Conference noted::sf

    _Voyage of the Space Beagle_ is an amalgum off A. E. van Vogt
    novelettes.  Best of the lot was the first, "Black Destroyer," about
    Coerul, the catlike id-feeder (no, not the lower ming; AEvV has
    this fascinating habit of naming one thing with a name that's already
    being used for something else.  For instance in his _The Mixed Men_,
    he uses "robot" to mean "android." In his diverting _The Darkness
    on Diamonda_, he has one of his structures "The DAR Building," having
    nothing to do with the Daughters of the American Revolution).  He
    introduced a new character, Eliot Grosvenoe, a Nexalist, who ties
    the stories together (he wasn't in some of the original stories).
    
    Darwin's ship was the _H.M.S. Beagle_, on which he studied life
    forms, and came up with the Theory of Evolution.  the spacecraft
    is an analog.  The sttories are okay, and a light read.
    
    AEvV's best books are _Slan_ and the Weapon Shops series (_The Weapon
    Shops of Isher_ and _The Weapon Makers_); _The World of Null-A_
     is considered a classic (though I preferred the sequel, _Players
    of Null-A_ [however, _World_ once was jocularly, if rather accurately,
    described as "A classic science fiction take where none of the major
    characters have any idea what the Hell is going on."]).  It's okay,
    though it meant a lot more when it was forst written, I suppose.
    
    _The House that Stood Still_ is a potboiler, though I'm bemused
    by the Van Vogtean bioprocess, "de-differentiation."
    
    You could do worse than old Alfie, but not to take too seriously.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

Van Vogt appealed to be a lot during my age 11-15 period.  He
could toss off a bunch of novel or heterodox ideas within short
stretches of prose, and make them seem crucial to the plot
without ever describing them in enough detail to bog things
down (or make you question them).  In some ways Frank Herbert
did the same kind of shtick in the late '60s and early '70s.

I haven't found that Van Vogt stands up to re-reading very well,
though.  His treatment of male-female relationships is, well,
juvenile, and his characterizations are in general pretty flat.
Plus, of his novel ideas, a few have been borne out and hence
seem obvious now, rather than novel, while the rest seem destined
for the annals of crackpot science.

I still re-read my copy of the wild and wacky _World of Null-A_
every few years though.  They don't write 'em like that any more!
(sigh);-)

    Wow! Haven't read Van Vogt in years. When I was a kid, I read "The
    House That Stood Still", and enjoyed it immensely. I suspect it
    would not hold up well now. Likewise "The Weapon Shops".
    
    I read "Slan" years later. If it was comparable to his other work,
    then my tastes had changed a lot. I didn't enjoy it. It was too
    much like a Superman comic strip: very one-dimensional. Need a small
    miracle or marvelous capability to get out of a bad scrape? NO
    PROBLEM!!!
    
    But he was great when I was a kid...
    
    - Richard

    Ah, yes, nostalgia.
    
    The better van Vogt works are his shorts and novelettes.  "The Monster"
    was very good, and stands up even today.  "Asylum," though obviously
    derived from old Bela Lugosi flicks (and illustrated in that fashion
    in its _Astounding_ debut), still has a certain sense of wonder
    that carries even the adult reader along.
    
    Most of his stuff works better when you're young.
    
    Re _Slan_:  It was rather seminal, when written, and anticipated
    some aspects of the later Bester _The Demolished Man_.  By today's
    standards, it is shallow, but it still is fast paced and innovative
    (ten-point steel indeed!).   One of the best characters in _Slan_
    was Granny.
    
    _The World of Null-A_ is, well, bizzarely charming.  He rewrote
    it somewhat because he was stung by Damon Knight's (justifiable)
    criticism of it.  The rewrite's only in paperback, as far as I know.
    _Players of Null-A_ is a _lot_ more fun, and he should have quit
    there.  The picture of a nuclear reactor sending its output _into_
    an electrical generator [vV's emphasis] haunts me, for it was never
    explained.  I liked The Follower (and apparently vV liked the concept,
    for he used it in his Scientology novel, _The Universe Maker), though
    who/what he was proved something of a letdown.
    _Null-A Three_, as I said elsewhere, is a severe disappointment.
    Stop at _Players_ [aka _Pawns_].
    
    Some fun, but don't expect to get your socks blown off.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr. 

    Seems to me I also enjoyed the Silkie stories, but that was in my
    teens.  And I'd have to agree with prev. reviewers.
    
    Maybe you could let us know what types of stories might appeal to
    you (adventure, war, hard science, past-present-or-future, human-vs.
    -aliens, post-holocost, pre-historic, etc.) & we could narrow it
    down.
    
    							Don

    I enjoy the human vs aliens and, in general the adventure stories.
    I don't mind a brigth mixture of all types mentioned.
    		Marc.

    The second story in "Voyage of the Space Beagle" was "IXTL". This
    is about the same intra-galactic exploration ship which stops between
    the stars to pick up a life-form which is drifting light-years from
    the nearest star system. It attacks the men, haunting their ship
    and decimating them with terrifyingly sudden attacks... then it
    starts to take them alive so that it can plant its eggs in their
    paralysed but still-living bodies.
    
    If this story didn't predate "Alien" by several decades, I'd say
    it was a straight rip-off. Any comments?
    
    --Tom

    Re .7 (Tom):
    
    >The second story in "Voyage of the Space Beagle" was "IXTL". This
    >is about the same intra-galactic exploration ship which stops between
    >the stars to pick up a life-form which is drifting light-years from
    >the nearest star system. 
    >...
    >Any comments?
                               
    Yes.  The stories were collected shorts, strung together by Eliot
    Grosvenor.  The original first story was published as "Black
    destroyer," and was reprinted in numerous anthologies.  The Ixtl
    story was "Discord in Scarlet," and the critter was outside the
    galaxy (his name for human hosts for "his" eggs was "guuls."  How
    guulish), and had energy-attuning ability.  The Riim sequence I
    don't recall, but the last was something like "M76 in Andromeda,"
    and involved a galaxy-spanning intelligence that fed off the life
    forces of dying critters, especially dinosauroids.  I seem to recall
    it was called something like "the Anabis," but I won't swear to
    it.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    re:.7
    
    As a matter of fact, van Vogt (at the prompting of his agent
    Forry Ackerman) was planning to sue 20th Century Fox over ALIEN,
    claiming it as a plagiarism of "Discord in Scarlet". They settled
    out of court for, if memory serves, about a quarter million.
    
    ALIEN actually rips off quite a few things. Aside from "Discord
    in Scarlet", it takes ideas or motifs from the following sf
    films:
    
    NIGHT OF THE BLOOD BEAST (The same idea as "DiS" -- an alien
    	planting eggs in a human host.)
    DEMON PLANET (Astronauts finding a derelict alien ship, with a
    	giant skeleton of the pilot.)
    
    And the "Ten Little Indians" plotline was used before in QUEEN OF
    BLOOD and, most notably, IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE. In
    fact, many people think of ALIEN as being essentially a remake of
    IT!, up to the idea of destroying the creature with vacuum.
    
    Even to those of us who think it's a rip-off, what redeems ALIEN
    is that it's an *excellently done* rip-off.
    
    --- jerry

    Can anyone suggest where I might find a copy of Van Vogt's
    short story "The Enchanted Village"?
    
    Thanks for any help.
    
    	-doug
    

From:	US1RMC::"[email protected]" "Dani Zweig" 17-AUG-1993 17:16:42.01
Subj:	Re: SF Reviews request

		Belated Reviews #1:  A.E. Van Vogt

AE Van Vogt's most popular works appeared in the forties and fifties
(after which he was sidetracked).  They varied widely and
imaginatively in terms of setting, but most typically followed a
protagonist of superhuman abilities, or extra-ordinary competence, as
he came into his powers.  The focus was on the plot and on the plot
devices, rather than on the growth of the protagonist:  Van Vogt wrote
stories that were weak in characterization and character development,
for an audience didn't much value them.  His best books include 

Slan (***).  An early superior-mutants-in-hiding novel.  Slans are the
next evolutionary step -- super-intelligent, telepathic, and
possessing betraying (but concealable) antennae.  Ordinary humans tend
to kill them when they find them -- as Jommy Cross's parents are
killed when he is a child Cross himself escapes, and spends his next
years hiding, growing in power (and developing superscientific
gizmos), cautiously seeking other Slans. 

The Weapon Shops of Isher (***).  The Earth of the future is one that
could be a high-tech dystopia, with an unsentimental Imperial
government and largely-unfettered corporations.  The weapons shops
provide a mitigating, somewhat anarchic counterbalance:  They sell
weapons which represent better technology than the government can
muster, can only be used defensively, and make it very difficult to
coerce their users.  The story -- involving a conflict between the
Imperium and the weapon shops, some involuntary time travel, and an
extremely *lucky* young man who goes to the big city -- serves
primarily as a vehicle for a tour of this future world.  A sequel,
"The Weapon Makers" (**), focuses upon the secret immortal who works
behind the scenes to maintain the balance between the Imperium and the
weapon shops, and who only makes a brief appearance in the first book.

Empire of the Atom (***-).  An early sword-and-spaceship novel.  In
this post-holocaust world, humanity is struggling back up.  Soldiers
fight with swords, and spaceships (simple-to-use handicraft whose
principles are no longer understood) carry them between planets which
were terraformed during the lost golden age.  Clane Linn is a slightly
radiation-damaged mutant -- brilliant, physically frail -- born to
Earth's ruling family.  This book follows his survival of family
intrigues, his rise from obscurity, and the start of his accession to
power.  A sequel, "The Wizard of Linn" (**), adds an interstellar
scope to the story, as Clane discovers the secrets behind the collapse
of the earlier golden age. 

World of Null-A (**+).  The world of null-A is a future Earth that has
developed a non-Aristotelian (hence the name) discipline of thought.
(Since Van Vogt never developed such a discipline in reality, his
descriptions are necessarily evocative, rather than informative, but
for plot purposes it amounts to Clear Thinking.)  Clear thinking is
not as wide-spread as it might be, so there is still scope for
intrigues and political machinations.  Into the midst of these
intrigues is thrust Gosseyn, a man with unusual abilities, memories
which turn out to be false, and a peculiar serial immortality.  The
book ends with his discovery of a key secret about himself.  The story
is continued, on a broader galactic stage in "Players of Null-A", also
published as "Pawns of Null-A" (**+).  A further sequel, "Null-A 3",
was published decades later, and isn't very good. 

The Voyage of the Space Beagle (**+).  This book is an early link in
the chain of development and inspiration that led to "Star Trek" (and
"Alien"). It is made up of linked stories about a space-going 'Beagle'
and its long- term mission of exploration.  The spaceship keeps
meeting monsters that want to (and can) kill everybody on board the
ship, and having to overcome them though clever gimmicks.  The stories
are weakened by a couple of intellectual plot devices that serve more
as straight jackets:  Understanding monsters through Toynbean
historical analysis, and Nexialism.  (Nexialism is an imaginary
discipline which comes from the same stable as General Systems Theory.
What it amounts to in practice is that the ship's Nexialist is the
one who comes up with the clever gimmick to defeat the monster.) 

If these books appeal, you might also try "The War Against the Rull"
(**), "The Mind Cage" (**), "The Beast" (**), "Rogue Ship" (**), The
Silkie (**), and (with E. Mayne Hull) "Planets for Sale" (**). 

Books covered in these reviews tend to be frequently reprinted.  Many
of them are out of print, but may be found in used bookstores under
numerous imprints.  This makes the standard bibliographic data less
than useful, so except in cases where it seems valuable to do otherwise,
I'll be providing sketchier information than normal for those titles
I specifically discuss.  In this case:

%A  Van Vogt, A. E.
%T  Slan
%T  The Weapon Shops of Isher
%T  The Weapon Makers
%T  Empire of the Atom
%T  The Wizard of Linn
%T  World of Null-A
%T  Players of Null-A
%T  Null-A 3
%T  The Voyage of the Space Beagle

Standard introduction and disclaimer for Belated Reviews follows.

Belated Reviews cover science fiction and fantasy of earlier decades.
They're for newer readers who have wondered about the older titles on the
shelves, or who are interested in what sf/f was like in its younger days.
The emphasis is on helping interested readers identify books to try first, 
not on discussing the books in depth.

A general caveat is in order:  Most of the classics of yesteryear have not
aged well.  If you didn't encounter them back when, or in your early teens,
they will probably not give you the unforced pleasure they gave their
original audiences.  You may find yourself having to make allowances for
writing you consider shallow or politics you consider regressive.  When I
name specific titles, I'll often rate them using the following scale:

**** Recommended.
***  An old favorite that hasn't aged well, and wouldn't get a good
	reception if it were written today.  Enjoyable on its own terms.
**   A solid book, worth reading if you like the author's works.
*    Nothing special.

Additional disclaimers:  Authors are not chosen for review in any particular
order.  The reviews don't attempt to be comprehensive.  No distinction is 
made between books which are still in print and books which are not.

-----
Dani Zweig
[email protected]

  The surface of the strange, forbidden planet was roughly textured and green,
  much like cottage cheese gets way after the date on the lid says it is all 
  right to buy it.--Scott Jones