The Dying Earth
Founded the entire Dying Earth subgenre (Wolfe's New Sun is its direct heir), supplied D&D's magic system, and remains the genre's benchmark for style.
Series Guide
The Dying Earth
by Jack Vance
Vance's far-future sequence under a guttering red sun, where magic is half-remembered science and rogues like Cugel the Clever scheme through Earth's elegant senility.