Jack Vance, the popular mystery and science fiction writer, has died at age 96.
His son, John Vance II, confirmed that Vance died Sunday night at his Oakland home, notes The Associated Press.
“This is a complex guy, and (there's) an awful lot to say about him,” John Vance told the AP. “Author, friend, father and grandfather, there will never be another like Jack Vance.”
Vance, whose legal name was John Holbrook, wrote over 60 novels in the sci-fi, fantasy and mystery genres. According to Reuters, he won the Hugo award for science fiction twice - first in 1963 for The Dragon Masters and then in 1967 for The Last Castle. His novel Bad Ronald was turned into a 1974 television movie.
In 2010, he won another Hugo award for his memoir This is Me, Jack Vance!.
According to his website, Vance was born in San Francisco and educated at the University of California, Berkeley. He worked for the Navy at Pearl Harbor, leaving a month before the Japanese attack. He had been legally blind since the 1980s, but continued to write. His last novel was Lurulu, his son said.
Reuters reports that in a 2009 New York Times Magazine piece, award winning author Michael Chabon said that Vance is “the most painful case of all the writers I love who I feel don't get the credit they deserve.”