The War Against the Rull, A. E. van Vogt, Ace Books, 1959
In this far-future novel, based on five related stories, humanity has been fighting a century-long war against the shape-changing Rull, and things are not going well.
Carson's World is a vital part of Earth's defense. It is inabited by large, blue creatures, with teeth and claws, called ezwals. Trevor Jamieson is the only human who knows that the ezwal are highly intelligent and telepathic. It's best for everyone, human and ezwal, if no one else knows this. The ezwal want all humans off their planet, so there is plenty of hatred, mistrust and dead bodies on both sides. For humanity, the only criterion to determine a civilization's intelligence is whether or not they will assist in defense against the Rull.
A lifeboat crashes on a very hostile jungle planet, carrying Jamieson and an adult ezwal. It's the sort of place where all sorts of disgusting and carnivorous creatures come out at night, and Jamieson's blaster is almost depleted. The ezwal would like nothing more than to tear Jamieson into lots of little pieces, but they end up having to work together to get off the planet.
A ship crash-lands in Alaska, carrying an adult and baby ezwal. The mother is murdered by a human in revenge for the carnage on Carson's World. The baby survives, and is hunted by humans all over the Alaskan landscape. It is rescued by Jamieson, and is willing to tone down its conditioned hatred of humans.
A Rull survey ship, and Jamieson, who seems to have nine lives, crash land near each other on a desolate mountain. Neither ship is going anywhere, so Jamieson uses this once-in-a-lifetime chance to conduct some psychological experiments on a captive Rull, to see what makes them tick.
This is a fine piece of space opera from science fiction's early days. It's got intelligence, weird alien planets, and lots of good writing. Nearly anything by van Vogt is recommended, and this is no exception.
Showing posts with label van vogt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label van vogt. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
The Mixed Men
The Mixed Men, A.E. van Vogt, Gnome Press, 1952
Set 15,000 years from now, an Earth ship has spent the last ten years in the Greater Magellanic Cloud looking for a space empire that calls itself the Fifty Suns. They are a group of mutated humans who left Earth many years previously to get away from prejudice and discrimination.
Earth promises a benevolent leadership; the Fifty Suns will generally be able to rule themselves. But Earth makes it very clear: Join Us or Be Destroyed. Long ago, Earth decided to not allow any other star empires to exist. The Fifty Suns decide on silence, and let the Earth ship try to find them among the Cloud's millions of stars.
A minority among the population of the Fifty Suns is the Mixed Men. Possessing a sort of double brain (not two separate brains, but more like pairs of molecules where there is only supposed to be one molecule), they have been subject to prejudice also, and have had to resort to extreme secrecy to hide their cities. Maltby, hereditary leader of the Mixed Men, finds himself on board the Earthship, the Star Cruiser, ordered to pilot it to the capital of the Fifty Suns. His secret orders, from the leaders of the Fifty Suns, are to pilot the ship right into a space storm, powerful enough to destroy even a hundred-deck behemoth like the Star Cruiser.
It's obvious to the people that, even if the Star Cruiser is destroyed, which does not happen, it won't be long, in cosmic terms, before Earth sends thousands of ships looking for the Fifty Suns empire. Many psychological methods are used to get Maltby to talk, including conditioning him to fall in love with Gloria Cecily, Grand Captain of the Star Cruiser.
This is an excellent far-future space opera in the grand tradition. Few writers can do it quite like A.E. van Vogt. This one is very much worth reading.
Set 15,000 years from now, an Earth ship has spent the last ten years in the Greater Magellanic Cloud looking for a space empire that calls itself the Fifty Suns. They are a group of mutated humans who left Earth many years previously to get away from prejudice and discrimination.
Earth promises a benevolent leadership; the Fifty Suns will generally be able to rule themselves. But Earth makes it very clear: Join Us or Be Destroyed. Long ago, Earth decided to not allow any other star empires to exist. The Fifty Suns decide on silence, and let the Earth ship try to find them among the Cloud's millions of stars.
A minority among the population of the Fifty Suns is the Mixed Men. Possessing a sort of double brain (not two separate brains, but more like pairs of molecules where there is only supposed to be one molecule), they have been subject to prejudice also, and have had to resort to extreme secrecy to hide their cities. Maltby, hereditary leader of the Mixed Men, finds himself on board the Earthship, the Star Cruiser, ordered to pilot it to the capital of the Fifty Suns. His secret orders, from the leaders of the Fifty Suns, are to pilot the ship right into a space storm, powerful enough to destroy even a hundred-deck behemoth like the Star Cruiser.
It's obvious to the people that, even if the Star Cruiser is destroyed, which does not happen, it won't be long, in cosmic terms, before Earth sends thousands of ships looking for the Fifty Suns empire. Many psychological methods are used to get Maltby to talk, including conditioning him to fall in love with Gloria Cecily, Grand Captain of the Star Cruiser.
This is an excellent far-future space opera in the grand tradition. Few writers can do it quite like A.E. van Vogt. This one is very much worth reading.
Friday, September 7, 2012
Planets for Sale
Planets for Sale, A.E. van Vogt and E. Mayne Hull, Book Co. of America, 1965
This group of connected stories in novel form takes place in a part of space called the Ridge Stars, a group of suns and planets reminiscent of the 19th century American frontier, where capitalism is Law and money is the lifeblood. In this part of space, a man named Artur Blord is on top. His fortune can be counted in the trillions of stellors. He is said to have more power and wealth than any person in the universe, and, as such, is on everyone's "hit list."
A young woman named Evana, fresh from Earth, is kidnapped by a group of masked men and forced to help them kidnap Blord and get him out of the way, permanently. As an inducement, Evana is injected with a seven-day poison. Blord finds out about the plot, and lets himself be taken to a nearby planet. Living in the ruins of an impenetrable castle is the Skal, a 50-foot-long telepathic lizard with a real hatred of humans in general and Artur Blord in particular.
Blord's enemies have conspired to get rid of Blord by taking over the Star Patrol, the legal government of the Ridge Stars. They are being very thorough by doing it not just on a few planets, but on every planet of the Ridge Stars, which comprise almost 200 light years of space. They then impose a 25 percent tax on all transcations of the Artur Blord Holding Company. When he refuses to go along, the Star Patrol then orders the immediate seizure of all of Blord's assets.
In other stories, Blord comes up against liquid metal R, a substance that can eat through anything, even the outer hulls of spaceships, and horribly mutated former humans called zilths. He also starts to get the feeling that (to use a cliche) the thrill is gone. Even on mankind's newest frontier, everything is predictable and boring.
This is really good. Van Vogt was one of the masters of space opera, and this is no exception. It's weird, it's exciting, it's very well done and it is well worth the reader's time.
This group of connected stories in novel form takes place in a part of space called the Ridge Stars, a group of suns and planets reminiscent of the 19th century American frontier, where capitalism is Law and money is the lifeblood. In this part of space, a man named Artur Blord is on top. His fortune can be counted in the trillions of stellors. He is said to have more power and wealth than any person in the universe, and, as such, is on everyone's "hit list."
A young woman named Evana, fresh from Earth, is kidnapped by a group of masked men and forced to help them kidnap Blord and get him out of the way, permanently. As an inducement, Evana is injected with a seven-day poison. Blord finds out about the plot, and lets himself be taken to a nearby planet. Living in the ruins of an impenetrable castle is the Skal, a 50-foot-long telepathic lizard with a real hatred of humans in general and Artur Blord in particular.
Blord's enemies have conspired to get rid of Blord by taking over the Star Patrol, the legal government of the Ridge Stars. They are being very thorough by doing it not just on a few planets, but on every planet of the Ridge Stars, which comprise almost 200 light years of space. They then impose a 25 percent tax on all transcations of the Artur Blord Holding Company. When he refuses to go along, the Star Patrol then orders the immediate seizure of all of Blord's assets.
In other stories, Blord comes up against liquid metal R, a substance that can eat through anything, even the outer hulls of spaceships, and horribly mutated former humans called zilths. He also starts to get the feeling that (to use a cliche) the thrill is gone. Even on mankind's newest frontier, everything is predictable and boring.
This is really good. Van Vogt was one of the masters of space opera, and this is no exception. It's weird, it's exciting, it's very well done and it is well worth the reader's time.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Futures Past
Futures Past, A.E. van Vogt, Tachyon Publications, 1999
This is a group of lesser known science fiction stories, first published from the 1940s to the 1960s, by one of the all-time masters of the field, recently deceased. When writers like Asimov and Heinlein were hitting their stride, van Vogt was the pinnacle to which they aspired. When the first specialty book publishers were looking for material to republish after World War II, he was their first stop.
In this book, the last survivor of a spaceship that crash lands on Mars finds a deserted Martian village. Natives of the Andes Mountains are able to survive in the thin atmosphere of Mars, without pressure suits, to the great resentment of those born at sea level. A human and an ezwal, a large, blue, three-eyed being with the power of telepathic communication, crash land on a jungle planet and are forced to cooperate with each other to stay alive. This is despite the fact that the ezwal hates humans and would just as soon tear the human into lots of little pieces. A creature, actually the galaxy's greatest mathematician, is held in a huge vault on Mars, made of ultimate metal, and whose time-lock is keyed to the ultimate prime number.
These may not be classic, well-known stories, but they still run rings around most of what was, and is, in the Science Fiction section of the average chain bookstore.
This is a group of lesser known science fiction stories, first published from the 1940s to the 1960s, by one of the all-time masters of the field, recently deceased. When writers like Asimov and Heinlein were hitting their stride, van Vogt was the pinnacle to which they aspired. When the first specialty book publishers were looking for material to republish after World War II, he was their first stop.
In this book, the last survivor of a spaceship that crash lands on Mars finds a deserted Martian village. Natives of the Andes Mountains are able to survive in the thin atmosphere of Mars, without pressure suits, to the great resentment of those born at sea level. A human and an ezwal, a large, blue, three-eyed being with the power of telepathic communication, crash land on a jungle planet and are forced to cooperate with each other to stay alive. This is despite the fact that the ezwal hates humans and would just as soon tear the human into lots of little pieces. A creature, actually the galaxy's greatest mathematician, is held in a huge vault on Mars, made of ultimate metal, and whose time-lock is keyed to the ultimate prime number.
These may not be classic, well-known stories, but they still run rings around most of what was, and is, in the Science Fiction section of the average chain bookstore.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)