Jack (John Holbrook) Vance (August 28, 1916, San Francisco - May 26, 2013, Oakland) was a famous American mystery, fantasy and science fiction author. Most of his work has been published under the name Jack Vance. Vance's stories written in the 1940s and 1950s cover many science fiction themes, with a tendency to emphasis on mysterious and biological themes (ESP, genetics, brain parasites, body switching, other dimensions, cultures) rather than technical ones. By the 1960s, Vance had developed a futuristic setting which he came to call the "Gaean Reach." Thereafter, all his science fiction was...