Editing Jack Vance (section)

== Biography ==
Vance's great-grandfather is believed to have arrived in California from Michigan a decade before the [[California Gold Rush|Gold Rush]] and married a San Francisco woman.<ref name=Williams-wld-thkr/> Early family records were apparently destroyed in the fire following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake]].<ref name=Vance-web-bio>{{cite web |title=Jack Vance Website - Jack Vance Biography |website=jackvance.com |url=https://jackvance.com/jackvance/bio/ |access-date=April 23, 2020}}</ref> Vance's maternal grandfather, L. M. (Ludwig Mathias) Hoefler, was a successful lawyer in San Francisco.<ref name=Williams-wld-thkr/>

Vance grew up in the family's large house in San Francisco on Filbert Street. When Vance's father left the family to live on his ranch in Mexico, the family's house in San Francisco was rented out to the father's sister.<ref name=Williams-wld-thkr/> With the separation of his parents, and the loss of use of the San Francisco house, Vance's mother moved him and his siblings to their maternal grandfather's California ranch near [[Oakley, California|Oakley]] in the [[River delta|delta]] of the [[Sacramento River]]. This setting formed Vance's love of the outdoors, and allowed him time to indulge his passion as an avid reader of his mother's large book collection, which included [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]]’ ''[[Tarzan of the Apes]]'' and his [[Barsoom]] novels and [[Jules Verne]]'s ''[[The Mysterious Island]]''.<ref name=Williams-wld-thkr/> When Vance explored the nearby town, he started reading [[Pulp magazine|pulp fiction]] magazines at the local drugstore.<ref name=Williams-wld-thkr/>

With the death of his grandfather, who had supported the family, which coincided with the economic challenges of the [[Great Depression]], the Vance family’s fortune dwindled, and Vance was forced to leave junior college and work to support himself, assisting his mother when able. Vance plied many trades for short stretches: as a [[bellhop]] (a "miserable year"), in a [[cannery]], and on a gold [[dredge]].<ref name="BioSketch">Jack Vance, Biographical Sketch (2000) in ''Jack Vance: critical appreciations and a bibliography'', British Library, 2000.</ref> Vance described this era as a time of personal change: “Over a span of four or five years, I developed from an impractical little intellectual into a rather reckless young man, competent at many skills and crafts, and determined to try every phase of life.”<ref name=Williams-wld-thkr/>

He subsequently entered the [[University of California, Berkeley]], and over the next six years studied mining engineering, physics, journalism, and English. Vance wrote one of his first science fiction stories for an English class assignment: his professor commented in a scornful tone, "We also have a piece of science fiction"—Vance's first negative review.<ref name=VanceMuseum>{{cite web |first=David B. |last=Williams |title=Vance Museum - miscellany - Biographical sketch |publisher=massmedia.com  |url=http://www.vancemuseum.com/vance_bio_1.htm}}</ref>

He worked as an electrician in the naval shipyards at [[Pearl Harbor]], Hawaii, being paid "56¢ an hour," and worked for a time as part of a [[degaussing]] crew. The [[attack on Pearl Harbor]] took place about a month after he resigned his employment there.<ref name=BioSketch/>

Vance graduated in 1942.<ref name=Priest-2013-05-29-obit>{{cite news | last=Priest | first=Christopher | date=May 29, 2013 | title=Jack Vance obituary | newspaper=[[The Guardian]] | url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/may/30/jack-vance-dies-96-science-fiction}}</ref> Weak eyesight prevented military service. He found a job as a rigger at the [[Kaiser Shipyard]] in [[Richmond, California]], and enrolled in an Army Intelligence program to learn Japanese, but washed out. In 1943, he memorized an [[eye chart]] and became an able seaman in the [[United States Merchant Marine|Merchant Marine]].<ref name=VanceMuseum/> In later years, boating remained his favorite recreation; boats and voyages are a frequent motif in his work. He worked as a seaman, a rigger, a surveyor, a ceramicist, and a carpenter before he established himself fully as a writer, which did not occur until the 1970s.

[[Image:Jack Vance Banjo Kazoo.jpg|thumb|left|200px|Jack Vance playing the jazz banjo and kazoo in 1979 in San Francisco]]
From his youth, Vance had been fascinated by Dixieland and traditional [[jazz]]. He was an amateur of the cornet and ukulele, often accompanying himself with a kazoo, and was a competent harmonica player. His first published writings were jazz reviews for ''[[The Daily Californian]]'' (his college paper), and music is an element in many of his works.

In 1946, Vance met and married Norma Genevieve Ingold (died March 25, 2008), another [[University of California, Berkeley|Cal]] student. Vance continued to live in [[Oakland, California|Oakland]], in a house he built and extended with his family over the years, including a hand-carved wooden ceiling from Kashmir. The Vances traveled extensively,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/may/30/jack-vance-dies-96-science-fiction|title = Jack Vance obituary|website = [[TheGuardian.com]]|date = May 29, 2013}}</ref> including on one around-the-world voyage, and often spent several months at a time living in places like Ireland, [[Tahiti]], South Africa, [[Positano]] (in Italy) and on a houseboat on Lake Nagin in [[Kashmir]].

Vance began trying to become a professional writer in the late 1940s, as part of the [[San Francisco Renaissance]], a movement of experimentation in literature and the arts. His first lucrative sale{{when|date=June 2012}} was one of the early [[Magnus Ridolph]] stories to [[Twentieth Century Fox]], who also hired him as a screenwriter for the ''[[Captain Video and His Video Rangers|Captain Video]]'' television series. The proceeds supported the Vances for a year's travel in Europe.<ref name="BioSketch"/> There are various references to the [[San Francisco Bay Area|Bay Area]] Bohemian life in his work. In the 1950s, Vance started a pottery and ceramics hobby, buying a kiln; this interest was an influence on his story "The Potters of Firsk” (1950).

Science fiction authors [[Frank Herbert]] and [[Poul Anderson]] were among Vance's closest friends. In the early 1950s, when Frank Herbert was a reporter, he interviewed Vance, and the men became friends. They moved to Mexico with their families to establish a "writer's colony" at [[Lake Chapala]], near [[Guadalajara]].<ref name=Williams-wld-thkr/> In 1962, Vance, Herbert, and Anderson jointly built a [[houseboat]] which they sailed in the [[Sacramento Delta]].<ref name=Vance-web-bio/><ref name=B-Herbert-2000/> Vance's interest in houseboats led him to depict them in “The Moon Moth” (1961), ''The Palace of Love'' (1967), and in chapter&nbsp;2 of ''Wyst: Alastor 1716'' (1978).<ref name=Williams-wld-thkr/>

In the early 1980s, Vance became increasingly interested in sailing, and he started building a 36-foot [[trimaran]]. Later, he owned  ''Venture'' (a 17-foot [[Cutter (boat)|cutter-rigged]] boat), ''Columbia'' (a 35-foot [[ketch|ketch-rigged]] boat), and finally ''Hinano'' (a 45-foot boat).<ref name=Williams-wld-thkr/> While Vance derived pleasure from his sailing hobby, his increasingly poor eyesight and the high costs of outfitting, berthing, and maintaining the vessel led him to sell the ''Hinano''.<ref name=Williams-wld-thkr/> Vance's failing eyesight also led him to cease his amateur [[jazz]] hobby.<ref name=Williams-wld-thkr/>

Although legally blind since the 1980s,<ref name=Priest-2013-05-29-obit/> Vance continued to write with the aid of BigEd software, written especially for him by [[Kim Kokkonen]]. His final novel was ''[[Lurulu]]''. Although Vance had stated ''Lurulu'' would be his final book,<ref>Jack Vance, Preface in ''The Jack Vance Treasury'', Terry Dowling and Jonathan Strahan (editors), Subterranean Press, {{ISBN|1-59606-077-8}}</ref> he subsequently completed an autobiography, which was published in July 2009.<ref name=autobio>{{cite web |url=http://www.subterraneanpress.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=vance05&Category_Code=PRE&Product_Count=26 |title=This is Me, Jack Vance! (preorder page) |publisher=[[Subterranean Press]] |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110722132203/http://www.subterraneanpress.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=vance05&Category_Code=PRE&Product_Count=26 |archive-date=July 22, 2011 }}</ref>

=== Death ===
Vance died on the morning of May 26, 2013, at the age of 96 in his home in the Oakland Hills.<ref>{{cite web|first=Adi |last=Robertson |url=https://www.theverge.com/2013/5/29/4377152/prolific-science-fiction-and-fantasy-author-jack-vance-dies-at-96 |title=Prolific science fiction and fantasy author Jack Vance dies at 96 |website=The Verge |access-date=May 30, 2013|date=May 29, 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://foreverness.jackvance.com/ |title=Foreverness - Raise a Toast to Jack Vance! |publisher=Foreverness.jackvance.com |date=May 26, 2013 |access-date=May 30, 2013}}</ref> Vance's son John Holbrook Vance II described the cause as the complications of [[old age]], saying "everything just finally caught up with him".<ref name=Trounson-2013-05-30/> Tributes to Vance were given by various authors, including [[George R. R. Martin]], [[Michael Moorcock]], [[Neil Gaiman]], and [[Elizabeth Bear]].<ref name="Guard-trib">{{Cite news | url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/may/30/jack-vance-tributes-george-rr-martin | title=Jack Vance tributes pour in after his death | work=Guardian | date=May 30, 2013 | access-date=May 31, 2013 | author=Flood, Alison}}</ref> [[Steven Gould]], president of the [[Science Fiction Writers of America]], described Vance as "one of the greatest science fiction and fantasy writers of the 20th century".<ref name="Guard-trib"/> A memorial site set up by his family to post tributes received hundreds of messages in the days following his death.<ref name="Guard-trib"/><ref name="foreverness">{{cite web | url=http://foreverness.jackvance.com/ | title=Foreverness – Raise a Toast to Jack Vance | access-date=May 31, 2013}}</ref>