|
Van Vogt in 1963.
 |
You have to remember that I was a bright but simple fellow from Canada who seldom, if ever, met another writer, and then only a so-called literary type that occasionally sold a story and meanwhile worked in an office for a living. |
 |
A hardworking writer of Science Fiction during the Golden Age, Alfred Elton van Vogt was certainly one of the most prolific. Though often overshadowed by the "Big Three" (Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov), van Vogt penned a great many long-lived classics, including Slan, The Book of Ptath, The Voyage of the Space Beagle, The Weapon Shops of Isher, and the Null-A series. He cranked out dozens of short stories, many of which have been anthologized over and over again. Like several of his contemporaries, he also forayed into the realms of mainstream fiction and nonfiction.
The Other Wiki states that van Vogt was born in Edenburg, a Russian Mennonite community near Gretna, Manitoba. He spoke German until he was four years old. He got his start by writing for pulp magazines, but decided to switch to something he liked a lot better.
Critics are sharply divided over the quality and merit of van Vogt's work. While it's true that he won few awards during his lifetime, his name is often mentioned along with the Big Three. It's worth pointing out that Clarke, Asimov, and John W. Campbell, Jr. all spoke highly of him. Damon Knight, however, called him "a pygmy who has learned to operate an overgrown typewriter." Despite his critics, van Vogt did manage to inspire several prominent sci-fi writers, such as Harlan Ellison and Philip K. Dick. Ellison in particular was so outraged that van Vogt had received so little recognition that he went on a one-man media rampage until the SFWA finally presented the aging van Vogt with a Grand Master Award.
Van Vogt claimed that many of his ideas came from dreams, and often arranged to be awoken every 90 minutes so he could jot down his nocturnal imaginings. He had a habit of throwing together short stories he'd written previously into composite tales, novels, or novel series, which he called "fixups." He often favored the use of temporal conundra in his stories, and was interested in totalitarian states, power struggles and inductive reasoning, all of which show up frequently in his works.
- After the End: The context of the Mutant Mage series. It isn't quite what it seems like at first, though.
- Alien Autopsy
- Amnesiac God: Who was killed in a tank battle in a previous life, no less.
- Atomic Hate: The Riss (from The Wizard of Linn) have a nasty habit of bombing human cities into smoking craters. Our hero Clane gets hold of something even more powerful, though, and defeats the Riss with it.
- Badass Bookworm: A lot of van Vogt's protagonists are scientists and other academic types who wind up playing the hero.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: Giant cats with tentacles, anacondas with antlers, and blue-furred, six-legged, three-eyed monsters, for example.
- Brains and Brawn: Clane and Czinczar from The Wizard of Linn, though Czinczar is by no means unintelligent.
- Enemy Mine: Professor Jamieson and the ezwal are forced to work together to survive the hostile surface of Eristan II in Co-Operate--or Else!
- Clane and the captured barbarian leader Czinczar team up to defeat the Riss, despite Czinczar's repeated attempts to gain the upper hand. It's a good thing Clane invests heavily in Betrayal Insurance.
- There's also Maltby and Grand Captain Laurr from Mission to the Stars. They actually take the trope Up to Eleven and get hitched.
- Imported Alien Phlebotinum
- Intelligent Gerbil: Van Vogt seemed to have a fondness for these, and usually equipped them with Telepathy.
- Lost Technology
- Low Culture, High Tech
- Milkman Conspiracy: The weapon shops of Isher.
- Nearly-Normal Animal
- Not Quite Human: The Slan.
- And the Mixed Men from Mission to the Stars.
- Plant Aliens
- Recycled in Space: The Empire of the Atom and The Wizard of Linn, which were amalgamated into the Mutant Mage series, were inspired in part by the Roman Empire, particularly the reign of Claudius. The resemblance is almost painful at times. The series is basically I, Claudius IN SPACE!
- Science Hero
- Standard Sci-Fi Fleet
- Starfish Aliens
- Unobtainium