As I climbed the steep driveway on a gray afternoon last winter, a large dog barking at my approach, I tried to banish the irrational expectation that Vance and I would exchange Vancian dialogue. Me: “Why did you persist in writing hurlothrumbo romances of the footling sort favored by mooncalfs?” Him: “The question is nuncupatory. I grow weary of your importunities. Begone.”

Jack Vance

Heh. I've read 40 some books by him but I don't really consider attempting to write like him. Maybe try to incorporate some elements. His manner of describing a setting was so perfect. His worlds were so real. And the description of them never got in the way of the story. There was never this, "now bear with me while I stop the story and spend 5 paragraps describing some buildings, etc." It always flowed so effortlessly. There was never the conscious action of suspending disbelief. It really was and I remember needing to believe that all those worlds literally are. That because they exist in our minds they really exist...

Vance takes pride in his craft but does not care to talk about it in any detail, going so far in his memoir as to consign almost all discussion of writing to a brief chapter at the end. Jeremy Cavaterra, a composer who lives in an apartment attached to Vance’s house and helps look after him (and who was recruited as a lifelong fan when he read “The Eyes of the Overworld” at age 14), said of this reticence, “Part of it is that he feels like it’s the magician telling you how the trick works, and part of it is that he writes by feel and doesn’t interrogate it.”