Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} This Is Me ! Or More Properly This Is I by Jack Vance Jack Vance - This Is Me, Jack Vance! Or More Properly, This Is I. Enjoy the ride as Jack Vance takes you on an informal trip through his life. Starting with his memories of childhood in a privileged San Francisco family, Vance leads us through lean times, picking fruit during the Depression, pranks at Cal, experiences at sea during the War, his early writing, and life in California in general, before marrying Norma; then a hard-working adulthood distinguished by writing, travel, colorfully noisy parties, and through it all- a deep love of traditional jazz music. Fans of Vance's writing will enjoy glimpses of the events which shaped and colored his fiction. Includes a photo section with 65 pictures. This Is Me Jack Vance!: Or More Properly This Is "I" by Jack Vance. AKA John Holbrook Vance. Born: 28-Aug-1916 Birthplace: San Francisco, CA Died: 26-May-2013 Location of death: Oakland, CA Cause of death: unspecified. Gender: Male Race or Ethnicity: White Sexual orientation: Straight Occupation: Novelist. Nationality: United States Executive summary: The . Military service: U.S. Merchant Marines (WWII) Author Jack Vance was legendary for his wry wit, his grand use of language, and most especially for the fantastically envisioned worlds and cultures that populate his tales. Although Vance balked at being called a science fiction writer, he was credited for helping define the field during its early "Golden Age". He published his first story, "The World Thinker", in 1945, and authored roughly 150 novels, novellas, and short stories. His most popular works remain , Lynonesse , , and . The recipient of virtually every award presented in the sci-fi/fantasy field, Vance also inspired generations of science fiction and fantasy authors including Dan Simmons, Gene Wolfe, Iain Banks, Peter F. Hamilton and Alastair Reynolds to name a few. Vance himself continued to inspire by remaining an active writer well into his 80s. Vance's parents had separated while he was very young, so he and his siblings were raised by their mother on their grandparents' rural California ranch. Enjoying what he recalled as an idyllic childhood, Vance grew up with a love of the outdoors and was a voracious reader, devouring the tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs, L. Frank Baum, Roy Rockwood, and P. G. Wodehouse. As a teen he wrote poetry, but without the financial means to attend college the young Vance set out on his own series of adventures, with the Great Depression as backdrop. He tried his hand at fruit picking and factory work, labored in mines, and worked a few oil wells. Finally he managed to enroll in U.C. Berkeley, where he studied engineering and physics before switching to journalism. Restlessness overtook him however, and he set out for more adventures, ending up in in the Naval yards of Honolulu, Hawaii. Luckily for Vance, the advent of Pearl Harbor found him already back in California, and with the U.S. entry into World War II, Vance enrolled in the US Intelligence Program. After a couple of years he was dropped from the program (Vance joked that he was a failure at colloquial Japanese) and he signed up for the Merchant Marines instead. During the long hours at sea he amused himself at writing, eventually publishing some of his work in the pulp magazines. His first novel, The Dying Earth , was published in 1950. Writing did not always pay well, and in addition to stints in the Merchant Marines Vance also worked as a surveyor, a carpenter, and a potter. Not one to be fenced into a single genre, Vance also produced a number of mystery stories, including a dozen novels (he earned the Edgar Award in 1961 for The Man In The Cage ) and contributions to the Ellery Queen series. Vance also served a brief stint as scriptwriter at 20th Century Fox and later for the Captain Video TV show. Whenever funds and job commitments allowed, he liked to travel and even to find some exotic spot to settle for a time (with family in tow) to write. In his 80s and hampered by blindness, Vance doggedly continued to produce new stories, including Ports Of Call (1998) and (1996). Although Vance complained that his work was not much acknowledged in his early years as a writer (a fact which hampered his earning potential), his phenomenal staying power as a writer earned him some staunch admirers among readers and peers, resulting in a great deal of acknowledgment in his later life, including such honors as the Hugo, the Nebula, the Edgar and the World Fantasy awards as well as the prestigious SFWA Grand Master Award (1996). Wife: Norma (m. 23-Aug-1946, d. 2008) Edgar Allan Poe Award 1961 for The Man in the Cage Hugo 1963 for Hugo 1966 for The Last Castle Hugo 2010 for This is Me, Jack Vance! (Or, More Properly, This is �I�) Nebula 1966 for The Last Castle World Fantasy Award 1984 Lifetime Achievement World Fantasy Award 1990 for Lyonesse: Madouc (novel) Author of books: The Dying Earth ( 1950 ) Big Planet ( 1952 ) ( 1958 ) The Dragon Masters ( 1962 ) ( 1987 ) Ecce & Old Earth ( 1991 ) ( 1992 ) Night Lamp ( 1996 ) Ports of Call ( 1998 ) Jack Vance Message Board. In a oblique way these two mystery novels make for a paring. It is through two fairly similar female characters. Both these young women are sassy, saucy, racy, spicy, sharp, feisty, cheeky, sexy, vivacious. In both novels it is with whom the protagonist winds up romantically. In Man in Cage it is the foxy British Ellen McKinstry. In Deadly Isles it is the wily sex-kitten Kelsey McClure. Ellen ‘s character is drawn distinctly more vividly than is Kelsey’s, who must compete for character delineation among two other important females, the sisters Lia and Jean. But Deadly Isles pairs perhaps better with The Dark Ocean. Not just because the Pacific ocean figures so prominently in both stories, but because of another and even stronger character doppelganger: Deadly Isles’ antagonist ‘Ben Easley’ (a pseudonym), as set against Dark Ocean’s Mik Finsch. Jack, here, seems to have produced approximately the same evil villain. Both are dangerously malevolent men who are inscrutable, imperturbable, and convincingly coldhearted. Both evince a dark aura of sinister calculation. Both commit murder at sea via 'Man Overboard'. Both insufferably & habitually smoke manly cigars! If VIE had instead produced a volume of The Deadly Isles paired along with The Dark Ocean , both written possibly the same year of 1966, it would constitute a pair very obviously well matched. Then that would leave The Man in the Cage (w. 1958) to pair with (w. 1955). Do these have any factor in common? Perhaps a very obvious one: respectively, that of an involuntary cage-jail versus a voluntary caged lair, both hidden. That is, other than a couple of extrinsic factors: both were written in the 1950s; plus both secured accolades – one winning a respected award and the other getting picked-up for television treatment. It’d be interesting to find out how the paring of these particular four novels occurred in the production output of the VIE. Perhaps it was because of technical VIE processing that readied them differently. This Is Me Jack Vance!: Or More Properly This Is "I" by Jack Vance. You have no items in your shopping cart. You're currently on: Home This is me, Jack Vance! (or more properly, this is "I") Living in interesting times. Jack Vance has long been one of the most influential, admired and imitated writers in science fiction and fantasy literature, the award-winning author of such widely acclaimed works as The Dying Earth , the , the adventures of Cugel the Clever, the series, and many other masterful tales set among the stars, in exotic fantasy realms or on our own Earth. For much of his career, Vance has also been one of the field’s most private writers, an author who preferred to let his work speak for him. Now, at last, to coincide with the release of the tribute anthology Songs of the Dying Earth , Jack gives us this intimate and fascinating glimpse into his rich and eventful life, including an extensive photo section, and a valuable insight into how he went about practicing his craft. Third Printing: Fully cloth bound hardcover edition. From Bookslut: "Vance's memoir is unexpected from an author; rather than dwelling on topics in his fiction he shares his many real world interests detailing a life spent building boats and houses, traveling the world and seeking out all sorts of fascinating experiences. From a California childhood marked largely by an absent father, he writes about finding work, joining the war effort in WWII, and seeing the world, mostly because he has an interest in seeing it. There is no master plan to Vance's life - he and his wife Norma spend years refining a piece of property around their home, they build a boat with friends because it seems like fun and they live in various countries for months at a time just to see what it is like. "Our old wanderlust" Vance refers to it as, and on every occasion this drive to live someplace new is embraced and enjoyed. The birth of their son John does not in any way make them turn to a more sedentary lifestyle. John is packed up along with everything else and goes along for the ride. In the end Vance considers that perhaps he should have discussed his writing more but that isn't the point of his book - other than the fact that the writing could and did take place anywhere in the world and it all worked out swimmingly, didn't it?" From Locus: "For all his desire to fade more into his work, Jack Vance is anything but an invisible man. This book tells more than was told before, but reveals less than some would like. All the more reason to look to the fiction. That is where the inward Jack Vance lives." This Is Me, Jack Vance! : (or, More Properly, This Is I ) by Jack Vance (2016, Trade Paperback) The lowest-priced brand-new, unused, unopened, undamaged item in its original packaging (where packaging is applicable). Packaging should be the same as what is found in a retail store, unless the item is handmade or was packaged by the manufacturer in non-retail packaging, such as an unprinted box or plastic bag. See details for additional description. What does this price mean? This is the price (excluding shipping and handling fees) a seller has provided at which the same item, or one that is nearly identical to it, is being offered for sale or has been offered for sale in the recent past. The price may be the seller's own price elsewhere or another seller's price. 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