|
John Holbrook "Jack" Vance (August 28, 1916 – May 26, 2013) was an American mystery, fantasy, and science fiction writer. Though most of his work has been published under the name Jack Vance, he also wrote 11 mystery novels using his full name John Holbrook Vance, three under the pseudonym Ellery Queen, and one each using the pseudonyms Alan Wade, Peter Held, John van See, and Jay Kavanse.〔〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=All Title Index )〕 Some editions of his published works give his year of birth as 1920. Vance won the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 1984〔 and he was a Guest of Honor at the 1992 World Science Fiction Convention in Orlando, Florida. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America made him its 14th Grand Master in 1997〔 and the Science Fiction Hall of Fame inducted him in 2001, its sixth class of two deceased and two living writers.〔〔 Among his awards for particular works were: Hugo Awards, in 1963 for ''The Dragon Masters'', in 1967 for ''The Last Castle'', and in 2010 for his memoir ''This is Me, Jack Vance!''; a Nebula Award in 1966, also for ''The Last Castle''; the Jupiter Award in 1975; the World Fantasy Award in 1990 for ''Lyonesse: Madouc''.〔 He also won an Edgar (the mystery equivalent of the Nebula) for the best first mystery novel in 1961 for ''The Man in the Cage''. A 2009 profile in ''The New York Times Magazine'' described Vance as "one of American literature's most distinctive and undervalued voices". He died at his home in Oakland, California on May 26, 2013, aged 96. == Biography == Vance's grandfather supposedly arrived in California from Michigan a decade before the Gold Rush and married a San Francisco girl. (Early family records were apparently destroyed in the fire following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.) Vance's early childhood was spent in San Francisco. With the early separation of his parents, Vance's mother moved young Vance and his siblings to Vance's maternal grandfather's California ranch near Oakley in the delta of the Sacramento River. This early setting formed Vance's love of the outdoors, and allowed him time to indulge his passion as an avid reader. With the death of his grandfather, the Vance's family fortune nosedived, 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 bell-hop (a "miserable year"), in a cannery, and on a gold dredge,〔Jack Vance, Biographical Sketch (2000) in ''Jack Vance: critical appreciations and a bibliography'', British Library, 2000.〕 before entering the University of California, Berkeley where, over a six-year period, he studied mining engineering, physics, journalism and English. Vance wrote one of his first science fiction stories for an English class assignment; his professor's reaction was "We also have a piece of science fiction" in a scornful tone, Vance's first negative review.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Vance Museum - Miscellany - Biographical Sketch )〕 He worked for a while as an electrician in the naval shipyards at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii—for "56 cents an hour". After working on a degaussing crew for a period, he left about a month before the attack on Pearl Harbor.〔 Vance graduated in 1942. 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 Merchant Marine.〔 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. From his youth, Vance had been fascinated by Dixieland and traditional jazz. He was an amateur of the cornet and ukelele, 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 Cal student. Vance continued to live in Oakland, in a house he built and extended with his family over the years, including a hand-carved wooden ceiling from Kashmir. The Vances had extensive travels, including 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 was one of the early Magnus Ridolph stories to Twentieth Century Fox, who also hired him as a screenwriter for the Captain Video television series. The proceeds supported the Vances for a year's travel in Europe.〔 There are various references to the Bay Area Bohemian life in his work. Science fiction authors Frank Herbert and Poul Anderson were among Vance's closest friends. The three jointly built a houseboat which they sailed in the Sacramento Delta. The Vances and the Herberts lived near Lake Chapala in Mexico together for a period. Although legally blind since the 1980s, 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,〔Jack Vance, Preface in ''The Jack Vance Treasury'', Terry Dowling and Jonathan Strahan (editors), Subterranean Press, ISBN 1-59606-077-8〕 he subsequently completed an autobiography which was published in July 2009.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=This is Me, Jack Vance! (preorder page) )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Jack Vance」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|