Cugel's Saga: Tales of the Dying Earth, Book 3 (Unabridged‪)‬

In
Cugel’s Saga, published 17 years after
Eyes of the Overworld, the novel that first featured the scoundrel, Cugel again tests wits with Iucounu and acquires rudimentary powers. Though Vance puts himself in the tradition of popular fantasy writers, one might assume that he had also grown up with Ovid and Herodotus,
Homer’s Odyssey, Don Quixote, and
Candide. The Cugel tales lack some of the scope and pathos of the great adventure yarns, but, in the 21st century, they may be as close as one gets to the celebration of epic human perseverance.