ew can deny the impact Jack Vance has had on the fields of science fiction and fantasy. According to The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Vance is "a landscape artist, a gardener of worlds" with "a genius of place." That genius has led him to write incredible tales about amazing worlds for over 50
years.
Born as John Holbrook Vance in 1916, Vance held down a variety of jobs before he published his first story, "The World Thinker," in 1945 in TWS. As the author of over 60 novels, Vance is credited with helping to define the genres of science fantasy and the planetary romance. Significant series include The Dying Earth, Big Planet, Gaean Reach and Lyonesse. He is presently working on a sequel to his recent novel, Ports of Call, called Lurulu. Many of his works have been reprinted in the Vance Integral Edition in their original form.
Vance has won nearly every science fiction and fantasy award possible, including the Hugo, Nebula, Edgar and World Fantasy awards. He also received the prestigious SFWA Grand Master Award in 1996.
Science Fiction Weekly chatted with Vance about his beginnings as a writer, his upcoming novel and his love of jazz music.
Back when you were a kid, did you ever imagine the world would be like it is today?
Vance: I don't want to insult you so quick in the interview, but that's a question which doesn't have any sensible answer, really, 'cause as a kid, I want to say, everybody speculates about all kinds of worlds that they're going to grow into. But I hardly thought about it. I thought that
automobiles were going to have mufflers and go fast and airplanes were going to fly fast. I knew space travel was imminent, but I didn't do too much speculating.
Did you always want to be a writer?
Vance: Yeah. Not because I have any great creative instinct. It's just I wanted to get myself in a line of work where I didn't have a boss, where I didn't have to show up any place at any particular time. And after a lot of fooling around I finally made it stick. I never worked in an office
in my life. It seems to limit you; when you're working in an office, you're a creature in a small cell under somebody's supervision and surveillance. But I've sure worked at jobs where I have been under inspection. I was a carpenter for a time and everybody watches what you do. In fact, almost every job you get somebody watching you.
Even the job you have now as a writer.
Vance: I don't care about that. I may have worried about that when I was very young, but when I started selling stories I didn't think about it at all. I just wrote what I felt like writing since they seemed to sell. I never made lots of money at it, but I sold enough. I never wrote for the public.
Never. If I had, I would have been writing Star Treks.
What was the writing and publishing climate like when you started writing?
Vance: Very hard to crack. Hard to get into and you couldn't make any money at it. I worked for half a cent a word. I'm not a fast writer to begin with, so for the first few years I had do other things. As I mentioned, I was a carpenter for a time. Then I worked for a company that put in building
partitions in offices. A pretty good job. I had a van to myself and I could run around more or less on my own time and slap together these partitions. About as good a job as you can get, I guess. It was easy. It's simple enough, putting something on a Lego. So the carpentering was a lot harder work, really. It takes a lot more out of you both physically and mentally, you know—you have to be on the alert against mistakes and because you have a foreman always breathing down your neck. You've got to produce or you get laid off.
Did you have any influences when you started writing?
Vance: Well, I think everything I've ever read contributes to the background from which I write. But, for instance, when I was awfully young, I read all the Oz books. They were an enormous influence on me. And then there [were] the Edward Stratemeyer fiction-factory writers. [Howard R. Garis
and other writers] had a pseudonym of Roy Rockwood and [they] wrote different kinds of science fiction stories. [They] wrote Through Space to Mars and Lost on the Moon and The Mystery of the Centre of the Earth. That kind of stuff. These were really, I believe, the first true science-fiction stories that were ever published. This is, if you want to discount Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, which were never intended to be science-fiction stories. They were intended for different motives or different feelings. H.G. Wells was a philosopher and Verne, I think, was an engineer. I think Verne's
stories were a mixture of engineering stories and adventure stories, whereas H.G. Wells had philosophical axes to grind. But I'm not a student of either one of those writers. That's just my general impression. But Roy Rockwood, it was science fiction for the sake of science fiction. Later, I loved P.G. Wodehouse. I thought he was a marvelous writer. I still do to this day. I think he hasn't been appreciated enough for his magnificent creativity and his beautiful writing. Oh, they laugh at him, but they don't take him seriously because he seems frivolous. He did what he set out to do and he did it beautifully.
Then there was a writer called Jeffrey Farnol, who wrote in the early '20s. He wrote magnificent adventure stories, which I read in my teens, I guess. I was fascinated by their mastery of atmosphere and pace, excitement and derring-do. He's dated a little bit. He's kind of sentimental in his attitudes
towards ladies and old people. He's very courtly. He's not as well known now as he used to be. He wrote The Amateur Gentleman, which became a movie. Those are two men that I admire.
Then there was Clark Ashton Smith, who wrote for Weird Tales and who had a wild imagination. He wasn't a very talented writer, but his imagination was wonderful. Also Edgar Rice Burroughs. I don't think he had any influence on my writing at all, but I loved his work when I was young. Especially the
Barsoom books. Burroughs could generate atmosphere, especially the Barsoom books.
These are just the tip of the iceberg, because I read and read and read. I read everything. I'd never been published when I was young. I was an omnivore at reading, so that everything I ever read contributed. There was a writer in the '20s called Christopher Morley, who I remember a little bit of, who had some influence on me, but I couldn't tell you what it was.
You broke big ground by helping to define the genres of science fantasy and the planetary romance. You've had a major influence on other writers. What do you think about the impact you've had on the field?
Vance: I don't think about it. I'm not concerned. I'm not particularly impressed. That doesn't mean to say, well, I'd rather have it this way than not. I don't have much vanity. I just know what I do. I just do because I'm capable of doing it and do it easily without any pretentiousness.
If this happens all it means is that I am good at my work, which evidentially I am. I must say at this convention [Vance was Writer Guest of Honor at this year's NorwesCon 2002], they flattered me. This flattery has been rather slow in coming. I think all of sudden late in life now I'm getting some
credit for what I've done. Which is gratifying, but it's kind of a little late. I'd much rather have it come with some big checks when I was much younger [laughs]. As far as this influence you're talking about, it doesn't affect me one way or another.
Do you see it though when you read other science fiction?
Vance: I don't read other science fiction. I don't read any at all. I haven't been to a movie since somebody gave me free tickets to Star Wars, which I went to. It's just I have an utter revulsion to being part of an audience. Sitting there in an audience and everybody sniffling at once
and everybody laughing at once. Everybody's valves being turned on at the same time. I just feel like I'm going to some mass prostitution. I feel soiled sitting in an audience.
I do read books. I suppose it's more or less the same thing, but at least I'm alone and I'm an individual. I can stop anytime I want, which I frequently do. But I just despise mass media. As I say, I never ever look at science fiction. I don't even know what's going on. I know [Robert] Silverberg, of course, but I haven't read any of his stuff. And Poul Anderson, who was a dear friend of mine, I read one of his stories once because he happened to be in a little book produced by Ballantine. There were four stories in it. One was by me. But essentially the book was Poul's and mine, and Poul had a very good story in there. It dealt with some mermaids and his command of the underwater life was beautiful to me.
What do you read now?
Vance: Murder mysteries. I read them through the cassettes I get from Sacramento. I order them and I have my special favorites that I like. My favorite is a lady called M.C. Beaton who writes about a Scottish village up in the northwest coast of Scotland and has just wonderful books. Her protagonist is Hamish Macbeth, the village constable. She's a marvelous writer. There's an element of humor in her writing.
Anne Perry writes books of Victorian England. I kind of like her writing, even though this last book I read of hers, called Half Moon Street, I didn't like at all. She has a bad habit of fluffing out her work with chapters of dialogue that don't push the story forward. It just looks like she has to
put the words in the book, so she just has everybody talking to everybody else. It's done beautifully. You don't realize that she's not doing anything except having people talking to each other. But if you're critical about this, you'll notice.
I kind of even like old Agatha Christie. There's something kind of honest about her. She didn't make any pretenses of being a great writer or anything.
John MacDonald is a good writer. I don't like these sex episodes in every book. I think they ruin the books. They're just totally unnecessary. Every one of his books has a steamy chapter in there where you can see the whole process is going on. And it's totally unnecessary. I feel ashamed for him that he
has to put a certain amount of sex in his books. Aside from that, he's a wonderful writer.
What makes mysteries more interesting to you than science fiction?
Vance: I don't know. I don't know. It seems like the general level of the craftsmanship is better. I like their sense of location. Certain writers have made certain places their private property. M.C. Beaton has got this little village in northwest Scotland for hers. MacDonald's got Miami.
What's the one thing as a writer you haven't done yet?
Vance: Oh, I don't know. I haven't sold to the movies. In other words, I haven't gotten any enormous checks yet. Right now I'm so old that if I had a big gush of money, I don't know what I'd do with it. I don't travel anymore. I don't need anything, don't want anything. I'd give it to my son,
I guess, and let him enjoy it.
Do you have more stories to tell? Isn't there a sequel to your last book, Ports of Call?
Vance: Yeah. I'm working on it now, of course. But I'm so slow on it because I find it terribly hard writing blind on computers. The computer speaks to me, but it's just so slow, I'm so terribly slow using it. I don't like being slow. So after that, I don't know. I'd probably get awful nervous if I wasn't working on something, but I don't have anything in mind at the moment. Maybe something will come up.
I understand the Ports of Call sequel is called Lurulu.
Vance: Yeah. I got done writing Ports of Call and suddenly realized I have far too much material for the book. So I just boldly, bluntly, I almost said "To be continued." I cut people off and went on to the next book. As far as I know, it's unprecedented. But I couldn't think of anything
else. The story was such that I couldn't make a graceful ending and then make a graceful new beginning. I could have, but I didn't want to. So, it isn't the most graceful way of writing a story. This new story is, I think, is pretty good stuff. I'm pleased with it anyway.
Will there be another book in the series?
Vance: Oh, no. This will finish the two books. Lurulu is a kind of romantic destiny.
It sounds like fun.
Vance: Yeah. My writing is fun for me sometimes. I get sidetracked on things that I think are fun. "Oh, I think this sounds a lot of fun, writing this." So I'll write it, and then I'll find out that I actually wrote something that is utterly useless. You can't use it in the story and it doesn't fit.
So I just throw it away. I've done that countless times. Sometimes some of these little side excursions are useful and I manage to fit them in the book somewhere.
Ports of Call and Lurulu take place in the Gaean Reach Universe. What's special about this universe for you?
Vance: There's nothing special. Its space ships are very useful in that you can get from one star to another within a reasonable time, which we cannot do now, of course. It would take us lifetimes under prison conditions to get from one star to another. It's so impractical I doubt that anyone
will try to get from here to any star. Unless we get a quicker way. So most writers, they just assume there're ways of hopping through space so fast to get from one star to another in some reasonable time, so that's just one of the conventions of science-fiction writing, which has several conventions. Oh,
[there are] a whole gang of conventions that aren't very reasonable.
Another convention is that everywhere you go people are using the same language, which in the case of the Gaean Reach would hardly be logical. People, after being isolated for thousands of years, would have developed dialects that wouldn't be comprehensible to strangers. But just in order to make it possible for us people to come to a world and communicate with the people that live there, you have to assume that they all use the same language. It's a convention of science fiction that we all blandly pretend is feasible.
What's the biggest challenge you've had in your career?
Vance: Oh, that all amounts to money. Challenges. I have a competitive instinct, of course. It's not that I'm trying to be better than anybody else, but I just figure that if somebody sells a book for $100,000, I'd like to do the same. I'm not mad at the guy that made $100,000. I don't have any envy at all. But it's just that, goddamn it, why can't I do that? I'm mad at myself. I'm mad at my agent. Well, I kind of brought it on myself in a way. When I first started writing I just, without thinking, used Jack Vance, which is my name. I think I should have used John Holbrook Vance as a pseudonym rather than Jack Vance, because Jack Vance doesn't have much dignity to it. Whereas John Holbrook Vance sounds more stable and serious and I think would have gotten people thinking I was a serious sober man, which I am, of course. Well, anyway, when I'm signing books, I'm glad I've got the name Jack Vance [laughs].
Maybe it would have made more of a difference if you were writing mainstream rather than science fiction and fantasy.
Vance: Oh, I think so too. I don't pretend. If anybody asks what I'm writing, I never say I write science fiction. I think Kurt Vonnegut, although he's more furious and intense, if anybody accuses him of writing science fiction, he has a fit. Me, I correct them. I say, "Well, I don't know what I write. It's speculative fiction. Fiction of the future. Fiction of sociological anthropology. And some people even use the [term] science fiction, which I don't like." I have to go through all that. It would be so simple if I could bring myself to say science fiction, which I can't because
I detest the field. I don't like the people in it. Not the writers, but the fans. The young fans and some of their adolescent attitudes of going to conventions in funny clothes and being Star Trek-ians and getting all these strange societies up. I think I don't want to be associated with those people. There are a lot of people, well, up in Seattle [at NorwesCon] I met a number of them, extremely nice people who are bright, intelligent.
What's surprised you most over the years?
Vance: That I'm still alive, I guess.
You're still alive and you're working.
Vance: Yeah. If anybody had predicted that when I was my age, I was going to be sitting here working instead of sitting in front of the television, I'd have been surprised. Of course, if they had told me I was going to be blind, I wouldn't like that either.
When I was 8 or 9 years old I went to an ophthalmologist, who had the reputation of being the best ophthalmologist in San Francisco. And he told me, "Oh, my boy, do you read much?" "Yes, doctor, I read." "Well, you can't read so much. You got to stop, otherwise you're going to be blind when you
get older."
I don't think he knew what he was talking about, because my eyes went out as a result of glaucoma, which certainly isn't brought on by reading. It's other factors. Also the fact that the doctor who tried to repair my eyes did so using the laser, and every time he operated on me my eyes got worse. He
finally just gave up. So here I am.
You're a very visual writer. Has losing your vision had an impact in your writing?
Vance: It doesn't bother me a bit. I have a memory and I can see things in my head. No, I don't have any lack for images.
Of all the stuff you've written, what's your favorite?
Vance: I don't even want to answer that one. I like all my latest stuff. I just don't like much of the younger stuff I did. I think I was just learning my craft, learning what not to do, getting so damn flamboyant. Trying to learn how to write.
What's the secret of continuing to write well?
Vance: Not getting Alzheimer's disease, first thing. You know that as well as I do. Continuing to have some feeling you want to write and keep having ideas and getting restless if you're not writing. Right now I'll be happy to take a blow and not write anymore until I get another idea, which I don't have now.
I don't mind being my age. I'm not afraid of dying, 'cause first of all, it doesn't do any good. It's foolish having that kind of a fear, I think, anyway. I wouldn't like to have cancer like poor Poul Anderson did. Which I feel awful sorry for him. I admire Poul extremely. He was a fine fellow. One of my best friends, really, Poul.
You've been imagining the future for a long time. Where do you think humanity is headed?
Vance: Don't ask me these questions. You expect me to come up with some sage, sage remarks that are going to surprise everybody and say, "That Jack Vance, he knows it. He's a real philosopher." Obviously, I don't know about the future anymore about than [anyone] else does.
What are your interests when you're not writing?
Vance: One of them is cosmology. Things like quantum mechanics. Astronomical physics, which is cosmology, essentially. I'm reading a good book right now by a fellow called Martin Rees, called Before the Beginning. I won't bore you with my theories, but I'm rather skeptical about certain
ideas. I love to discuss these ideas and argue with astrophysicists.
Oh, for a time one of my great interests in life—in fact, I think of myself more as a musician half the time than a writer—is jazz music. The original jazz, not the so-called new jazz, which I don't consider jazz at all. It's just abstract noise. But the original jazz, the New Orleans jazz, is persistent today. It's not popular music, but it's great music. I used to play cornet and play banjo, but when my eyes went out I kind of hung it up.
Where you a good player?
Vance: My best instrument was a harmonica [laughs]. No, can't say I was a good player. My fingers were always too damn thick. But I played in bands once in awhile. Nobody tried to get in touch with me when they needed somebody to play, only as a last resort. But I enjoyed it tremendously.
What advice do you have for new writers just starting out who are looking to get published?
Vance: Just the obvious, just to work. That's the key. And not try to write too flamboyantly. In other words, don't try and be ultra-spectacular. Try to do sound work, not inflate their writing with lots of adjectives and adverbs. The main thing is to have a good story, a good plot. Have good
characters and don't try to hit the gong every time. Use a little restraint in your writing.
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