Jack Vance, born John Holbrook Vance in San Francisco on August 28, 1916, was an American writer of science fiction, fantasy and mystery fiction. He grew up in California, studied mining engineering, physics and journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, and worked a string of odd jobs before the war. During World War II he served as a merchant seaman. His ship was sunk, and he spent much of his free time at sea writing and playing music. A lifelong jazz enthusiast, he played the cornet and ukulele. Vance sold his first stories in the mid-1940s and made his name with The Dying Earth (1950), a linked set of tales set under a fading sun. It shaped later fantasy and inspired the magic system of Dungeons & Dragons. He wrote with a baroque, ironic style, inventive invented cultures, and elaborate vocabulary. In the 1950s he published steadily, including To Live Forever (1956), Big Planet (1957) and The Languages of Pao (1958). The Men Return, from the same period, is one of his more unusual novels, set in a future where the rules of cause and effect begin to unravel. He won the Edgar Award for the mystery The Man in the Cage (1960), Hugo Awards for The Dragon Masters and The Last Castle, and a Nebula for the latter. Later he wrote the Demon Princes novels, the Tschai series, the Cugel stories and the Lyonesse trilogy. He also wrote mysteries under his own name and several pseudonyms, including ghostwritten Ellery Queen work. Vance married Norma Ingold in 1946, and they lived in the hills above Oakland in a house he largely built himself. His eyesight failed in later life, but he kept writing with the help of special equipment, finishing the novel Lurulu (2004). Among his honors were the World Fantasy Award for life achievement, the status of Grand Master from the Science Fiction Writers of America, and induction into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. He died in Oakland on May 26, 2013, at age 96.
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