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Jack Vance, an award-winning mystery, fantasy and science fiction author who penned more than 60 books, has died. He was 96.

Vance's son, John Vance II, says his father died Sunday evening at his home in Oakland, Calif.

Jack Vance, whose legal name was John Holbrook, published most of his work as Jack Vance, but also wrote under a handful of other pen names.

According to the Jack Vance website, a 2009 New York Times Magazine profile described Vance as "one of American literature's most distinctive and undervalued voices.

The website says Vance also collected a number of awards over the years, including Hugo Awards in 1963 for "The Dragon Masters," in 1967 for "The Last Castle" and in 2010 for his memoir "This is Me, Jack Vance."

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