SFB: Jack Vance has been captivating readers with his far-future adventure tales for more than half a century. This Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author recently joined the likes of Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein in receiving the coveted Grand Master Award. The Science Fiction Writers of America honored Vance with their most prestigious award at a ceremony in Kansas City.JV: I think it was something I'd been waiting for for many years... and when it came I was properly, uh, not thankful, or grateful or anything, but I kind of took it for granted. I went to Kansas City, and I was polite; I got up and made a little speech, said thank you, accepted the award, came home and put it somewhere, I don't know where it is.
SFB: Now past 80, and legally blind, Vance still spends his days writing on a specially equipped computer in the basement of his Northern California home. Here he turns out novels that are eagerly anticipated by his ardent fans, better known as "Vance-iacs." [sic]
[There's a shot of the large-screen computer during the above, and the phrase "once or twice I can run 55 miles a minute" is visible. Other text is fragmented or obscured by Vance's head.]
JV: I write for the educated, sophisticated man - or woman - that has some acquaintance with life locally and internationally - and a brain. And I want to have these people interested, and maybe get them to laugh once in a while, but also startle them once in a while with some ideas.
SFB: Vance's stories are often set in far-future worlds thousands of years away, and focus on what he calls "social anthropology." By sending human beings on intergalactic adventures and observing how they respond to their new surroundings, Vance says he hit on a concept with infinite story possibilities.
JV: The background of these stories are the alterations or the evolution of the ways people act when they're out on strange worlds and have to adapt to strange circumstances. I dont use in these stories the what is called "aliens," which I think is cheating and silly. You could make anything happen by just putting down some funny-looking thing with eyes on stalks and sucks blood or... So that's comic book, to use aliens in here. I never use 'em, except just kind of sometimes as part of the background of different worlds. But I mainly write about human beings.
SFB: The author of highly respected works like The Dying Earth, To Live Forever and the Demon Princes series, Vance is again earning praise for his latest book, Night Lamp.
JV: I got reviews- magnificent reviews- everywhere, and they all go into this aspect of my writing, that it is aimed at intelligent, cultured people, not just teenagers and people that sit with their nose pressed to the laugh track, and/or "Star Trek," which is the same thing really.
SFB: That statement may sound insensitive to some sci-fi fans but after 30 novels, countless shorter works and a Grand Master Award, Jack Vance can say just about anything he wants - and we'll listen.