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Null-A Continuum

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Null-A Continuum (2008) is a SF novel within the Null-A series. It is a sequel to the original sequence by A.E. Van Vogt. In the previous volumes, non-Aristotelian logic is a system that provides a sane view of life. Null-A has developed various means of stripping the emotional interpretations from thoughts, including the cortical-thalamic pause.

The Games Machine was built on Earth to select the rulers. The Machine tested the minds of applicants and rejected those who had not mastered and internalized Null-A principles. Some were given posts in the Earth government, but those who scored the highest were allowed to live on Venus among a same population.

But the Games Machine was subverted through the action of a distorter, a device for shifting matter and energy through space. The device had been supplied by Thorson, the commander of an invasion force from the Greatest Empire. President Hardy and his gang ruled the Earth under the Empire.

Gosseyn came to the city of the Games Machine to test his knowledge of Null-A. Yet he was exposed as an impostor by someone from his own village and was thrown out of his hotel. Then he met a girl who also lacked a place to stay.

Gosseyn was later killed and returned in a new body. Gosseyn Two met Thorson and then discovered that he had a second brain. After killing the Imperial commander, Gosseyn Two discovered that Lavoisseur was another copy of himself.

Gosseyn Two discovered more about the Greatest Empire and foiled the invasion with a little help from Crang. He met Leej -- a Predictor -- on Yalerta. Then another version of himself was awakened accidentally. Eventually, Gosseyn Three captured and imprisoned Eron.

In this novel, Gilbert Gosseyn is a man with a double brain and serial immortality. If he dies, his memories are transferred to a younger body. His second brain provides the ability to shift himself and other things through space like a distorter. But his earliest memories are lies. Who has created him and why?

Lavoisseur was the head of the Semantic Institute, the organization that built the Games Machine. He was an older copy of Gosseyn, but has additional memories. Gosseyn suspects that he is the Chessplayer, the man who is manipulating him.

X was a member of President Hardy's gang. He was also another Gosseyn body who was damaged and had a higher metabolism. This allowed his thoughts to be received by Lavoisseur. Apparently he was planted on Hardy as a source of information.

Eldred Crang is a Venusian detective who discovered the invasion forces and infiltrated the Imperial organization. Later, Crang returned to the Greatest Empire as Patricia's husband.

Erno the Red is the Emperor of the Greatest Empire, the largest principality in the galaxy. He has the ability to see through walls.

Patricia Hardy is the woman who Gosseyn remembers as his wife. But she was also the daughter of President Hardy and the sister of Eron. So who is she?

In this story, Gosseyn Two is visiting Nirene. As the space liner is making its last distorter jump to the planet, Gosseyn is separated from the liner and diverted to an apartment. There Gosseyn finds the charred body of Crang and indications that Patricia has been there.

Gosseyn decides that he is on Nirene. Then he uses a device in the apartment to view the murder. He sees Eron appear as a Shadow and kill Crang.

Then the police appear and Gosseyn is arrested. At the secret police headquarters, Gosseyn learns that agents of the defeated Greatest Empire are active within the Interplanetary League. They have also held back some Imperial warships.

Gosseyn visits various planets within the League and discovers that Imperial agents have infiltrated many of them. Solar systems start disappearing into Shadow. Then he gains the memories of Gosseyn Three from the Shadow Galaxy.

Later Gosseyn meets X in a younger body. X is still insane and is now working for Eron. He commits multiple murders and leaves Gosseyn to take the blame. He also destroys a lie detector before he shifts out of the area.

Gosseyn contacts the Venusian Null-As and reports his findings. They analyze the lie detector and start working on countermeasures. Then Gosseyn finds himself within false realities or alternate timelines. In some, he meets future versions of himself, but in others he meets the Ydd, a corporate entity that exists outside the physical universe.

This tale takes Gosseyn and his avatars further into the conspiracy to change the future. He discovers that he knows much more than expected. And he keeps encountering Patricia.

The author displays an amazing familiarity with Van Vogt's works. This story is based on Van Vogt's fourth SF novel -- World of Null-A -- and its sequels. But it also contains scenarios and themes from his first three novels -- Voyage of the Space Beagle, Slan, and The Book of Ptath -- as well as elements from The Universe Maker and probably other works.

Highly recommended for Van Vogt fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of mind training, superpowers, and puzzling plots.

-Arthur W. Jordin

...not true in this case, the Word is all that we have.

This is an excellent conclusion to Van Vogt's first two Null-A books (we won't count the third one). Be sure to read World of Null-A and Pawns (Players) of Null-A before reading this book, or you will miss a lot of what is happening. If you read this one first, the previous two await.

John Wright's emulation of Van Vogt's style is *very* successful. There is a lot happening in this book. New events and concepts assail you from every side--this is very like the better Van Vogt books. You are a far better reader than I if you won't be going back to re-read it and see what you missed.

Many plot elements and plot directions in the originals that just seemed to be dead ends have been revived and carefully woven back into the whole. I think this is key to how much fans of Null-A will enjoy this book.

I am amazed at how much effort this book must have been. Thank you John Wright.

Steve

Not much else needs to be said. If you liked his other books you'll love this one too. One thing I'll say: the book is full of wicked plot twists which, while very rewarding, may challenge some readers. I'd tackle The Golden Age first. (Which I still think is Wright's best. This book may tie the ending together better, but Phaeton was a much more compelling character than the somewhat detached and mechanical Gosseyn. Gosseyn's rivals are great though.) I read this before reading van Vogt's Null-A so I can't say how it relates.

John Wright has done what a lot of us VanVogt fans wished we could do. He has written a sequel to the Null-A universe that AE started over 60 years ago. Wright sucessfuly channels Van Vogt's style to 20 decimal place similarity! Although the plot is fantastically complex, this book takes us back into the super stable mind and bizzare world of Gilbert G. in a way that is pleasingly readable. Is Van Vogt's work and now Wrights effort socialy relavant, psychologically sound or scientifically acurate? Are these authors just offering egotistical elitism. Maybe, but I really could care less! This is a great read...

I've read all of John C. Wright's other books, and came out rather disappointed in this book. This is a vanity project dedicated to a universe and author that's clearly close to Mr. Wright's heart.

As a SF book, the plot is chaotic and aimless. Character's drift in and out of the story with no explanation and our main character jumps (is thrown) from one nonsensical scenario to another much like a black-and-white Flash Gordan serial that never ends. As an example, our hero is temporarily placed in an illusionary world were we meet Leej and some stuff happens. Thereafter, our hero awakes from the illusion, and you immediately forget about Leej and her illusionary world. A few hundred pages later it turns out Leej is very important, and all that illusionary stuff actually happened!!

If you loved the world of Null-A, you'll likely love this book, but if you considering this book based on the strength of Mr. Wright's other work you will likely be disappointed. This isn't a terrible book; it just doesn't stack up to The Golden Age for SciFi goodness.

Van Vogt was my favorite SF author, as well as a major influence on my life. Thank you John Wright for creating this masterpiece! Although I'm just an old Boomer now, this novel really "returned me to the thrilling days of yesteryear!" when all things seemed possible. This novel is a fully realized and valid conclusion to the Null-A stories, true in every way to the style of Van Vogt as well as the overall style of "Golden Age" science fiction. You will enjoy it even more if, like me, you have read ALL of Van Vogt's books, because not only does it complete the Null-A story, it weaves in a large number of Van Vogt's better tropes and concepts, basically weaving a completed tapestry of the great artist's work (in particular, "The Voyage of the Space Beagle", "The Universe Maker", and many more including one of my personal favorites, the largely unnoticed "Earth Factor X"). And, in addition, he (Wright) keeps throwing in little "gems" of brilliant 50-60's sci-fi imagery (such as ray-guns bristling with atomic vacuum tubes). Almost every sentence of this book produces a little burst of amazement. Clearly, a huge amount of work must have gone into writing this. I don't really know if younger readers, less familiar with the good-old science fiction of my youth will enjoy this as much - it is a very complex plot, and really benefits from (or even requires) some familiarity with Van Vogt, most of whose work is no longer readily available. But for anyone who loved V.V.- this is your new favorite novel (until a better one is written).

This book is fantastic so far. I'm only about halfway through it so I don't yet know how it ends but it reads as though Van Vogt woke up and continued his own series. The length equals 2 or 3 average length novels without any extra filler so it's definitely worth the bucks. So far Wright manages to explain many of the concepts of his predecessor and extrapolates a few new ones as well. It's as though the book was written in the mid-20th century with all the antiquated terms left in such as electronic brains (for computers), electronic tubes, tape recorders, vision plates and phones instead of using modern 21st century terms. However many of Wrights new ideas seem plausible as an alternate reality universe (or multiverse) might be. My only complaint is that there is no ebook version available. Highly enjoyable if you are a Van Vogt fan.

John C. Wright should be applauded for doing what many would have thought impossible - emulating the science fiction master, A.E.van Vogt. Van Vogt, for those unfamiliar with his work, was a SF writer with a totally individual style. Although part of the so-called Golden Age of Astounding, van Vogt was a unique voice whose work stood out from his contemporaries Heinlein, Asimov, Simak and others. His plots were dream-like, complicated and not always rational. Confusion was a state of mind for many of his characters and many of his readers, too. But the excitement was boundless! The ideas came fast and furious! His novels were wild rides unlike anything written before or since...until now! Wright captures the style of van Vogt perfectly! His continuation of the "Null-A" saga has all of the characteristics of the original novels - fast-paced, mind-expanding concepts, layers of complication, and, yes, quite a bit of confusion, too! There are parts of this novel that get so far out and complex that I was quite lost, but that is just how van Vogt's novels were! If you get bogged down in the middle, I urge you to continue on. The ending is worth everything! It comes full circle and gives us the answers to the questions and mysteries that surround Gosseyn from the very beginning of his adventure.

You definitely should read van Vogt's first two "Null-A" novels first. Otherwise, the impact of this novel would be greatly reduced.

This is a review of Null-A Continuum by John C Wright.

In case you didn't know, this is the finale of the Null-A series started by the late A E van Vogt. The first three books were written by van Vogt and this last by Wright after van Vogt's passing to complete the overall story. The first three are THE WORLD OF NULL-A, THE PLAYERS OF NULL-A (aka THE PAWNS OF NULL-A) and NULL-A THREE, although not everyone likes to count this third one, since it was written by van Vogt when he was very ill and has some "issues"; Wright ignores much of what happened in NULL-A THREE. It helps to have read the first two books before starting the last; Wright does give a good summary of the first three before he begins in any case.

I first saw the present book over a year ago, and this is how I learned about van Vogt's work. It took me a while to get to the first two in this series (I am skipping the third), and I also read SLAN by van Vogt in the meantime (which is pretty good and has a later sequel by another author as well). There are many, many other van Vogt books as well if you like his style.

The plot of the series is somewhat complex, so I won't try to explain it in detail here - Wright's summary is good if you need more. Readers should note that the books follow a sort of progression of scope from interplanetary to galactic to intergalactic, then beyond.

The main character is Gilbert Gosseyn and the series features his development of a second AND a third brain which allow him to do some fantastic things; he also seems to have amnesia and is apparently immortal. There is a (seeming) femme fatale of sorts, Patricia, who turns out to be good in the end, and an evil Emperor, Enro, who wants to rule the galaxy and maybe beyond, as well as other recurring characters.

Null-A refers to non-Aristotelian logic; van Vogt was a fan of General Semantics from which this logical system derives or is an integral part. This system is intertwined into the plot to some extent, but it is explained or kept in the background enough so as not to confuse readers previously unfamiliar with it.

As the series progresses, it is like an ever unfolding conspiracy is revealed. Hint: it actually goes beyond time and space. Get ready for more than a few surprises and twists, especially in this last book. Involved is a surprisingly long history of and basis of the very of the existence of mankind and the universe itself - it is handled fairly well too.

Keep in mind that the series started in the 1940's, so the terminology for technology may seem a little dated and strange. Wright used van Vogt's terms for things for continuity, but he went beyond for things that came up in this last book that had not been touched on before. I am not sure, but it seems that Wright has made quite a study of actual modern physics and related philosophy before writing this book; if not, he made it seem like what he was saying was based on this at least.

Like some other reviewers, I did not like all the jumping around in this last book. Things get very convoluted and difficult to follow. Some of it was necessary for the story I guess, but too much of a good thing can be bad as the saying goes. The book was a bit long for what it had to say as well. Some readers may find that it was too long on explaining via narration and did not use the characters enough to tell the story instead. It was not easy reading in many spots. This all killed a possible 5 star rating from me.

Actually, I nearly gave the book only 3 stars because of these last points, but Wright did give a satisfying ending that tied things up well, so I went with 4 stars in the end.

This book is worth reading as it ties up the series well, but it is not light reading by any means.

Even though a
little more fanciful than van Vogt's, the story was a fantastic read.
Only marred by being too long and wordy. A.E. van Vogt could have
written this story in half the words! Still, it was well worth the
read. I remember as a twelve year old kid reading about the hero
teleporting, and was fascinated by science fiction. Van Vogt got
carried away by the third story, in which the main character was able
to teleport giant space ships with thousands of people aboard across
the universe. But in Wright's latest novel, the main character can even
teleport whole galaxies through both time and space, moving them across
the universe, or from one period in time to another. A little too
fanciful for "science" fiction, I think. Maybe more like "fantasy"
fiction. Something else about Wright's writing, though. He wrote the
long novel without one cuss word, or a sex scene. Marvelous! It just
goes to show that a well-written story can still be published. Mr. Wright's novel kept me involved in the story throughout. I think he captured A.E. van Vogt's writing style and story-telling ability beautifully.