John Holbrook Vance was born in San Francisco, the son of Charles Albert and Edith Hoefler Vance. Raised on a ranch in the San Joaquin Valley, he was educated at the University of California, where he took a B.A. in 1942. During World War II he served in the merchant marine and worked at writing while at sea. He was married to Norma Ingold on 24 August 1946; they have one son. Vance's first published story, "The World-Thinker," appeared in the summer 1945 Thrilling Wonder Stories. Since then he has produced a large body of science fiction, fantasies, and mysteries--forty-five novels, five collections, and more than thirty uncollected magazine and original anthology stories--under two versions of his own name and five pseudonyms; he also wrote six episodes of the "Captain Video" television series during 1952-1953. In 1961 he won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for his mystery The Man in the Cage...