The Laughing Magician combines two of the most popular novels in Jack Vance's Dying Earth series. Both recount the adventures of Cugel, also called Cugel the Clever, forced by a mordant magician into a quest across an Earth of the far distant future. In this Rabelaisian picaresque, Cugel has only his wits -- and loose morals -- with which to survive a world teeming with tricksters, monsters, and magicians. Vance's vivid, witty prose and rich imagination is combined with Stephen Fabian's gorgeous art.