Search Worlds Without End

Contains:

• Vault of the Beast
• The Great Engine
• The Great Judge
• Secret Unattainable
• The Harmonizer
• Heir Unapparent
• The Second Solution
• Film Library
• Asylum

Computerworld. 1984 was projected by Orwell to be the year of Big Brother and the time of Newspeak. But 1984 is at hand and Big Brother has assumed a different and more real form. Newspeak has been replaced by the new language of the programmers and computer microchips, and the prospects of the years to come now have a more sharply defined and less human form. van Vogt, master of the innovative science fiction, has brought this vision of the days to come into focus with his new novel, the story of our world under the cold and emotionless eye of the almighty computers in conflict with the efforts of just flesh-and-blood people to achieve some way of asserting free will beyond the scope of mechanical programming.

This novelette originally appeared in Astounding Science-Fiction, April 1942. It can also be found in the anthologies The Outer Reaches: Favorite Science-Fiction Tales Chosen by Their Authors (1951), edited by August Derleth, Decade the 1940s (1975), edited by Brian W. Aldiss and Harry Harrison, and The Great Science Fiction Stories Volume 4, 1942 (1980), edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Isaac Asimov. The story is included in the collections Futures Past: The Best Short Fiction of A. E. van Vogt (1999) and Transgalactic (2006). It was incorporated in the fix-up novel The War Against the Rull (1959).

Contents:

• vii - Introduction (Destination: Universe!) - essay
• 3 - Far Centaurus - (1944) - short story
• 39 - The Monster - (1948) - short story (variant of Resurrection)
• 69 - Dormant - (1948) - short story
• 99 - Enchanted Village - (1950) - short story
• 125 - A Can of Paint - (1944) - short story
• 151 - Defense - (1947) - short story
• 155 - The Rulers - (1944) - short story
• 189 - Dear Pen Pal - (1949) - short story
• 201 - The Sound - [Rull] - (1949) - novelette
• 243 - The Search - (1943) - novelette

Contains:

• Earth's Last Fortress
• The Three Eyes of Evil

Dictator Lilgin held the entire Earth firmly under his thumb. Government-controlled science ruled: a superb communications network constantly monitored the population, and anyone who dared to question the regime or Lilgin's supremacy was instantly and tidily eradicated.

But the regime had reckoned without Professor Dun Higenroth. Higenroth had developed a radically new communications system that took no account of distance, that operated in the mind of its creator, without the need for equipment of any kind-and he intended to use it to expose Lilgin's every move to the entire world. Lilgin had to learn the secret of that system if he was to remain in power. And so the subtle and deadly process of extracting the information from Higenroth's mind began. But the full resources of the world government were to prove useless - FOR HIGENROTH HAD HIDDEN THE SECRET IN THE GENES OF A CHILD NOT YET BORN!

Also published as Tyrannopolis

Contents:

• Masters of Time - interior artwork by Edd Cartier
• 11 - Masters of Time - (1942) - novella by A. E. van Vogt
• 129 - The Changeling - [Pendrake] - (1944) - novella by A. E. van Vogt

Table of Contents:

• Humans, Go Home! - (1969) - novella
• The Reflected Men - (1971) - novelette
• All the Loving Androids - (1971) - novelette
• Laugh, Clone, Laugh - (1969) - shortstory with Forrest J. Ackerman
• Research Alpha - (1965) - novella with James H. Schmitz
• Him - (1969) - shortstory

Pendulum collects six previously unpublished short works by A.E. van Vogt, along with a non-fiction essay detailing his thoughts at witnessing the launch of Apollo Seventeen and one story from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction that he wrote in collaboration with Harlan Ellison.

Contents:

• 7 - Pendulum
• 38 - The Male Condition
• 51 - Living with Jane
• 82 - The First Rull
• 102 - Footprint Farm
• 114 - The Non-Aristotelian Detective
• 123 - The Human Operators
• 142 - The Launch of Apollo XVII

Planets for sale!

They said that Artur Blord was ruthless, a heartless manipulator whose blind lust for power would ruin the Ridge Stars.

They said he had to be eliminated because he was too much of a threat to their secret.

But just who were they, the accusers of Artur Bloyd?

And what was the secret which Artur Bloyd threatened?

Beyond the answers to these two questions lay a tortured path along which Artur Bloyd compelled himself to travel. Menaced by a terrifying array of lethal forces, Blord risked his life against alien aggressors as well as more human adversaries.

Never knowing at what moment death might overtake him, he fought to fulfill a dream; that he might one day claim the title that riches couldn't buy: Master of the Ridge Stars!

Worlds of differing probabilities and the constant search for immortality are the twin themes of this mind-toppling story. Expanding the enigmas of time, van Vogt carries the reader to the furthermost edges of past and future and outwards to a place where time loses all meaning.

It is a world of the future where women are the dominant sex and men wear chemically treated glasses to keep them in line. But Dr. Peter Grayson has accidentally discovered the key to his chains - an unnoticeable crack in his rose-colored glasses that liberates him from the tyranny of women.

Suddenly, Grayson is virile, he is powerful, women notice him, want him - he is alive!

But, unknown to him, his liberation is being monitored - by dangerous underground revolutionaries who want his powers to help overthrow the extra-planetary masters of the world, the Utt!

Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in If, July 1965. It is included in the Van Vogt collection More Than Superhuman (1971).

Centaurus is the destination of the space ship, The Hope of Man. It has been traveling through space for almost twenty years, and still has nine years of flight remaining before Centaurus will be reached. For many on board the craft, Earth has become a vague memory, while for others it is a mere dot in the vast starry reaches of space. Restlessness is evident everywhere; the people want to return to a place they know is inhabited - not continue to an unknown where life is uncertain. Mutiny seems inevitable. Captain Lesbee (the ship's main officer) knows that mutiny breeds mutiny, but what is more significant is his knowledge of Earth's possible obliteration. The one hope is Centaurus. Now more than ever, there can be no turning back. Order has to be maintained even at the price of human life.

After reaching Centaurus and finding it unsuitable to live on, The Hope of Man heads towards the next destination, the Alta system; because the ship at this time is unable to attain light speed it takes decades to travel there. Upon arriving in the system, after mutiny and treachery, The Hope of Man is now captained by Browne, a descendant of the ship's original First Officer. The Hope of Man starts to orbit Alta III in search of a new planet to settle on, but again they find it already inhabited and come under attack from the occupants. During this time we see a struggle for power by various groups. Control changes quickly from one character to another until the arrival of the ship's owner, Avil Hewitt. The novel concludes with Hewitt in charge and the ship finding many planets to inhabit.

Created and adapted from 3 short stories to form a novel. The 3 short stores used were:

• Centaurus II 1947
• Rogue Ship 1950
• The Expendables 1963

Van Vogt's was first to coin the term fixup for this approach.

In the 1940s, the Golden Age of science fiction flowered in the magazine Astounding. Editor John W. Campbell, Jr., discovered and promoted great new writers such as Isaac Asimov in New York, Robert A. Heinlein in California, and A.E. van Vogt in Canada, whose novel Slan was one of the basic works of the era. Throughout the forties and into the fifties Slan was considered the single most important SF novel, the one great book that everyone had to read. Many SF fans rallied to the cry, "Fans are slans."

Today it remains a monument to pulp SF adventure, filled with constant action and a cornucopia of ideas. And maybe fans really are slans. Read it and see for yourself.

The Anarchistic Colossus... takes place in a future Earth where anarchy has become a way of life - it is, however, a very special branch of anarchy, one that is controlled by the mysterious Kirlian computers... and one that must deal with a race of aliens who look upon the conquest of Earth as part of a very entertaining game...

For thousands of years, mankind had survived in leisure behind the barrier. In miniature form, men had evolved a physiology and a philosophy of peace and contemplation. Modyun was to be the first to enlarge his body to the massive proportions of ancient times and then to go out to explore the world where animal-men had established their realms. His quest was to lead him to a darkness he had never expected and an uncertain future with which humanity might not be able to cope.

Contents:

• [1] - A Statement to Science Fiction Readers - essay by Donald A. Wollheim
• [2] - The Book of van Vogt (frontispiece) - interior artwork by Jack Gaughan
• 7 - The Timed Clock - (1972) - short story
• 21 - The Confession - (1972) - short story
• 37 - The Rat and the Snake - (1971) - short story
• 41 - The Barbarian - [Clane] - (1947) - novelette
• 79 - Ersatz Eternal - (1972) - short story
• 85 - The Sound of Wild Laughter - (1972) - novelette
• 137 - Lost: Fifty Suns - [Mixed Men] - (1952) - novella

Contents:

• The Replicators - (1965)
• The First Martian - (1951)
• The Purpose - (1945)
• The Earth Killers - (1949)
• The Cataaaaa - (1947)
• Automaton - (1950)
• Itself! - (1963)
• Process - (1950)
• Not the First - (1941)
• Fulfillment - (1951)
• Ship of Darkness - (1948)
• The Ultra Man - (1966)

Contains:

• The Gryb
• Humans, Go Home!
• The Problem Professor
• The Invisibility Gambit
• Rebirth: Earth
• The Star-Saint

Although 30 light years distant, Mittend was Earth's nearest habitable planet. So the bored young heir, Steven Masters, contrived to join the first manned expedition just for a bit of excitment.......When he found himself suddenly back on Earth in another man's body, it was more than he had expected. What then followed was a veritable kaleidoscope of events that was to involve him in multiple personalities, in more expeditions to Mittend, and the affairs of the entity called Mother for whom Mittend itself was just a means to an end----and Steven Masters the handy next step in a galactic program.

The colonies of Fifty Suns, hidden for eons in an ocean of stars, are finally traced by the warship, Star Cluster, of Imperial Earth. Torn By rebellion, Fifty Suns must crush the titanic Earth forces or submit to the domination of the Great Galactic Union. It falls to one man, Peter Maltby, brilliant leader of the feared Mixed Men, to unite the warring factions of his galaxy and guide them to victory.

But first he must resolve his own crossed loyalties. For Captain Maltby of Fifty Suns is also the passionate lover of Lady Laurr, Grand Commander of the Star Cluster, warrior of Imperial Earth...

also published as Mission to the Stars

Contains:

• The Proxy Intelligence
• The Problem Professor
• Rebirth: Earth
• The Gryb
• The Invisibility Gambit
• The Star-Saint

Taking its inspiration from the Celtic legend of the Selkie the novel describes a race of apparent humans with the ability to change into other forms. One, like the Selkie of legend, can live underwater. Another can survive and travel unprotected in outer space. In all three forms the Silkies can wield mental powers over energy to some degree.

After a prologue which purports to explain the origin of the Silkies as an experiment in genetic manipulation, the action moves forward over a hundred years to a future in which the Silkies are numerous and live on Earth. Humanity has assimilated them by means of the Special People, who can establish telepathic rapport with the Silkies. All Silkies are male, and most are married to women of the Special People. They are employed as police in space, and most are comfortable with that role. One dedicated Silkie, Nat Cemp, encounters three different alien races, and with each encounter he gains more powers and learns more about the true nature of the Silkies, and of the Universe.

An all-time classic space saga, The Voyage of the Space Beagle is one of the pinnacles of Golden Age SF, an influence on generations of stories. An episodic novel filled with surprises and provocative ideas, this is the story of a great exploration ship sent out into the unknown reaches of space on a long mission of discovery. They encounter several terrifying alien species, including the Ix, who lay their eggs in human bodies, which then devour the humans from within when they hatch. This is one of the most entertaining and gripping stories in all of classic SF.

"Man has conquered space and spread throughout the galaxy. Many civilizations of widely varied life forms on several thousand planets are joined in a vast confederation whose existence is threatened by one paranoid race--the Rull. A form so alien that it may have come from some other galaxy, the Rull are man's equal in intelligence and they have a technology which may be superior. Their space-ship fleets have captured several hundred planets, and the final Armageddon which will decide man's fate and that of his galaxy is imminent.

"Scientist Trevor Jamieson, an advance scout in this war of the worlds, ranges the Milky Way as he tries to formulate a last-ditch plan of defense. Of necessity, he plays a lone hand. The Rulls can change their outward appearance at will, and anyone--even his closest friends and colleagues--may be Rull spies. Jamieson fights preliminary skirmishes on several planets thousands of light-years from home.

"At the end he meets the Rull commander in a man-to-Rull duel in which no holds are barred and the weapons used are the most sophisticated instruments of warfare that man and Rull (and Van Vogt) have yet devised."

This novel is based on stories which originally appeared in Astounding Science Fiction Magazine under the following titles:

• "Repetition", 1940
• "Cooperate or Else", 1942
• "The Second Solution", 1942
• "The Rull", 1948
• "The Sound", 1950"

Expanded from a story published in Astounding Science Fiction in 1944.

IT WASN'T A BIRD - BUT IT COULDN'T BE A MAN! Lt. William Kenlon had watched the incredible creature circling the submarine Sea Serpent in the darkness of the night, and he could barely believe what he saw.The giant winged monster was human-and it was intent on some purpose that involved the sub and its crew. Then the creature landed-and suddenly, impossibly, the Sea Serpent was in another world. A world of the far future; where the land was uninhabitable and humanity as Kenlon knew it had died out. A world in which the strange bird-men of the air warred with the even stranger denizens of the sea for domination. And in that bizarre battle for survival, the men from the 20th century were the vital factor!

Table of Contents:

• The Man in the Labyrinth - essay by Joe Rico
• Alfred E. van Vogt - essay by Hal Clement
• Black Destroyer - (1939) - novelette
• The Monster - (1948) - short story
• Film Library - (1946) - novelette
• Enchanted Village - (1950) - short story
• Asylum - (1942) - novella
• Vault of the Beast - (1940) - novelette
• The Ghost - (1942) - novelette
• The Rull - [Rull] - (1948) - novelette
• Recruiting Station - (1942) - novella
• A Can of Paint - (1944) - short story
• The Search - (1943) - novelette
• Dear Pen Pal - (1949) - short story
• The Harmonizer - (1944) - short story
• The Great Judge - (1948) - short story
• Far Centaurus - (1944) - short story
• Secret Unattainable - (1942) - novella
• Future Perfect - (1973) - short story
• The Great Engine - (1943) - novelette
• Dormant - (1948) - short story
• The Sound - (1949) - novelette
• The Rulers - (1944) - short story
• Final Command - (1949) - short story
• War of Nerves - (1950) - novelette
• Don't Hold Your Breath - (1973) - short story
• Discord in Scarlet - (1939) - novelette
• Afterword - essay by Rick Katze

Earth's Last Fortress

It looked like a perfectly innocent store front, a volunteer enrollment office for young idealists who wanted to help the desperate forces of a young democracy overseas win their civil war. The young girl who sat at the desk inside was attractive, sympathetic, and would see that you got your passage safely.

Lost in Space

Commodore Ted Wilson's intuition told him right! He should never have let his fiancee, Alice Hemingway, take off on Space Liner 79 - the flight that fate had singled out to change the destiny of the galaxy!

Empire of the Atom

Atomic War had destroyed the world. History and records had been lost; the few war-shocked people who were left could not even recall what had started the destruction. But even these desperate circumstances could not change the basic nature of man.

Out of the still-smoking ruins came one who was stronger and more ruthless than the rest. From his plans to rule the universe grew the seeds of the last great war of all, the one that would finally wipe man off the face of Earth.

Space Station # 1

The Space Station floated up out of the Big Dark. Lieutenant Corriston had come to see its marvels, but he soon found himself trapped in unexpected terrors.

The grim reality was that an unknown, unsuspected outer space power had usurped control of the artificial moon. A beautiful woman had disappeared; passengers were being fleeced and enslaved; and, using fantastic disguises, imposters from - SOMEWHERE - were using the station for their own mysterious ends.

One Against Eternity

Did their world rest on a pariah's shoulders? Robert Hedrock had been declared a kill-on-sight outcast, even by those who had once been his own faction. Neither they not their empress foe suspected that he alone could provide the solution to their deadliest cosmic crisis.

The Other Side of Here

A flick of the wrist - and whole cities plunged into a void of lifelessness. Steve Waldron plunged to the very center of a dead city and gaped at a truth he could not believe. What could he do against so fearsome a force that threatened to engulf the whole nation?

Siege of the Unseen

THE THREE EYES OF EVIL

"The crash was over, the car on its side. Slade sprawled dizzily on his back, while something warm trickled from his forehead into his left eye. He wiped it away, and saw with a start that it was blood. The skin was torn raggedly..."

"A third eye was plainly visible. The eyelid of it was closed by a surplus of sticky matter, but abruptly he grew aware that it was pulsing with a vague perception of light..."

At first it was a grotesque discovery, when the accident revealed that young businessman Michael Slade was a bizarre freak -- a man with three eyes. But the impact of what it meant to see with three eyes was even more macabre. For Slade, that shocking third eye was his entry into a strange new dimension of terror and adventure -- a fearful new world that would wrap itself about him forever!

The World Swappers

The inhabited galaxy was caught in the crushing vice of a struggle for power. The political titans of the planets of mankind were making their bids for supremacy.

The contestants: Cornice, man of strange powers, authority in the spheres of the intellect; and Bassett, man of money-power, financial and business wizard.

As the association of human worlds drew near the teetering edge of internal revolutions; one of these men would be in a position to triumph. The only thing that neither side could foresee was that there were Others hovering among the stars, loo ling for new worlds to conquer!

The Twisted Men

Contains the following novelettes:

• The Twisted Men (1950)
• The Star-Saint (1951)
• The Earth Killers (1949)

One of Our Asteroids is Missing

They stole his world and his name.

The Weapon Shops of Isher

By the year 4784, the Empire of Isher ruled the universe and an impetuous willful girl ruled the empire. Into this epoch, the most scientifically powerful period humanity ever knew, a time-staggering bombshell was tossed. It came in the form of a man from today, a victim of a conflict which was as old as that empire and which now threatened to be the end of both Isher and its worlds.

Gateway to Elsewhere

Tony Gregg was just an ordinary everyday American until the day he came into possession of an old Barkut coin. He knew that it was more than just a collector's curio because there was no such place on any map of Earth, past or present. He learned then that it could be used as a key - a key to a GATEWAY TO ELSEWHERE.

The World of Null-A

It is the year 2650 and Earth has become a world of non-Aristotelianism, or Null-A. This is the story of Gilbert Gosseyn, who lives in that future world where the Games Machine, made up of twenty-five thousand electronic brains, sets the course of people's lives. Gosseyn isn't even sure of his own identity, but realizes he has some remarkable abilities and sets out to use them to discover who has made him a pawn in an interstellar plot.

The Universe Maker

Did you ever hear of the Inter-Time Society for Psychological Adjustments? Well, neither had Morton Cargill in 1953 when he accidentally killed a girl. A year later that very girl turned up, apparently alive, and announced that the mysterious society had condemned him to death! Cargill's astounding adventures began when he escaped the execution chamber to find himself in the far future. Three conflicting societies were hunting for him, to use him in their own desperate schemes. There were the Floaters, a nation of aerial vagabonds. There were the Tweeners, who dreamed of world conquest. And finally, interwoven through everything, were the sinister figures of the Shadow Men-supermen without visible substance.

The novel concerns adventures of a mutant genius in a barbaric future where spaceships and other forms of advanced technology are used without being understood, most knowledge having been destroyed in an atomic war with an alien species long before the opening of the story.

A war between humanity and an extraterrestrial race known as the Riss had led to the decay of the solar system, and the mutated human genius Clane Linn had defeated the hordes of the barbarian chief Czinczar, as described in the prequel. Linn repudiated Czinczar's exhortation to usurp control of the Linn Empire. After realizing the technological retardation of humanity, he conceives a plan to go on an interstellar expedition in search of technological restoration, to eventually rescue humanity.

A space vehicle from Earth's distant future is trapped in the 18th Century, lands in the Caribbean Sea, and it's crew boards the pirate ship Orinda. The unwitting pirate, Captain Fletcher, must cope with the uncanny problems posed by time-displacement, an alien "cabin boy," captives sentenced to walk the plank who drown but do not die, and an ominous battleship that had sneaked in from a differnt point in the galaxy.

How the "cabin boy" struggles to restore his ship, flight off the enemy battleship, and prevent Earth's history from being irrevocably changed, makes for a wonderful adventure that blends futuistic time-travel with the swashbuckling excitement of 18th-Century pirates.

The god Ptath is flung into the far future by a deadly rival and given the mind of a 20th century man. Stranded in this alien world, he must fight to regain his powers before the rival goddess sends the world spinning into chaos and darkness.

Originally appeared in Ace Double D-31 (1953).

Did you ever hear of the Inter-Time Society for Psychological Adjustments? Well, neither had Morton Cargill in 1953 when he accidentally killed a girl. A year later that very girl turned up, apparently alive, and announced that the mysterious society had condemned him to death! Cargill's astounding adventures began when he escaped the execution chamber to find himself in the far future. Three conflicting societies were hunting for him, to use him in their own desperate schemes. There were the Floaters, a nation of aerial vagabonds. There were the Tweeners, who dreamed of world conquest. And finally, interwoven through everything, were the sinister figures of the Shadow Men-supermen without visible substance.

One of the finest writers in the golden age of science fiction--and inventor of the intricatley plotted form of SF known as the "space opera"--offers the story of a flawed hero possessing almost superhuman strength. When his wife is kidnapped, war veteran Jim Pendrake embarks upon a search that takes him to a lost colony on the moon--and a secret, sinister society.

Also published as Moonbeast.

A thrilling tale of a struggle to save Earth from Armageddon, written by one of the crucial authors of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Disaster is quickly approaching and the only ones who know of it are Allison Stephens and a group of ancient sinister aliens. Now the aliens plan to abandon Earth and seek a new home.

Also published as "The Mating Cry" and "The Undercover Aliens"

David Marin risks his career to defend Wade Trask, a scientist being tried for sedition, but when Trask switches their brains, Marin finds himself branded an enemy of the state.

Grandmaster A. E. Van Vogt was one of the giants of the Golden Age of classic SF, the 1940s. Of his masterpieces, The World of Null-A is most famous and most influential. It was the first major trade SF hardcover ever, published in 1949, and has been in print in various editions ever since. The careers of Philip K. Dick, Keith Laumer, Alfred Bester, Charles Harness, and Philip Jose Farmer were created or influenced by The World of Null-A. It is required reading for anyone who wishes to know the canon of SF classics.

Has also been published under the title: The Pawns of Null-A.

In this sequel to World of Null-A, Gilbert Gosseyn must learn to use both his brains and function in various bodies in order to save the universe from Enrothe Red.

The novel is a continuation of the adventures of Gilbert Gosseyn from the The World of Null-A and The Pawns of Null-A.

Gilbert Gosseyn wakes to find he is Gosseyn Three, in telepathic contract with Gosseyn Two. One of the spare bodies used in his reincarnation machinery was found and forced to life by the approach of an immense space fleet from another galaxy, manned by the primordial ancestors of man, gripped in an eon-long war with mutants equally old. The space-fleet is ruled by an unstable youngster who seems to possess many of the same powers, including a double-brain, as Gosseyn.

Gosseyn must school the youth in Null-A sanity, save the Earth from a cabal of gangsters and businessmen who oppose the return of the Games Machine, discover the secret reasons behind the endless horrifying war, and stop the intrigues of Enro the Red to return to power.

With the publication, in the July 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction magazine, of the story Seesaw, van Vogt began unfolding the complex tale of the oppressive Empire of Isher and the mysterious Weapon Shops. This volume, The Weapon Shops of Isher, includes the first three parts of the saga and introduces perhaps the most famous political slogan of science fiction: The Right to Buy Weapons is the Right to Be Free. Born at the height of Nazi conquest, the Isher stories suggested that an oppressive government could never completely subjugate its own citizens if they were well armed. The audience appeal was immediate and has endured long beyond other stories of alien invasion, global conflict and post war nuclear angst.

Imagine: a future empire of super-science, so strong that it had lasted thousands of years, so vast that it encompassed the entire Solar System, and whose ruler was a glamorous and thoroughly willful young woman. Yet, this tremendous set-up was completely unable to cope with the machinations of one solitary outlaw.

That man was the amazing Robert Hedrock, and though Hedrock had been declared a kill-on-sight outcast even by those who had once been his own faction, neither they nor their empress foe suspected that he alone could provide the solution to their deadliest cosmic crisis.