Part 1 (1/2)

The Best of A. E. van Vogt.

Volume 2.

SPHERE BOOKS LIMITED.

A. E. van Vogt.

Introduction.

”BEST” is what is called in General Semantics a defining word. What this means is that the word of itself implies a state, or level, of superiority in something.

But that, if you will think about it, is merely a value judgment of a person, a committee, or a group. That is, it is an intellectual, or emotional, consideration. As such, it can never be an operational term.

So we are not surprised when, each year in the U.S.A. these days, half a dozen publishers issue best-of-the-year science fiction. Worse, with a couple of well-advertised exceptions, none of the stories in one ”Best” is the same as those of any of the others.

Authors have lived with such contradictions with equanimity since the early days of SF.

Not too long ago, one of the best-of-that-year editors asked an SF writer if he had a story that had not already been anthologized too often. Said author presently sent, along a story which he had selected because, until then, it had only been printed in a collection of his own stories. The editor accepted it as one of the best of the year without reading any of the other stories written by that author.

Now, it happened that the story which was submitted under these restricting requirements was the best short story ever written by that author. That year it won the Hugo award of the World Science Fiction Convention. None of the other ”Best” editors had had the foresight to include it in their anthologies, I have a lesser example from my own experience. Years ago, the editor of a magazine asked me to select one of my stories for what was called an author's choice of his own best story. The editor, however, required that I limit my selection to a story printed in his magazine. The problem was he had only published three of my stories.

Like most SF authors I handled this situation with the total aplomb of someone who realizes that failure to make such a choice simply means your story is not included. P.S. I got the check.

Still--I should report--no one likes to be cynical.

Truth is, I have always had my own favorites among my stories, and occasionally re-read these.

Before I tell you my own choice, let me list for you those stories of mine which have repeatedly won the accolade of my particular readers.h.i.+p.

Short stories: (early t.i.tles) ”Far Centaurus”, ”Enchanted Village”, ”The Monster”. This last has sometimes been t.i.tled ”Resurrection”, (more recent t.i.tle) ”Itself”.

Novelettes: (early t.i.tles) ”Black Destroyer”, ”Cooperate--Or Else”, The Weapon Shop”, (recent t.i.tles) ”The Proxy Intelligence”, ”The Silkie”--novelette version--and ”The Reflected Men”.

Novels: (early) Slan, The Voyage of the s.p.a.ce Beagle and The World of Null-A, (recent) Quest for the Future and The Darkness on Diamondia.

Now, why are those not my choices also? Well, I like far-out science fiction.

Does far-out--you may wonder--mean unscientific? Does it mean that I have a fantasy orientation as distinct from scientific extrapolation. Does it mean that I like it when an author creates bizarre but impossible situations.

No--to all three questions.

Take ”The Storm”--which I include in my list. Surely, at first look, some of the ideas in it are as far-fetched as you could ask for. A ”storm” in s.p.a.ce. A planet revolving around the most fantastic sun in the known universe: S-Doradus.

I'll concentrate on that last item. When I got the idea, I wrote John W. Campbell, editor of Astounding, and asked him if it was possible to obtain any valid concept of such a planet. What would the sky look like? The plant life? etc. He wrote an astronomer friend. Among the three of us we evolved the planet as described in the story. So far as I know it's the only description in existence. And it's accurate.

There is an error in the original magazine version--and I have decided to let it stand in this present volume. Just to show you how difficult these matters are, let me describe the mistake. The astronomy texts I had available did not clearly identify which of the Magellanic Clouds contain S-Doradus. This particular point did not cross my mind during the correspondence. Suddenly, it was too late. I had to guess. Now, in those days I gave a lot of attention to the sounds of words. It was my belief that certain letters all by themselves conveyed a feeling. And so, when I wanted this feeling, or that, I would look for words with those sounds in them, and subst.i.tute them for words that might, otherwise, appear to be more suitable.

My critics presently took me apart on my use of the English language, particularly ridiculing such pa.s.sages. So I abandoned the technique. However, before I was demolished, I decided that the word Lesser had a better feeling for my purposes than Greater. So, on this basis, I placed the great and glorious S-Doradus in the Lesser Magellanic Cloud.

A few years later, while I was looking up something else in another text, there was the truth. Meaning, it was in the Greater Magellanic Cloud.

Those things happen to SF authors, alas.

Another example: I read an entire text book on the production and manufacture of steel and its by-products. I used the terminology in a little short story, t.i.tled, ”Juggernaut”. To my dismay, a reader wrote in with a puzzled appraisal, stating that I seemed to know something about the subject; but that, as a steel man himself, he had to report that he had never heard any of the terms.

It developed that I had read a book about British steel production.

A third story needing comment is ”The Ghost”. It appeared originally in Unknown Worlds, a fantasy magazine. Well, it's science fiction. The idea in it derives from the time theories of a British philosopher, named Dunne. He called his time concept serial time.

When I was age eighteen--and a would-be writer--I loved the lush style of A. Merritt, the cosmic stories of E. E. Smith, and the western yarns of Max Brand. By the time I got around to eighteen a second time (age thirty-six, for you people who can't add) I was myself a science fiction writer, and had in fact written most of the stories which were subsequently regarded as my ”Best”. I spent my third eighteen years making a study of human behavior. During this time, I wrote a non-fiction book, The Hypnotism Handbook for a psychologist. In 1962, The Violent Man, my Red China novel (not science fiction) was published by Parrar, Straus and Giroux. Another study begun in the fifties recently culminated in a second non-fiction t.i.tle, The Money Personality. A third study--on women--will have an SF novel based on it (The Secret Galactics) to be published by Prentice-Hall, Inc. in March 1974.

In 1964 I again started to write science fiction. The first of my new stories was ”The Expendables”.

I am bemused by the possibility that what I wrote with a hammer and a chisel (so to speak) in my younger days, adhering rigidly to an 800-word-scene-method writing, is actually better than what I can now do when I am so much more knowledgeable. For example, today I feel that I understand human behavior, money, women, men (though not children), exercise, dreams, and writing technique as never before. Then, I just let character happen according to the needs of the story. Now, I know at all times what I'm doing, and why. It feels better. And I really think it's going to turn out better.

Here, without further preliminary discussion, is my list of my favorites: shorter stories: (early) ”The Monater”, ”War of Nerves”, (later) ”The Ultra Man”; novelettes: (early) ”Vault of the Beast”, ”The Storm”, ”Hand of the G.o.ds”, (later) ”Silkies in s.p.a.ce”, ”The Proxy Intelligence”; novels: (early) The World of Null-A, (later) The Silkie, The Battle of Forever.

Those are my very top choices. Following close behind these are: ”Dear Pen Pal”, ”The Cataaaaa”, and ”Juggernaut” (short); ”Expendables”, ”The Ghost”, ”The Weapon Shop”, ”Secret Unattainable”, and ”The Green Forest” (novelettes); and the novels, The Weapon Shops of Isher, The Wizard of Linn and Future Glitter.

I want to make a brief comment about a couple of those choices. ”Proxy Intelligence” is a sequel to an early novella, ”Asylum”, which at one time I considered one of my best stories. I still do; but I prefer ”Proxy”. (At some future time there will be another sequel, t.i.tled ”I.Q. 10,000”--at the moment I don't quite feel up to doing that.) It is very likely that, of my Linn stories, ”Hand of the G.o.ds” is the most perfectly organized. These first Linn stories were to some extent unconsciously modeled on Robert Graves's I, Claudius--so I had pointed out to me later. But I had done such a vast amount of reading in that particular Roman period that I really thought it was Roman history. However, the Linn family tree was modeled on the Medici line of Florence. So Clane is a combination of Claudius and Lorenzo. Transferred to 12,000 A.D., the whole thing acquired a life of its own, and even won a grudging accolade from my princ.i.p.al U.S. critic Damon Knight.

The stories printed in this present volume, and the novels I have named, qualify for my personal accolade because they are farther out than the stories not included in my list.

I recommend them to all my far-out reader types.

A. E. van Vogt.

Hollywood, Calif., 1973.

DEAR PEN PAL.

Planet Aurigae II.

DEAR Pen Pal:.

When I first received your letter from the interstellar correspondence club, my impulse was to ignore it. The mood of one who has spent the last seventy planetary periods--years I suppose you would call them--in an Aurigaen prison, does not make for a pleasant exchange of letters. However, life is very boring, and so I finally settled myself to the task of writing you.

Your description of Earth sounds exciting. I would like to live there for a while, and I have a suggestion in this connection, but I won't mention it till I have developed it further.

You will have noticed the material on which this letter is written. It is a highly sensitive metal, very thin, very flexible, and I have enclosed several sheets of it for your use. Tungsten dipped in any strong acid makes an excellent mark on it. It is important to me that you do write on it, as my fingers are too hot--literally--to hold your paper without damaging it.

I'll say no more just now. It is possible you will not care to correspond with a convicted criminal, and therefore I shall leave the next move up to you. Thank you for your letter. Though you did not know its destination, it brought a moment of cheer into my drab life.

Skander.