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A. E. van
Vogt Alfred Elton van Vogt (26 April 1912 - 26 January 2000) was born on a farm in Edenburg, a Russian Mennonite community east of Gretna, Manitoba. Early in his career he wrote for true confession pulp magazines like True Story, but in the late 1930s he began writing science fiction, which he was more interested in. His first published SF story, "Black Destroyer" was published in 1939, and is considered to be one of the first works of the Golden Age of science fiction. In 1941 he left his job at the Department of National Defence to become a full-time writer, and he went on to write a large number of short stories. In 1944 he moved to Hollywood, California. In the 1950s he briefly became involved in L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics projects. Although he left Dianetics, he claimed that Hubbard's followers continued to harass him, and he stopped writing for a few years. In the 1960s Frederik Pohl convinced him to start writing again, and he wrote novels (as opposed to short stories that were later developed into novels) until his death in 2000. Best Novels: Slan ... 1946 |
| Slen
A. E. van Vogt
Slan is legendary science fiction author A. E. Van Vogt's first and
best-known novel. The story is classic golden age science fiction:
Jommy Cross is a slan, a genetically bred superhuman whose race was
created to aid humanity but is now despised by "normal" humans.
Slans are usually shot on sight, but that doesn't stop Jommy's
mother from bringing him to see the world capital of Centropolis,
the seat of power for Earth's dictator, Kier Gray. But on their
latest trip to Centropolis, the two slans are discovered, and
Jommy's mother is killed. Jommy, only 9 years old, unwittingly
becomes caught up in a plot to undermine Gray, who may be more
sympathetic to slans than the public suspects. The nonstop action
and root-for-the-underdog plot has made Slan a science fiction
favorite. |
