Jack Vance (1916-2013)
American Fantasy and Science Fiction writer.
Author of the series The Dying Earth, Tschai, The Demon Princes, Lyonesse, Alastor and and countless other stories. He has made up hundreds of amazing worlds and creatures as strange as deadly.
Most of the great illustrators of the century have depicted Vance's creatures: first in the pulps of the 1950s, then on the covers of his novels, and in the comics or role-playing games inspired by his work.