#aevanvogt — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #aevanvogt, aggregated by home.social.
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This was my absolute favourite book for part of my childhood. Does it hold up? Not really, sadly, as today I see clunky prose and dialogue, a ridiculously arrogant protagonist in an all-male cast, and repetitive action. Oddly I've read other #AEvanVogt in recent years and enjoyed them more - I appreciate his surreal side these days, which isn't featured so strongly here. This book is apparently important to the history of #SciFi , as the 1939 short story Black Destroyer which was expanded into this novel is considered by some the start of the genre's Golden Age, so that adds interest, as does the nostalgic factor of trying to remember exactly how this story plunged so deeply into my brain when I first encountered it. For all its flaws, there is *something* mind expanding and exciting here in its story of human explorers meeting increasingly powerful and threatening alien races. I can't go back to who I was when I loved this book, but it was still fascinating to revisit. #Bookstodon @bookstodon
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#FinishedReading this slim volume of early 50s #SciFi by #AEVanVogt . The goofy title and stories of visiting inhabitable Mars and Venus makes this look like super old fashioned stuff, but that, like much else in this book, is an illusion. This is pure Cold War paranoia, with disorienting temporal and character shifts, mind control drugs, sinister conspiracies etc, and in general this feels like a bridge to the high points of Philip K Dick. #Bookstodon @bookstodon
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Resale shop find. $1.34.
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#AEVanVogt
#TheWeaponMakers -
3/5 (Average)
A. E. van Vogt spins a great space opera in this short (157) page volume. Mission to the Stars–as it was later known–was originally published under the name The Mixed Men.
Here is a brief plot summary: Lady Gloria Laurr, Grand Captain of the Earth Space ship Star Cluster, is sent to investigate the renegade civilization (called the Fifty Suns) of Dellians, non-Dellians, and Mixed Men in the Greater Magellanic Cloud. The Mixed Men are second class citizens in the Fifty Suns civilization and have to weigh the benefits and disadvantages of declaring the presence of their culture to the Earth vessel. Maltby, the hereditary leader of the superhuman Mixed Men and also an officer in the Fifty Suns space fleet is confronted with a series of moral choices. I will not give away anymore of the plot but it involves a “forced” (in an interesting way) romantic element.
A. E. van Vogt writes with admirable prose for the time (especially the introductory chapter). I was also very impressed with his use of female characters – most importantly the Lady Gloria Laurr.
Albeit, the two main characters, Gloria and Maltby aren’t particularly well rounded but then again rarely do we find well rounded characters in space opera of this time.
Also, the uniqueness of Gloria’s position as a strong female character in sci-fi of the time is reduced substantially by the end – i.e. Vogt eventually describes her as a “career woman” who “needs a husband”. That said the far future technology is fantastic, the plot moves quickly (a little too quickly in some places to the detriment of interesting detail and depth), the dialogue is almost always pretty weak, and sadly Vogt skimps on many interesting battle scenes involving the powerful Earth ship Star Cluster. All in all, this was a quick, fun, light, and interesting read.
#aEVanVogt #bookReviews #scienceFiction #space #spaceOpera #spaceships