Cugel's Saga
Jack Vance
 The story picks up where the protagonist, Cugel the Clever, had been left at the end of The Eyes of the Overworld: sitting disconsolately on a barren beach far to the north of his homeland of Almery. As in The Eyes, Cugel's goal is to return home and avenge himself upon Iucounu, the Laughing Magician, whom Cugel regards as indirectly responsible for his second banishment. Taking a different route this time, Cugel obtains a deadly relic of an Overworld being, Sadlark; takes service as worminger (a crewmember responsible for the maintenance of huge marine worms) aboard a worm-propelled merchant ship, which he steals along with its owner's wife and his three comely daughters. Cugel is outwitted by the owner's wife and forced to abandon ship and females; and has various other adventures and setbacks, until with the aid of some new friends, he encompasses the defeat of Iucounu. Like its predecessor, the structure of the story is picaresque, and Cugel remains as ambiguously appealing a character as before. The book is currently out of print in its original form, but is included (with The Eyes of the Overworld) in the omnibus collection, Tales of the Dying Earth. In the Vance Integral Edition, it is volume 35, retitled by its editor as Cugel: The Skybreak Spatterlight. An earlier sequel, A Quest for Simbilis by author Michael Shea, was published in 1974.