The War Against The Rull [Mass Market Paperback]

A. E. Van Vogt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1982

When A.E. van Vogt wove several of his classic stories of The Rull into a novel, he created a work of enduring popularity in the science fiction field. Now back in print for the first time in the 1990s, this Tor edition includes "The First Rull," a story that postdates the novel and makes this book the first complete edition of the saga of the war between humanity and the alien shapechangers.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

You might easily mistake a list of A.E. van Vogt's classic stories for the names of bygone rides in Disney's Tomorrowland: Empire of the Atom, Mission to the Stars, Two-hundred Million A.D., Project: Spaceship. This Nebula Grand Master, while still writing well into the 1980s, was a pioneer of sci-fi's golden age, an author that the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction credits with creating--along with Heinlein and Asimov--"the first genuinely successful period of U.S. SF." A prolific contributor to such early mags as Thrilling Wonder, Startling Stories, and Astounding, van Vogt distinguished himself with his expert pacing, his mind-bending ideas, and--surprising in the starched-lab-coat 1940s--his serious access to weird. (Check out 1945's cult hit The World of Null-A as a prime example.)

The War Against the Rull, assembled from five stories written for Astounding between 1940 and 1950, is classic, keep-you-guessing van Vogt, even if it doesn't quite qualify for must-read status like Null-A and Slan. Our hero is Trevor Jamieson, chief scientist of the Interstellar Military Commission, on the front lines of humanity's war with a shape-shifting race of insectoid aliens known as the Rull. Jamieson may have found the key to victory, but first he must simply survive--marooned on a wild, hostile planet with a 6,000-pound, blue-furred, six-legged, human-hating telepathic bear, Jamieson escapes only to find himself trapped days later in a meteor-carved cave with a woman who wants him dead, armed with only a knife and his wits against a blood-thirsty giant weasel that can claw through solid rock. --Paul Hughes --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Review

"A.E. van Vogt is truly a grand master of science fiction. He is to Canadian SF what H.G. Wells is to the British variety or Jules Verne to the French. We all stand on his broad shoulders." --Robert J. Sawyer

"Nobody, possibly with the exception of the Bester of The Stars My Destination, ever came close to matching van Vogt for headlong, breakneck pacing, or for the electric, crackling paranoid tension with which he was capable of suffusing his work." --Gardner Dozois

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 221 pages
• Publisher: Pocket; 1st Timescape edition (September 1, 1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671454382
• ISBN-13: 978-0671454388
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,469,281 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Od School, September 18, 2007

By 

SLigustinus (Seabrook, NH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The War Against the Rull (Paperback)

In "The War Against the Rull", A.E. Van Vogt did for me in Sci Fi what Nathaniel Hawthorne did in his "Last of the Mohicans". The central character in each story is a man of courage who goes against societal norms to reach out to members of completely alien cultures, to save those he loves from a common enemy. Here, Trevor Jamieson encounters blind and unyielding hatred from fellow humans for the Ezwal, a creature whom only he knows may hold the secret to humanity's life-or-death struggle with the insectoid Rull, a struggle which until now they were losing. In dealing with this hatred, he teaches those humans with whom he works the necessity of overcoming their fears and prejudices, to build the kind of alliances that would save them. Van Vogt's book begins with Jamieson's efforts to link up with an extremely hostile and dangerous Ezwal, to survive being stranded on Eristan II, a planet inhabited by the most intensely feral life forms in the galaxy. His survival there, his close brush with asassination on Carson's Planet, and his enlistment of his young son in the struggle were all wonderfully enjoyable reading. Make no mistake, the technology in the story may be dated, but so what........ The courage, empathy, fierce determination, and vision are all character traits that are timeless. Now if only we could see this wonderful creature - the Ezwal - come alive in the movies................

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Space opera, with an expected "twist" ending, August 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The War Against the Rull (Paperback)

I read this book, or parts of it over 30 (!) years ago when I wanted blasters and spaceships and lots of BEMs. It is one of the items in my 'keeper' library. The Rull enemy has a fantasy element (shapechanger) that will appeal, and a cold-blooded ability to eradicate the humans it opposes. Read it as an adventure yarn, and not as a comment on civilization.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars my favourite, March 13, 2002

By 

Fesal Toosy (Pakistan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The War Against The Rull (Mass Market Paperback)

My favourite van vogt book. This is the book which got me hooked on to sci-fi. Exciting and gripping till the end.