Customer Reviews

Transfinite: The Essential A. E. Van Vogt

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Most of these classic stories are from the years 1939-1950, an era where A.E. van Vogt was, along with Robert Heinlein, the most popular science fiction author in America. And although much science fiction written so many years ago has become dated, van Vogt's stories, for the most part, are still fresh and exciting.

If you have never read van Vogt, be prepared to be swept away from the very first sentence. His stories are not always logical, nor are all loose ends always tidied up, but they move along at breakneck speed, are filled with ideas, and will contain moments that you will remember forever.

From a historic perspective, you will see some of the first science fiction stories dealing with human-alien warfare (The Sound, The Rull), humans that can travel back through time (The Search), encounters with energy vampires (Asylum), humans of varied nationalities populating a spaceship that explores the galaxy, and beyond (Black Destroyer, War of Nerves), and so much more.

A few of van Vogt's classic novels have recently been reprinted, but sadly most of his work is out of print. Here is probably your last chance to own a large collection of his best short stories - stories that are timeless classics of science fiction.

This collection of Van Vogt's short fiction (sometimes stitched together into longer works) reveals both the good and bad in his writing. The great John W. Campbell said of him, "The son-of-a-gun gets hold of you in the first paragraph, ties a knot around you, and keeps it tied in every paragraph thereafter -- including the ultimate last one." And that's mostly true. On the other hand, Damon Knight, as early as 1945 wrote, "Van Vogt is not a giant as often maintained. He's only a pygmy using a giant typewriter."

Van Vogt wasn't as flamboyant as, say, E. E. Smith, in his use of over the top adjectives. But he was pretty careless with his facts. The opening story in this collection, "Black Destroyer," is the memorable tale of the alien Coeurl, who has a Chlorine-based metabolism. He breathes the oxygen atmosphere of the human starship just fine. The invading Yevd in "The Sound" are fluorine-based, but they, too, do just fine breathing our air.

Still, the stories are generally well-plotted, if you can suspend your disbelief. They are, in Le Guin's phrase, "careless of science," but great fun. Van Vogt's human characters tend to be very nearly perfect, if slow learners - they repeatedly bring the evil alien into the ship for example - and there is an annoying sexism that I suppose traces to the time the stories were written.

But these are unmistakably science fiction's roots. You can see "Alien" here, and bit of "Star Wars," and even the Starship Enterprise in its voyages of exploration. The roots may be a little worn and gnarly, but clearly the antecedent for the more modern stuff. The collection is worth a read and place on a collector's bookshelf; kudos to NESFA for getting them back in print. But the later, long novels like "World of Null-A" and "The Silkie" are better written and more fun.

Four stars for the great ideas nicely presented. But only four stars. Recommended.

This collection brings together some of the better short stores by the late A.E. Van Vogt (1912-2000), a Canadian science fiction writer who first rose to prominence in the 1940s. Van Vogt remains a much-praised and much-criticized author. At his worst, he produced implausible pulp fiction, with no scientific basis. At his best, his writing had a kind of bold, archetypal power. His stories were wildly imaginative, strikingly original for their time, and contained unusual plot twists, such as the role reversals in The Monster and Enchanted Village. Many of his ideas would eventually be adapted into films. Black Destroyer was one of the inspirations for Alien. The space vampire concept in Asylum would be used many times in film and television. Van Vogt did not possess the intellectual quality of some other science fiction writers, and certainly was no great literary stylist. But his stories were concise, compact, and often succeeded in entertaining the reader.

Yes, Van Vogt spins a great yarn! Yes, they're fun to read. And yes, the writing is clear as glass. But don't expect human character driven fiction, because it's not. The humans, regardless of how effectively and empathetically they're portrayed, are merely props. He cares nothing for them.

Van Vogt's interest is in the concepts, the aliens---the humans are often left as so many soiled tissues at the ends of his stories. Win or lose, these poor puppets are not the focal point of the stories---they (and we) only think they are.

The guy never gets the gal because the guy only thinks he exists. The humans beat the alien, not because they're tougher or smarter, but because they hold a certain technology. The protagonist fails to resist temptation and do what is right, but is saved by a mathematical oddity. These are stories about human pawns, placeholders, extras in tales where the math, the alien, the concept of time travel is the real protagonist.

So, by all means read him, enjoy him, but not for the human story, because that is nearly always a red herring, a false trail, and the real scent leads in a different direction, to the resolution, not of man's emotions or ethics or character, but to an abstract scientific principle. And there you have the main, perhaps the only, flaw in a vastly entertaining body of work by a master.