As a kid, my dad gave me science fiction to read because that’s all he read. Growing up without a father, he found dads in the swashbuckling space heroes of Jack Vance. Kirth Gersen, for example, and Adam Reith. Kirth witnesses the slaughter of his colony, his family, by the five Demon Princes. He dedicates his life to training as an assassin to take his revenge. Reith crashes his scout ship on a strange planet and fights to return to Earth. In their stories, Kirth and Adam face a universe of impossible decisions, ruthless villains and bizarre creatures with a stoicism my father must have envied growing up.

Dad and I drove to Jack Vance’s house in California last year. He is old now. He is blind. He plays songs on his banjo and sings to his son who takes care of him in a great wooden cabin that feels like a studio apartment. He told us a story about being on vacation with Frank Herbert in Mexico. Frank told him about an idea he had for a story: “He’d just read this book about the ocean. ‘This is a place where there’s no water. It’s all desert. The people who live there, they mine spice,’ said Frank. And as I was sitting there I kind of shook my head, Frank I don’t know, I wouldn't waste any time on something like that. But Frank looked off across Lake Chapala and didn't pay any attention to me. Then of course Dune came out and Frank made a million bucks on the damn thing. In one of the front pages Frank wrote, ‘And I must say, I have Jack Vance to thank!’ And all I did was try to tell him to not write Dune.”

Somewhere there’s a picture of Jack Vance steering his ship in the San Francisco Bay, looking every bit like one of his space captains.