funny. I'm rarely ever mistaken for older than I am. Strange that 30 is still considered "young" for a (non-livejournal) blogger.

I think 30 is pretty old for a blogger, actually. I saw a chart once that said .02% of bloggers were women my age.
I think everyone should be forced to link to me just because of that.

There was a survey a couple years ago of bloggers (pretty much just political/non-diary bloggers) that pegged the average age at about 35 or so. Most I've known who stuck with it longer than for a cup of coffee fall between 35 and 45.

Here's the Perseus survey, if you want to look at that. I see lots of young guys, but that might just be my perception.

Well, my information is a couple years old. Plus it was compiled by one guy saying, "Tell me how old you are" on his site, so accuracy probably wasn't playing along.