:-) You just have to be enough of an old fart to have read them back when they were in print. (OK, everything's in print, or e-print, nowadays — but you're not going to find Brackett or Vance in most bookstores.)

For those old enough to have read both Leigh Brackett and Jack Vance, "The Chronicles of Riddick" is very much an amalgam of the two authors (more Brackett than Vance). There are, in fact, some very strong similarities (though differences as well) between Riddick and Brackett's character Eric John Stark, as well as a…