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Null-A #1
The World of Null-A
The classic novel of non-Aristotelian logic and the coming race of supermen
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.
Science Fiction Grandmaster A. E. van Vogt was one of the giants of the 1940s, the Golden Age of classic SF. Of his masterpieces, The World of Null-A is his most famous and most influential. Published in 1949 it was the first major trade SF hardcover, and has been in print in various editions ever since.
The entire 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, and so it is required reading for anyone who wishes to know the canon of SF classics.
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.
Science Fiction Grandmaster A. E. van Vogt was one of the giants of the 1940s, the Golden Age of classic SF. Of his masterpieces, The World of Null-A is his most famous and most influential. Published in 1949 it was the first major trade SF hardcover, and has been in print in various editions ever since.
The entire 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, and so it is required reading for anyone who wishes to know the canon of SF classics.
272 pages, paper
First published January 1, 1945
About the author
A.E. van Vogt
573 books412 followersAlfred Elton van Vogt was a Canadian-born science fiction author regarded by some as one of the most popular and complex science fiction writers of the mid-twentieth century—the "Golden Age" of the genre.
van Vogt was born to Russian Mennonite family. Until he was four years old, van Vogt and his family spoke only a dialect of Low German in the home.
He began his writing career with 'true story' romances, but then moved to writing science fiction, a field he identified with. His first story was Black Destroyer, that appeared as the front cover story for the July 1939 edtion of the popular "Astounding Science Fiction" magazine.
van Vogt was born to Russian Mennonite family. Until he was four years old, van Vogt and his family spoke only a dialect of Low German in the home.
He began his writing career with 'true story' romances, but then moved to writing science fiction, a field he identified with. His first story was Black Destroyer, that appeared as the front cover story for the July 1939 edtion of the popular "Astounding Science Fiction" magazine.
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March 24, 2024
A WONDER! Here's the Audiobook:
https://youtu.be/vIan9Ajykqg
***
We ALL live in a Null-A World now. Where the good old Aristotelian values have begun to be TRASHED.
Virtues such as doing good, and being kind in our acts were always retained as necessary to.our self-preservation - through accelerated conditioning - and put foremost after WWIII.
But Gilbert Gosseyn stumbles upon a plot in high places to trash universal world peace, so that Evil may again rule!
Just so, in my retirement years, my pet project is to keep Goodness alive -
Even in This Brave New World of a new evil Null-A.
***
Pardon me for asking, but aren’t we ALL - in this happy clan of GR omni-readers - becoming little Null-A Pioneers?
For like Gilbert Gosseyn - no matter how he slices and dices this big old Multiverse we now call home - the whole thing just keeps getting, as Alice said deep down in the rabbit hole... “Curiouser and curiouser!”
I know, I haven't finished the book. I'm catching up now. But does that disqualify me?
You see, living mostly in the twentieth century, I wanted to resign from the Whole Rat Race when I retired at the beginning of this twenty-first.
It was all just getting too fast and crazy for little old slowpoke me. I felt just like poor Gilbert!
I wanted to retreat into my own shell...
But now even THAT’s getting curiouser and curiouser, because now in my seventies I find if I stop for plenty of pit stops in my little shell, I can Eventually complete the current lap of this race to cope.
Whew (gasp, gasp)...
Dead last of course, but The End’s in Sight!
So now, it’s the “curiousest” of all...
Because if old Gil can get promoted at the midpoint of the book to the Ruling Party of the Universe - maybe there’s some little hope in it all for me... though I cringe at the thought.
So, when this book begins, Planet Earth is preparing for the great Universal Olympic Games, having long since clambered up atop the ruins of World War III to rebuild a United Ultramodern Earth - and after that, a United Federation of The Solar System.
Gilbert Gosseyn is a youthful, gung-ho competitor in the Games - until his identity is stolen and he falls precipitously into an identical but weirdly different Universe of Evil.
Nothing will henceforth be the same for him, for the entire Galaxy has fallen on its head.
And he’s a fugitive from the official world of the Big Brain - which controls everything now. Ugly stuff.
***
So it’s a fantastically woke romp through an utterly schizoid Future!
And the nonstop action just doesn’t QUIT.
Now, I’m an old guy, still thriving primarily because of his efficient hypertension meds...
And this wildly enervating three-ring circus warned my ancient heart that a “man cannot bear too much (UN)reality!”
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fantastically colourful and complex, and masterfully well-written yarn. But the Future it portrays is just “no country for Old Men!”
No sirree.
If you’re a young - a YA especially - reader, though, I think you’ll LOVE it. Even though it was written at the outset of the Golden Age of Sci-fi, in the 1940’s, its informing theories are Absolutely in sync with 21st century physics - as far as this layman can tell.
And it would make a rollicking good tale to get wrapped up in, as you lazily lounge in a comfy recliner, sipping on a hot toddy, this winter - watching the hurried world go by!
Guaranteed.
***
But fiction, folks, is just fiction, and enough is enough.
Because there’s no real value here. Value is ersatz in such an evil world.
So let’s remember the Creator in all our possible worlds:
INCLUDING the old Aristotelian Values that make us want to worship our God and thank him for our VALUES!
https://youtu.be/vIan9Ajykqg
***
We ALL live in a Null-A World now. Where the good old Aristotelian values have begun to be TRASHED.
Virtues such as doing good, and being kind in our acts were always retained as necessary to.our self-preservation - through accelerated conditioning - and put foremost after WWIII.
But Gilbert Gosseyn stumbles upon a plot in high places to trash universal world peace, so that Evil may again rule!
Just so, in my retirement years, my pet project is to keep Goodness alive -
Even in This Brave New World of a new evil Null-A.
***
Pardon me for asking, but aren’t we ALL - in this happy clan of GR omni-readers - becoming little Null-A Pioneers?
For like Gilbert Gosseyn - no matter how he slices and dices this big old Multiverse we now call home - the whole thing just keeps getting, as Alice said deep down in the rabbit hole... “Curiouser and curiouser!”
I know, I haven't finished the book. I'm catching up now. But does that disqualify me?
You see, living mostly in the twentieth century, I wanted to resign from the Whole Rat Race when I retired at the beginning of this twenty-first.
It was all just getting too fast and crazy for little old slowpoke me. I felt just like poor Gilbert!
I wanted to retreat into my own shell...
But now even THAT’s getting curiouser and curiouser, because now in my seventies I find if I stop for plenty of pit stops in my little shell, I can Eventually complete the current lap of this race to cope.
Whew (gasp, gasp)...
Dead last of course, but The End’s in Sight!
So now, it’s the “curiousest” of all...
Because if old Gil can get promoted at the midpoint of the book to the Ruling Party of the Universe - maybe there’s some little hope in it all for me... though I cringe at the thought.
So, when this book begins, Planet Earth is preparing for the great Universal Olympic Games, having long since clambered up atop the ruins of World War III to rebuild a United Ultramodern Earth - and after that, a United Federation of The Solar System.
Gilbert Gosseyn is a youthful, gung-ho competitor in the Games - until his identity is stolen and he falls precipitously into an identical but weirdly different Universe of Evil.
Nothing will henceforth be the same for him, for the entire Galaxy has fallen on its head.
And he’s a fugitive from the official world of the Big Brain - which controls everything now. Ugly stuff.
***
So it’s a fantastically woke romp through an utterly schizoid Future!
And the nonstop action just doesn’t QUIT.
Now, I’m an old guy, still thriving primarily because of his efficient hypertension meds...
And this wildly enervating three-ring circus warned my ancient heart that a “man cannot bear too much (UN)reality!”
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fantastically colourful and complex, and masterfully well-written yarn. But the Future it portrays is just “no country for Old Men!”
No sirree.
If you’re a young - a YA especially - reader, though, I think you’ll LOVE it. Even though it was written at the outset of the Golden Age of Sci-fi, in the 1940’s, its informing theories are Absolutely in sync with 21st century physics - as far as this layman can tell.
And it would make a rollicking good tale to get wrapped up in, as you lazily lounge in a comfy recliner, sipping on a hot toddy, this winter - watching the hurried world go by!
Guaranteed.
***
But fiction, folks, is just fiction, and enough is enough.
Because there’s no real value here. Value is ersatz in such an evil world.
So let’s remember the Creator in all our possible worlds:
INCLUDING the old Aristotelian Values that make us want to worship our God and thank him for our VALUES!
July 20, 2009
An extremely strange occurrence. Many years ago, when I was in my early teens, I read A.E. van Vogt's World of Null-A, which is about as good as most of A.E. van Vogt's oeuvre - that is to say, not very good at all. I was however struck by his preface, where he boasted that this novel, all by itself, had more or less established the French SF market. Even at age 14, I was puzzled. Why?
Much later, I discovered that van Vogt's unimpressive book had in fact been translated by Boris Vian, author of the immortal L'Ecume des Jours, and a friend of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Perhaps some Vian scholar has found out why he did it (money trouble?) and if so I would be interested to hear the story! Whatever the explanation, this is one of those very rare occurrences where the translation is better than the original - the writing is perfectly OK, and even goodish in places. Since the original plot was in fact quite interesting (A.E. van Vogt always had ideas, he just couldn't write them down), the final result is a decent piece of work, and my 35 year old curiosity about how this could have been such a success was finally satisfied.
Vian had a wicked sense of humour, and loved teasing people. It's little short of miraculous that Sartre, at least according to what I've read, wasn't offended by the "Jean-Sol Partre" character in L'Ecume des Jours and appreciated the joke. I have this fantasy of Vian giving his translation of van Vogt to some lion of the French literary world as a Christmas present, just to see how they would react. "Here you are, Albert, I thought you would like it!" "Oh, thank you, it's... ah... quite different from the things I usually read, but I'm sure I will!" Probably never happened though :)
_________________________________
For people (I am a typical example of the species) who require at least one bit of useless trivia each day, I will reveal that this book is referenced in Georges Perec's La Disparition, under a transparent pseudonym. Page 220 of the French edition:
Much later, I discovered that van Vogt's unimpressive book had in fact been translated by Boris Vian, author of the immortal L'Ecume des Jours, and a friend of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Perhaps some Vian scholar has found out why he did it (money trouble?) and if so I would be interested to hear the story! Whatever the explanation, this is one of those very rare occurrences where the translation is better than the original - the writing is perfectly OK, and even goodish in places. Since the original plot was in fact quite interesting (A.E. van Vogt always had ideas, he just couldn't write them down), the final result is a decent piece of work, and my 35 year old curiosity about how this could have been such a success was finally satisfied.
Vian had a wicked sense of humour, and loved teasing people. It's little short of miraculous that Sartre, at least according to what I've read, wasn't offended by the "Jean-Sol Partre" character in L'Ecume des Jours and appreciated the joke. I have this fantasy of Vian giving his translation of van Vogt to some lion of the French literary world as a Christmas present, just to see how they would react. "Here you are, Albert, I thought you would like it!" "Oh, thank you, it's... ah... quite different from the things I usually read, but I'm sure I will!" Probably never happened though :)
_________________________________
For people (I am a typical example of the species) who require at least one bit of useless trivia each day, I will reveal that this book is referenced in Georges Perec's La Disparition, under a transparent pseudonym. Page 220 of the French edition:
Un roman? Anton Voyl n'avait-il pas dit un jour qu'un roman donnait la solution? Un flot brouillon, tourbouillonant d'imaginations s'imposa soudain à lui: Moby Dick? Malcolm Lowry? La Saga du Non-A, par Van Vogt?La Saga du Non-A... geddit?
July 12, 2020
I've read this three times now. Every time I do, it feels like I'm reading it for the first time. So weird, yet I really like it. It is such a strange book; like reading a standard classic from a parallel universe. "Is this what a great novel is like in your world?" In mine it's all wrong; sloppy disjointed, illogical, but if you put yourself in that other world (van's world), it is a master piece of scifi literature.
It is inspired by the pseudoscience work "Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics" (1933) by Alfred Korzybski' of the theory of General Semantics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General... Yet, Van Vogt does not bog the story down on theory, but rather merely uses the system as a vehicle to anchor his story to, the same way PKD used 'Game Theory' for his 1955 novel "Solar Lottery".
I love this novel. I really do. And Players of Null-A, its sequel, for some reason, is even better. Really.
It is inspired by the pseudoscience work "Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics" (1933) by Alfred Korzybski' of the theory of General Semantics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General... Yet, Van Vogt does not bog the story down on theory, but rather merely uses the system as a vehicle to anchor his story to, the same way PKD used 'Game Theory' for his 1955 novel "Solar Lottery".
I love this novel. I really do. And Players of Null-A, its sequel, for some reason, is even better. Really.
September 6, 2010
4.0 stars. One of the better novels by A. E. Van Vogt and certainly one of his most famous. Big ideas, cool concepts and a fast paced plot. Above average science fiction from the Golden Age.
Nominee: Retro Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction novel.
Nominee: Retro Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction novel.
March 7, 2009
An extremely strange occurrence. Many years ago, when I was in my early teens, I read A.E. van Vogt's World of Null-A, which is about as good as most of A.E. van Vogt's oeuvre - that is to say, not very good at all. I was however struck by his preface, where he boasted that this novel, all by itself, had more or less established the French SF market. Even at age 14, I was puzzled. Why?
Much later, I discovered that van Vogt's unimpressive book had in fact been translated by Boris Vian, author of the immortal L'Ecume des Jours, and a friend of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Perhaps some Vian scholar has found out why he did it (money trouble?) and if so I would be interested to hear the story! Whatever the explanation, this is one of those very rare occurrences where the translation is better than the original - the writing is perfectly OK, and even goodish in places. Since the original plot was in fact quite interesting (A.E. van Vogt always had ideas, he just couldn't write them down), the final result is a decent piece of work, and my 35 year old curiosity about how this could have been such a success was finally satisfied.
Vian had a wicked sense of humour, and loved teasing people. It's little short of miraculous that Sartre, at least according to what I've read, wasn't offended by the "Jean-Sol Partre" character in L'Ecume des Jours and appreciated the joke. I have this fantasy of Vian giving his translation of van Vogt to some lion of the French literary world as a Christmas present, just to see how they would react. "Here you are, Albert, I thought you would like it!" "Oh, thank you, it's... ah... quite different from the things I usually read, but I'm sure I will!" Probably never happened though :)
Much later, I discovered that van Vogt's unimpressive book had in fact been translated by Boris Vian, author of the immortal L'Ecume des Jours, and a friend of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Perhaps some Vian scholar has found out why he did it (money trouble?) and if so I would be interested to hear the story! Whatever the explanation, this is one of those very rare occurrences where the translation is better than the original - the writing is perfectly OK, and even goodish in places. Since the original plot was in fact quite interesting (A.E. van Vogt always had ideas, he just couldn't write them down), the final result is a decent piece of work, and my 35 year old curiosity about how this could have been such a success was finally satisfied.
Vian had a wicked sense of humour, and loved teasing people. It's little short of miraculous that Sartre, at least according to what I've read, wasn't offended by the "Jean-Sol Partre" character in L'Ecume des Jours and appreciated the joke. I have this fantasy of Vian giving his translation of van Vogt to some lion of the French literary world as a Christmas present, just to see how they would react. "Here you are, Albert, I thought you would like it!" "Oh, thank you, it's... ah... quite different from the things I usually read, but I'm sure I will!" Probably never happened though :)
January 22, 2012
Science fiction writer A. E. van Vogt liked big ideas. In the 1950's he became head of fellow sf writer L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics Institute, the secular precursor to the Church of Scientology. When Hubbard's institute failed within a year, van Vogt and his wife formed their own institute and kept it going for the entire decade.
Earlier, the big idea that captivated van Vogt was the Gerneral Semantics program of the Polish count Alfred Korzybski, a program defined in the count's 800 page self - published book Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics.(1933). This was a grand system intended to make people think more clearly, reach better decisions, and create a better world. Much of General Semantics seems like common sense, but the insistence on its "science" is shaky and always prompted as many detractors as followers. Van Vogt was enthusiastically among the latter. Martin Gardner is among those who dismiss the enterprise as "pseudo-science," but there is a still an Institute of General Semantics in Chicago. Of course there is also an International Center of Theosophy, and London is home to the Swedenborg Foundation. Sorry to sound dismissive but I am.
True Believer van Vogt used Kozybski's ideas as the underlying philosophy of his breakthrough novel The World of Null A and two sequels, one of which has only been published in France. (Van Vogt, while not as popular as Jerry Lewis, is highly regarded in France.) The story originally appeared serialized in 1945 in Astounding Stories and was published, in hardback and to general acclaim, in 1948. Van Vogt revised the novel again and wrote a new introduction in 1980.
"Null A" is shorthand for non-Aristotelian, and in his 1980 introduction van Vogt lays out how integral Korsybki's ideas are to the novel. I will have to take his word for it. The novel reads like a dated sf adventure story involving an intergalactic plot to take over the Sol System. Our hero, Gilbert Gosseyn has lost his identity but is somehow central to the saving the earth. Clunky prose does nothing to help the storytelling. In his introduction, van Vogt makes a statement that is either poorly phrased or breathtaking in its hubris:
I cannot at the moment recall a novel written prior to Null-A that had a deeper meaning than that which showed on the surface.
A. E. van Vogt earned Grand Master status from the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1996, but his reputation has always had significant detractors. Damon Knight wrote a blistering evaluation of van Vogt in the 1950's that some say finished his career. Other writers, like Harlan Ellison and Philip K. Dick, write about how significant van Vogt was to the own, early immersion in science fiction. Perhaps today van Vogt is of "historical interest only," but I will not make so sweeping a judgment based on this one book. I am certain he earned his Grand Master status, but I am not tempted to delve deeper into his work.
Earlier, the big idea that captivated van Vogt was the Gerneral Semantics program of the Polish count Alfred Korzybski, a program defined in the count's 800 page self - published book Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics.(1933). This was a grand system intended to make people think more clearly, reach better decisions, and create a better world. Much of General Semantics seems like common sense, but the insistence on its "science" is shaky and always prompted as many detractors as followers. Van Vogt was enthusiastically among the latter. Martin Gardner is among those who dismiss the enterprise as "pseudo-science," but there is a still an Institute of General Semantics in Chicago. Of course there is also an International Center of Theosophy, and London is home to the Swedenborg Foundation. Sorry to sound dismissive but I am.
True Believer van Vogt used Kozybski's ideas as the underlying philosophy of his breakthrough novel The World of Null A and two sequels, one of which has only been published in France. (Van Vogt, while not as popular as Jerry Lewis, is highly regarded in France.) The story originally appeared serialized in 1945 in Astounding Stories and was published, in hardback and to general acclaim, in 1948. Van Vogt revised the novel again and wrote a new introduction in 1980.
"Null A" is shorthand for non-Aristotelian, and in his 1980 introduction van Vogt lays out how integral Korsybki's ideas are to the novel. I will have to take his word for it. The novel reads like a dated sf adventure story involving an intergalactic plot to take over the Sol System. Our hero, Gilbert Gosseyn has lost his identity but is somehow central to the saving the earth. Clunky prose does nothing to help the storytelling. In his introduction, van Vogt makes a statement that is either poorly phrased or breathtaking in its hubris:
I cannot at the moment recall a novel written prior to Null-A that had a deeper meaning than that which showed on the surface.
A. E. van Vogt earned Grand Master status from the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1996, but his reputation has always had significant detractors. Damon Knight wrote a blistering evaluation of van Vogt in the 1950's that some say finished his career. Other writers, like Harlan Ellison and Philip K. Dick, write about how significant van Vogt was to the own, early immersion in science fiction. Perhaps today van Vogt is of "historical interest only," but I will not make so sweeping a judgment based on this one book. I am certain he earned his Grand Master status, but I am not tempted to delve deeper into his work.
December 1, 2017
This novel, written in 1945, shows its age. This goes beyond imagining Venus as a damp forest of huge trees, or that people in the year 2650 will still be placing personal ads in paper newspapers. The world itself is smaller, pretty much all white men, in a conformist society. The science itself, such as what can be done with atomic power or plastics, gets stretched beyond all possibility.
Still, A.E. van Vogt is famous for ideas, and he has one that powers this novel: What if a highly rational non-Aristotelian philosophy guided the behavior of the best men and women of their time? Unfortunately, van Vogt doesn’t explain this philosophy in great depth. It seems to compel the protagonist to act without a lot of forethought or long-term goals.
Van Voght has more ideas: a computer game that decides the participants’ futures, a “legal holiday” during which no laws are enforced, a minor kind of immortality, a huge galactic war that aims to conquer Venus and Earth....
The plot involves a man trying to find out who he is. Eventually he finds out. In the process a lot of people die.
This book is considered a classic, possibly one of van Vogt’s best, and it’s worth reading if only to watch ideas whiz past like scenery on a highway. There’s nice countryside out there, but the man at the wheel of the car isn’t about to slow down. He also won’t ask for directions, so the trip gets a bit lost toward the end. This is how we used to travel in science fiction. Serious fans will find the trip worth their while, but if you’re new to the genre, don’t start here.
By the way, how about the cover art on the 1948 edition? Wow.
Still, A.E. van Vogt is famous for ideas, and he has one that powers this novel: What if a highly rational non-Aristotelian philosophy guided the behavior of the best men and women of their time? Unfortunately, van Vogt doesn’t explain this philosophy in great depth. It seems to compel the protagonist to act without a lot of forethought or long-term goals.
Van Voght has more ideas: a computer game that decides the participants’ futures, a “legal holiday” during which no laws are enforced, a minor kind of immortality, a huge galactic war that aims to conquer Venus and Earth....
The plot involves a man trying to find out who he is. Eventually he finds out. In the process a lot of people die.
This book is considered a classic, possibly one of van Vogt’s best, and it’s worth reading if only to watch ideas whiz past like scenery on a highway. There’s nice countryside out there, but the man at the wheel of the car isn’t about to slow down. He also won’t ask for directions, so the trip gets a bit lost toward the end. This is how we used to travel in science fiction. Serious fans will find the trip worth their while, but if you’re new to the genre, don’t start here.
By the way, how about the cover art on the 1948 edition? Wow.
July 22, 2022
Well, I certainly read this book.
June 21, 2008
The World of Null-A is a mixed bag. All too frequently I found myself having to stop and re-read sections to figure out basic plot points (and this was generally because of a basic lack of clarity in key scenes, not because of a particularly advanced concept) and found it difficult to integrate the two major drives of the book, one toward political thriller regarding interplanetary and galactic war and one toward speculation about human and social evolution.
These two drives are definitely related through the basic plot, but they do not feel related; it is a major shift to go from one element of the novel to the other as one is focused on the protagonist, Gosseyn, and his attempts to discover who he is and to survive the warfare and politicking going on around him, and the other deals with the larger picture of null-A society (based on non-Aristotelian, non-Newtonian, and non-Euclidian logic), Venus and its null-A inhabitants, and the politics of the galactic community.
This is really a shame, too, because the novel does contain some interesting speculation about the future evolution of the human species as well as human society (not to mention some fast-paced adventure sequences which make it great fun to read at times). Van Vogt lays out the potential future of mankind in Gosseyn's description of the overall situation:
"We...have witnessed a greedy interstellar empire trying to take over another planetary system, in spite of the disapproval of a purely Aristotelian league. It's all very childish and murderous, an extreme example of how neurotic a civilization can become when i fails to develop a method for integrating the human part of man's mind with the animal part. All their thousands of years of additional scientific development have been wasted in the effort to achieve size and power when all they needed was to learn to cooperate" (169).
What's more, van Vogt provides a model for how this cooperation would work in the Venusian null-A society, which is described as an "ultimate democracy":
"There is no president of Venus, no council, no ruling group. Everything is voluntary; every man lives to himself alone, and yet conjoins with others to see that the necessary work is done. But people can choose their own work. You might say, suppose everybody decided to enter the same profession. That doesn't happen. The population is composed of responsible citizens who make a careful study of the entire work-to-be-done situation before they choose their jobs" (67).
This description provides an interesting counter to Edward Bellamy's description of a utopian society in Looking Backward , which is designed and maintained from the top down, through government regulation (authoritarian), rather than from the bottom up, through the decision-making processes of a group of responsible individuals (anarchist). It's too bad that van Vogt does not develop this society and its implications further. Null-A society is clearly meant to be seen as utopian and as achievable, but the novel is more political thriller (a la The Bourne Identity) than utopian novel or political novel (with a coherent argument to be made).
These two drives are definitely related through the basic plot, but they do not feel related; it is a major shift to go from one element of the novel to the other as one is focused on the protagonist, Gosseyn, and his attempts to discover who he is and to survive the warfare and politicking going on around him, and the other deals with the larger picture of null-A society (based on non-Aristotelian, non-Newtonian, and non-Euclidian logic), Venus and its null-A inhabitants, and the politics of the galactic community.
This is really a shame, too, because the novel does contain some interesting speculation about the future evolution of the human species as well as human society (not to mention some fast-paced adventure sequences which make it great fun to read at times). Van Vogt lays out the potential future of mankind in Gosseyn's description of the overall situation:
"We...have witnessed a greedy interstellar empire trying to take over another planetary system, in spite of the disapproval of a purely Aristotelian league. It's all very childish and murderous, an extreme example of how neurotic a civilization can become when i fails to develop a method for integrating the human part of man's mind with the animal part. All their thousands of years of additional scientific development have been wasted in the effort to achieve size and power when all they needed was to learn to cooperate" (169).
What's more, van Vogt provides a model for how this cooperation would work in the Venusian null-A society, which is described as an "ultimate democracy":
"There is no president of Venus, no council, no ruling group. Everything is voluntary; every man lives to himself alone, and yet conjoins with others to see that the necessary work is done. But people can choose their own work. You might say, suppose everybody decided to enter the same profession. That doesn't happen. The population is composed of responsible citizens who make a careful study of the entire work-to-be-done situation before they choose their jobs" (67).
This description provides an interesting counter to Edward Bellamy's description of a utopian society in Looking Backward , which is designed and maintained from the top down, through government regulation (authoritarian), rather than from the bottom up, through the decision-making processes of a group of responsible individuals (anarchist). It's too bad that van Vogt does not develop this society and its implications further. Null-A society is clearly meant to be seen as utopian and as achievable, but the novel is more political thriller (a la The Bourne Identity) than utopian novel or political novel (with a coherent argument to be made).
November 6, 2015
Tell me if this sounds like a modern-day young adult novel:
In the City of the Machine, the Games take place. For a month, there are no laws and no police, as the participants in the Games make their way through dozens of tests of their mental abilities. Success in the Games unlocks a good life. Those who make it through the first week are guaranteed well-paying jobs, and the further you go, the better it gets. But only the winners get the ultimate prize - going to the mysterious planet Venus.
Perfect YA dystopia, right? Only it's a utopia, or a world becoming one, published in a serious philosophical science fiction novel from 1948. It's a novel that doesn't really manage to accomplish any of its serious, Change The World goals, but does some fascinating, forward-thinking things seemingly by complete accident.
In terms of its failures, number one is probably the fact that this "let me tell you about how the world should be run" novel doesn't really manage to actually explain the philosophy of null-A (or non-Aristotleanism) in a meaningful way at any point. The story itself literally skips over chances to explain it in detail - there's one point where the main character literally has to demonstrate that he understands null-A, and the narrative just tells us that he finished in about twenty minutes. And it doesn't come out meaningfully in the story - I understood that it involved abstraction, favoring spectrums of meaning over simple binaries, and understanding that every thing in the universe was different from every other thing, but I didn't get any sense of how these ideas worked together, or how they were supposed to allow people to reprogram their brains into unifying the logical side and the emotional side. My copy has a preface, added decades after publication, that makes some of this clear - the idea that identity is memory, and that every observer experiences something different - but it's explained in a rather muddled, roundabout way, and we don't get to see this as a coherent philosophy, let alone one that could uplift humanity.
As an aside, I looked up General Semantics, and it does seem to have been a meaningful thing back in the day that influenced later philosophical and scientific thought. (It certainly cleared up ideas I'd seen mentioned in other SF novels.) But this book kind of assumes that you can take those principles and stop there - that you just need this one "don't be like Aristotle" realization, and that automatically opens up the truths of the universe to you. It doesn't realize that there are a lot of philosophies that might be described as "non-Aristotlean" - especially, you know, outside of Western culture (and especially when get mixed in).
The book's more interesting parts, though, are in the story itself. Gilbert Gosseyn is a is the standard Two-Fisted Man Who Is Driven By Philosophy And Purpose, not too far from one of Heinlein's. But he's constantly put in situations where this isn't enough; where his finely-trained mind is shown to be flawed or undeveloped, where he's captured and then freed by the actions of others, where he's driving purposefully towards a goal and then stopped and shown that that goal wasn't worth accomplishing. It's a remarkably forward-thinking way to frame a protagonist, and I have to wonder if it was part of the philosophy the author was trying to express. Similarly, the world is a utopian ideal - but the plot is centered on the exact weaknesses such a world would have, and its vulnerability to . It feels more like the YA novels I spoke of at the beginning, that use a certain philosophy as a backdrop for a story, rather than using the story as a backdrop to talk about how awesome the philosophy is. I don't think it's intentional, but there it is, all the same.
It's a weird book. It was never going to be the culture-changer it claims to be, but it has its fans - people who have done "memory is identity" stories better and more thoughtfully than he did, and expanded upon these ideas interestingly, themselves creating the kind of change in attitudes that the author of this novel couldn't. That seems worthwhile to me.
In the City of the Machine, the Games take place. For a month, there are no laws and no police, as the participants in the Games make their way through dozens of tests of their mental abilities. Success in the Games unlocks a good life. Those who make it through the first week are guaranteed well-paying jobs, and the further you go, the better it gets. But only the winners get the ultimate prize - going to the mysterious planet Venus.
Perfect YA dystopia, right? Only it's a utopia, or a world becoming one, published in a serious philosophical science fiction novel from 1948. It's a novel that doesn't really manage to accomplish any of its serious, Change The World goals, but does some fascinating, forward-thinking things seemingly by complete accident.
In terms of its failures, number one is probably the fact that this "let me tell you about how the world should be run" novel doesn't really manage to actually explain the philosophy of null-A (or non-Aristotleanism) in a meaningful way at any point. The story itself literally skips over chances to explain it in detail - there's one point where the main character literally has to demonstrate that he understands null-A, and the narrative just tells us that he finished in about twenty minutes. And it doesn't come out meaningfully in the story - I understood that it involved abstraction, favoring spectrums of meaning over simple binaries, and understanding that every thing in the universe was different from every other thing, but I didn't get any sense of how these ideas worked together, or how they were supposed to allow people to reprogram their brains into unifying the logical side and the emotional side. My copy has a preface, added decades after publication, that makes some of this clear - the idea that identity is memory, and that every observer experiences something different - but it's explained in a rather muddled, roundabout way, and we don't get to see this as a coherent philosophy, let alone one that could uplift humanity.
As an aside, I looked up General Semantics, and it does seem to have been a meaningful thing back in the day that influenced later philosophical and scientific thought. (It certainly cleared up ideas I'd seen mentioned in other SF novels.) But this book kind of assumes that you can take those principles and stop there - that you just need this one "don't be like Aristotle" realization, and that automatically opens up the truths of the universe to you. It doesn't realize that there are a lot of philosophies that might be described as "non-Aristotlean" - especially, you know, outside of Western culture (and especially when get mixed in).
The book's more interesting parts, though, are in the story itself. Gilbert Gosseyn is a is the standard Two-Fisted Man Who Is Driven By Philosophy And Purpose, not too far from one of Heinlein's. But he's constantly put in situations where this isn't enough; where his finely-trained mind is shown to be flawed or undeveloped, where he's captured and then freed by the actions of others, where he's driving purposefully towards a goal and then stopped and shown that that goal wasn't worth accomplishing. It's a remarkably forward-thinking way to frame a protagonist, and I have to wonder if it was part of the philosophy the author was trying to express. Similarly, the world is a utopian ideal - but the plot is centered on the exact weaknesses such a world would have, and its vulnerability to . It feels more like the YA novels I spoke of at the beginning, that use a certain philosophy as a backdrop for a story, rather than using the story as a backdrop to talk about how awesome the philosophy is. I don't think it's intentional, but there it is, all the same.
It's a weird book. It was never going to be the culture-changer it claims to be, but it has its fans - people who have done "memory is identity" stories better and more thoughtfully than he did, and expanded upon these ideas interestingly, themselves creating the kind of change in attitudes that the author of this novel couldn't. That seems worthwhile to me.
April 4, 2023
ENGLISH: As a sci-fi novel, it's not bad, although a little absurd. As a declaration of faith in General Semantics (a pseudo-science, according to Martin Gardner, which Van Vogt considers the future) I take exception. The author himself changed his mind later, and went from General Semantics to another pseudo-science (Dianetics).
ESPAÑOL: Como novela de ciencia ficción, no está mal, aunque es un poco absurda. Como declaración de fe en la Semántica General (una pseudociencia, según Martin Gardner, que Van Vogt cree que tiene futuro), no me gusta. El propio autor cambió de opinión más tarde, y pasó de la Semántica General a otra pseudociencia (la Dianética).
ESPAÑOL: Como novela de ciencia ficción, no está mal, aunque es un poco absurda. Como declaración de fe en la Semántica General (una pseudociencia, según Martin Gardner, que Van Vogt cree que tiene futuro), no me gusta. El propio autor cambió de opinión más tarde, y pasó de la Semántica General a otra pseudociencia (la Dianética).
April 5, 2024
I was on an SFF audio podcast panel about this book. Link here:
https://www.sffaudio.com/the-sffaudio...
Some times a book, a film or a band is more important for who they inspired, and I went into this book for that reason. Of course, Van Vogt was a name I had seen on spines on the shelf as a Science Fiction reader/shopper many times but I am sad to say I never read him before this. My original inspiration to buy the book was our Philip K Dick podcast. PKD himself credited Van Vogt as his biggest influence even going as far as to say that his debut novel Solar Lottery was derivative of Null-A. That made me curious. Since then I was invited to be on a panel for the SFF Audio podcast about This book. I will add a link when that is available. Keep in mind it was Van Vogt at a convention that told PKD in the fifties "You ain't gettin' nowhere writing short stories kid." I am sure he didn't sound like Jimmy Cagney or call him kid but I like to believe that he said it that way.
The history of this novel is interesting, it was published in Astounding magazine August through October of 1945, starting the month that the first atomic bombs were dropped on Japan and finishing a month after they surrendered. That means that the Canadian author was writing this novel during the events of World War II and at a time when the events were still in doubt. The novel I read now had been revised in both 1948 and slightly again in 1970 but when the book is filled with Roboplanes and weapons called the Vibrator it is clear that the novel maintains the wonderfully 40s ness at the heart.
It is the story of Gilbert Gosseyn (pronounced go sane) who wakes up in his second body on the eve of the Machine Games, this is a lawless month when players compete in various ways to earn a spot living on a Venus colony. That colony you see has grown into The Null-A system - a lawless utopia that sounded like an anarchist activist's idea of post-civil war Spain. The plot is complicated, something as a reader of PKD I am used to. The story on the surface looks to be like The Purge or Hunger Games but it goes into immortals and space opera later. There are wars with Galatic empires, massive AI's and lots of crazy weird elements.
You see the influence in the paranoid 'who and what am I?' nature of Gosseyn. He has died and is not sure who he is and finds out there are more copies of him running around. It was written for Campbell in the 40s so there is a supermen plot, Gosseyn, and his foes wonder if he can keep moving his mind and became immortal. That is not all the novel,, it is a vehicle to explore political ideas that was clearly an influence not just on PKD but the genre as a whole.
Van Vogt has said that the serial version published in 1945 was flawed and that each edition he was more comfortable with. He also admitted during this time he was writing the novel similar to the style to how PKD wrote High Castle. He didn't consult the IChing, but in the same way he let his dreams dictate the direction of the story. This prompted the criticism of author Damon Knight in his critical study of the genre to say that Null- A "abounds in contradictions, misleading clues, and irrelevant action...It is [van Vogt's] habit to introduce a monster, or a gadget, or an extra-terrestrial culture, simply by naming it, without any explanation of its nature."
The World of Null-A is a flawed novel by today's standards but you can't into reading a genre novel that is almost 80 years and not give it a certain amount of leeway. Considering when it is written it is delightfully weird. In many ways, it is all over the place. I think it is important to remember the science fiction novel as we think of it was not nearly as established. For decades still, novels from even giants in the field were still being serialized in magazines.
This is a must-read for true scholars of the field because the influence it had was so intense and deep. Is it a timeless masterpiece? No, but it is a great example of the evolution of the genre. It also has a great ending, fun action, crazy twists and most importantly tons of weird ideas that are made weirder by how out of date it is. Thumbs up from me.
https://www.sffaudio.com/the-sffaudio...
Some times a book, a film or a band is more important for who they inspired, and I went into this book for that reason. Of course, Van Vogt was a name I had seen on spines on the shelf as a Science Fiction reader/shopper many times but I am sad to say I never read him before this. My original inspiration to buy the book was our Philip K Dick podcast. PKD himself credited Van Vogt as his biggest influence even going as far as to say that his debut novel Solar Lottery was derivative of Null-A. That made me curious. Since then I was invited to be on a panel for the SFF Audio podcast about This book. I will add a link when that is available. Keep in mind it was Van Vogt at a convention that told PKD in the fifties "You ain't gettin' nowhere writing short stories kid." I am sure he didn't sound like Jimmy Cagney or call him kid but I like to believe that he said it that way.
The history of this novel is interesting, it was published in Astounding magazine August through October of 1945, starting the month that the first atomic bombs were dropped on Japan and finishing a month after they surrendered. That means that the Canadian author was writing this novel during the events of World War II and at a time when the events were still in doubt. The novel I read now had been revised in both 1948 and slightly again in 1970 but when the book is filled with Roboplanes and weapons called the Vibrator it is clear that the novel maintains the wonderfully 40s ness at the heart.
It is the story of Gilbert Gosseyn (pronounced go sane) who wakes up in his second body on the eve of the Machine Games, this is a lawless month when players compete in various ways to earn a spot living on a Venus colony. That colony you see has grown into The Null-A system - a lawless utopia that sounded like an anarchist activist's idea of post-civil war Spain. The plot is complicated, something as a reader of PKD I am used to. The story on the surface looks to be like The Purge or Hunger Games but it goes into immortals and space opera later. There are wars with Galatic empires, massive AI's and lots of crazy weird elements.
You see the influence in the paranoid 'who and what am I?' nature of Gosseyn. He has died and is not sure who he is and finds out there are more copies of him running around. It was written for Campbell in the 40s so there is a supermen plot, Gosseyn, and his foes wonder if he can keep moving his mind and became immortal. That is not all the novel,, it is a vehicle to explore political ideas that was clearly an influence not just on PKD but the genre as a whole.
Van Vogt has said that the serial version published in 1945 was flawed and that each edition he was more comfortable with. He also admitted during this time he was writing the novel similar to the style to how PKD wrote High Castle. He didn't consult the IChing, but in the same way he let his dreams dictate the direction of the story. This prompted the criticism of author Damon Knight in his critical study of the genre to say that Null- A "abounds in contradictions, misleading clues, and irrelevant action...It is [van Vogt's] habit to introduce a monster, or a gadget, or an extra-terrestrial culture, simply by naming it, without any explanation of its nature."
The World of Null-A is a flawed novel by today's standards but you can't into reading a genre novel that is almost 80 years and not give it a certain amount of leeway. Considering when it is written it is delightfully weird. In many ways, it is all over the place. I think it is important to remember the science fiction novel as we think of it was not nearly as established. For decades still, novels from even giants in the field were still being serialized in magazines.
This is a must-read for true scholars of the field because the influence it had was so intense and deep. Is it a timeless masterpiece? No, but it is a great example of the evolution of the genre. It also has a great ending, fun action, crazy twists and most importantly tons of weird ideas that are made weirder by how out of date it is. Thumbs up from me.
November 4, 2017
This is a very strange book. I had read that it influenced some of the great science fiction writers of the golden age, including Philip K Dick. I guess I can believe it. It's very dickian. At times it is disjointed, confusing, even incomprehensible. I attribute that to the authorship of van Vogt. It could have been much better written. There is virtually no character development, and the motivations and loyalties of the characters is confusing.
The World of Null-A. Null-A means non-Aristotelian, but it's never clear what it is. Is it a philosophy? A religion? An alternate view of reality? Null-A flowed through this novel, but it has virtually no impact on the story. The novel could have been virtually the same if Null-A had never been mentioned.
I had read that van Vogt was into dianetics with L. Ron Hubbard, who later founded the church of Scientology. I thought maybe Null-A had something to do with that. I still don't know.
The World of Null-A. Null-A means non-Aristotelian, but it's never clear what it is. Is it a philosophy? A religion? An alternate view of reality? Null-A flowed through this novel, but it has virtually no impact on the story. The novel could have been virtually the same if Null-A had never been mentioned.
I had read that van Vogt was into dianetics with L. Ron Hubbard, who later founded the church of Scientology. I thought maybe Null-A had something to do with that. I still don't know.
June 23, 2016
I had a hard time deciding between two stars and three stars for this novel. In the end, I decided on two stars. I found the definition of non-Aristotelian (Null-A) thought an ill-defined and incoherent concept. From my perspective Null-A seemed to imbue the adherents with super-human mental acuity completely disconnected from "integrating animal (thalamus) and human (cortex) parts of the brain.
In the Foreword the author tried to shed some light on Null-A. He says: "In World, we have the Null-A (non-Aristotelian) man, who thinks gradational scale, not black and white—without, however, becoming a rebel or cynic, or a conspirator, in any current meaning of the term." I was hoping after reading the book I would understand what A. E. van Vogt meant.
In the Foreword the author tried to shed some light on Null-A. He says: "In World, we have the Null-A (non-Aristotelian) man, who thinks gradational scale, not black and white—without, however, becoming a rebel or cynic, or a conspirator, in any current meaning of the term." I was hoping after reading the book I would understand what A. E. van Vogt meant.
August 2, 2016
Storyline: 3/5
Characters: 2/5
Writing Style: 1/5
World: 5/5
This was my first A.E. van Vogt experience. I can see why Philip K. Dick was inspired by the mysterious, incoherent ideas of Null-A. I can also see why Damon Knight named it "one of the worst allegedly adult science fiction stories ever published." The two are not mutually exclusive. I was initially enchanted by what Null-A meant and the world crafted by Vogt. I was thereafter continually frustrated and pained by the writing and development. Null-A might be the most ambitious idea I've encountered in science fiction, and Vogt, perhaps, writes with the least clarity of any author I've read. I'd give this more credit had Vogt been the originator of general semantics or had he been successful in explicating it through the medium of the novel.
Reminds me of
Characters: 2/5
Writing Style: 1/5
World: 5/5
This was my first A.E. van Vogt experience. I can see why Philip K. Dick was inspired by the mysterious, incoherent ideas of Null-A. I can also see why Damon Knight named it "one of the worst allegedly adult science fiction stories ever published." The two are not mutually exclusive. I was initially enchanted by what Null-A meant and the world crafted by Vogt. I was thereafter continually frustrated and pained by the writing and development. Null-A might be the most ambitious idea I've encountered in science fiction, and Vogt, perhaps, writes with the least clarity of any author I've read. I'd give this more credit had Vogt been the originator of general semantics or had he been successful in explicating it through the medium of the novel.
Reminds me of
Read
August 20, 2008Continuing this year in my exploration of classic SF I thought I would take a look at a famous novel by van Vogt. It turns out that van Vogt was a Canadian from a Mennonite community in Manitoba. He was an amazingly prolific author who moved to LA right after the war. There he became quite interested in the concepts of General Semantics or non-Aristotelian logic (Null-A). I'm no logician but from what I understand Aristotelian logic assumes binary states for a statement (e.g. The dog is a collie). Null-A logic assumes there are three or more values for every statement. This can all get highly semantic and we are here to review a book so...
van Vogt popularized these concepts in a series of Null-A books of which The World of Null-A was the first. In the year 2650 humans live in a vast and comforting utopian society. Individuals train to think in a non-Aristotelian pattern so that they may compete in the Game which is run by an immense machine. Those that succeed will advance to higher positions in life and the best will be allowed to go live on Venus where all is idyllic. The hero, Gilbert Gosseyn (pronounce it "go sane"), appears to be a man trying to follow this path. He attempts to enter the Game but finds himself caught up in a vast conspiracy where his identity is suspect and where ultimately he may hold the balance of power for the entire universe.
The novel is complex but entirely readable. Even though the book is from the 1940's there are some really compelling SF situations that make for an interesting novel.
van Vogt popularized these concepts in a series of Null-A books of which The World of Null-A was the first. In the year 2650 humans live in a vast and comforting utopian society. Individuals train to think in a non-Aristotelian pattern so that they may compete in the Game which is run by an immense machine. Those that succeed will advance to higher positions in life and the best will be allowed to go live on Venus where all is idyllic. The hero, Gilbert Gosseyn (pronounce it "go sane"), appears to be a man trying to follow this path. He attempts to enter the Game but finds himself caught up in a vast conspiracy where his identity is suspect and where ultimately he may hold the balance of power for the entire universe.
The novel is complex but entirely readable. Even though the book is from the 1940's there are some really compelling SF situations that make for an interesting novel.
May 23, 2013
The book brings back to me the 1950s. Names like Eldred Crang and Hari Seldon (this from Isaac Asimov's Foundation series), Intergalactic wars. Highly advanced devices with tubes like an old Emerson TV set. Planets in our solar system that could sustain life. Take, for instance, this description of Venus:
As a teeneager, I loved A E Van Vogt, and I loved novels like The World of Null-A, Slan, The Empire of the Atom, and The War Against the Rull. I do plan to re-read more of him, because I could see the young me at every turn, following the story with rapt attention and belief.
Now the belief is gone, but what remains is a well written and conceived story. The fact that I could never quite believe, however, does remove a star or two from my rating.
No matter. I am rediscovering myself and rather enjoy the experience.
Gosseyn said, "Doctor, what is Venus like -- the cities, I mean?"One of the side-effects of space exploration is the death of dreams of life on the Moon, on Mars, and on Venus.
The doctor rolled his head sideways to look at Gosseyn, but did not move his body.
"Oh, much like earth cities, but suited to the perpetually mild climate. Because of the high clouds, it never gets too hot. And it never rains except in the mountains. But every night on the great verdant plains, there's a heavy dew. And UI mean heavy enough to look after all the luxuriant growth...."
As a teeneager, I loved A E Van Vogt, and I loved novels like The World of Null-A, Slan, The Empire of the Atom, and The War Against the Rull. I do plan to re-read more of him, because I could see the young me at every turn, following the story with rapt attention and belief.
Now the belief is gone, but what remains is a well written and conceived story. The fact that I could never quite believe, however, does remove a star or two from my rating.
No matter. I am rediscovering myself and rather enjoy the experience.
March 22, 2017
Много любим автор и един от най-добрите от старата генерация в личната ми ранг листа. Книгата разгръща една космическа опера в която разликите между планетните общества се базират изцяло на етични различия, преминали в цялостни социални структури и правещи разбирателството между културите, макар да са човеци, в пъти по-невъзможно от това между хора и друга раса.
Джилбърт Госейн разбира, че някой му е насадил фалшиво минало, но не знае с каква цел. Докато се опитва да открие себе си се оказва замесен в мащабна междупланетна конспирация, чиято цел е присъединяване на слънчевата система към определена междугалактическа фракция. За да се изпълни схемата, обаче трябва да се извърши геноцид над заселниците на Венера, защото идейният им строй не може да работи при външна експанзия. Госейн е единственият неизвестен фактор, който може да спре нашествието.
Романът (а и продължението му) повдига десетки етично-философски въпроси, като започнем от човек, личност и възприемане на околния свят и стигнем до междудържавни, междупланетни и междугалактически отношения.
Много силно препоръчвам произведението в частност и автора като цяло на всички любители на жанра. Ван Вогт е изпреварил времето си с поне 20 години, задълбавайки сериозно в социалната фантастика под приключенско-научната маска на произведенията си.
Голям.
Джилбърт Госейн разбира, че някой му е насадил фалшиво минало, но не знае с каква цел. Докато се опитва да открие себе си се оказва замесен в мащабна междупланетна конспирация, чиято цел е присъединяване на слънчевата система към определена междугалактическа фракция. За да се изпълни схемата, обаче трябва да се извърши геноцид над заселниците на Венера, защото идейният им строй не може да работи при външна експанзия. Госейн е единственият неизвестен фактор, който може да спре нашествието.
Романът (а и продължението му) повдига десетки етично-философски въпроси, като започнем от човек, личност и възприемане на околния свят и стигнем до междудържавни, междупланетни и междугалактически отношения.
Много силно препоръчвам произведението в частност и автора като цяло на всички любители на жанра. Ван Вогт е изпреварил времето си с поне 20 години, задълбавайки сериозно в социалната фантастика под приключенско-научната маска на произведенията си.
Голям.
February 3, 2014
This book really seems to polarise peoples opinions of it. I found it after seeing it discussed online as one of the most important 20th century scifi books. This book and its author inspired some of the greatest scifi writers of the 2nd half of last century, notably Philip K. Dick.
Although the technology ideas in the book are now extremely dated, the overall story is fascinating and I found myself glued to it.
The writing style can be confusing and the author doesn't bother to explain every detail presented during the course of the story but I did find it extremely readable and enjoyable. Although I will freely admit that I am still pretty confused about exactly what non-Aristotelian (null-A) logic/philosophy is.
Although the technology ideas in the book are now extremely dated, the overall story is fascinating and I found myself glued to it.
The writing style can be confusing and the author doesn't bother to explain every detail presented during the course of the story but I did find it extremely readable and enjoyable. Although I will freely admit that I am still pretty confused about exactly what non-Aristotelian (null-A) logic/philosophy is.
August 14, 2021
This must have been one of the first sci-fi books I ever read in my teenage and I had some very good memories of it which just shows that I had crappy book tastes as a teenager. This is really an awful book in pretty much every possible way. Unpleasant cardboard characters, meaningless slow moving plot, deus ex machina galore, terrible writing, the whole thing is just a catastrophe.
July 26, 2015
I can tell how this guy was a big influence on Philip K. Dick, but the bizareness of his ideas is upstaged by the lack of his skill in storytelling.
October 23, 2020
Classic pulp fiction that basically inspired Philip K Dick's whole career. You can't go wrong with this one.
November 25, 2009
Right from the outset this is a mind-bending, roller coaster ride of twists and turns. Don't expect detailed world building and character development, that is not what Van Vogt is all about. He is instead concerned with exploring his crazy ideas and plot twists.
In the opening chapter we discover that the protagonist, Gilbert Gosseyn, is not who he thinks he is as his memories are proven false. Gosseyn (and the reader) are then thrown into a state of confusion which lasts throughout the book. A little later Gosseyn is killed, only to awaken in the next chapter in a brand new copy of his body, on Venus. But all this makes sense, as far as the author is concerned, because he is trying to make clear his point that our identity is our memories, whether true or false, whether everything else is changes or not.
"Null-A" stands for Non-Aristotelian and this book describes a world in which this new pholosophy and logic have superceded the Aristotelian philosophy and logic that dominates our thinking today. Those who have best integrated this way of thinking into their lives go on to do all the important jobs in society and the cream of the crop go on to live in a utopian society on Venus populated with like minded people. All this is coming under threat however as forces of the old Aristotelian order are attempting a coup, seeking to overthrow this new order. Somehow Gosseyn is in the middle of all this and is the key to stopping it but he doesn't know how and appears to be a mere pawn in someone elses game.
As the author states in the last sentence of chapter 14: "It was all quite incomprehensible.". Yes, that sums it up quite succinctly. Van Vogt just flies off the handle a little too much here, the plot developments just too crazy and unbelievable but it's still quite an enjoyable read.
In the opening chapter we discover that the protagonist, Gilbert Gosseyn, is not who he thinks he is as his memories are proven false. Gosseyn (and the reader) are then thrown into a state of confusion which lasts throughout the book. A little later Gosseyn is killed, only to awaken in the next chapter in a brand new copy of his body, on Venus. But all this makes sense, as far as the author is concerned, because he is trying to make clear his point that our identity is our memories, whether true or false, whether everything else is changes or not.
"Null-A" stands for Non-Aristotelian and this book describes a world in which this new pholosophy and logic have superceded the Aristotelian philosophy and logic that dominates our thinking today. Those who have best integrated this way of thinking into their lives go on to do all the important jobs in society and the cream of the crop go on to live in a utopian society on Venus populated with like minded people. All this is coming under threat however as forces of the old Aristotelian order are attempting a coup, seeking to overthrow this new order. Somehow Gosseyn is in the middle of all this and is the key to stopping it but he doesn't know how and appears to be a mere pawn in someone elses game.
As the author states in the last sentence of chapter 14: "It was all quite incomprehensible.". Yes, that sums it up quite succinctly. Van Vogt just flies off the handle a little too much here, the plot developments just too crazy and unbelievable but it's still quite an enjoyable read.
November 7, 2014
The World of Null-a is a fascinating and strange book. The style is somewhat matter of fact, very much in line with its many contemporary pulp bretheren. The main character, Gosseyn, doesn't really drive the story so much as the story just happens to him. He almost comes across as a kind of Mr. Magoo character, stumbling around in a world that he believes to understand, but doens't. But there is a delightful quality to the dangers and adventures he happens through. I found myself feeling a sense of wonder, not unlike reading my first fanatasy and science fiction tales as a kid. It didn't really matter that I didn't know what was going on, because Gosseyn didn't know what was going on either. At the end, yeah, it bothered me. There's a moment where Gosseyn suddenly seems to 'get it', but I was still in the dark. - - -But let me back up a bit here: the edition I read has a forward by the author essentially defending the novel's merits. He boasts grandly (and unjustly?) about its importance. After I finished the novel, I had to go back and reread this forward, which opened the door to a little more digging. In fact, the history of this book's reception is more dramatic and interesting than the book itself! While the book is a fun, almost comic pulp adventure, its reception rumpled some heady feathers. Without revealing too much, I'll say that some of the most important writers of the time absolutely hated the book, while many writers just then coming of age may have been shaped by it. I can't say whether everyone will enjoy it or not, it's a crap shoot, but I don't think any lover of science fiction antiquity and history can justly do without reading it.
December 28, 2015
He began to think of the necessity of making a determined effort to escape. But not yet. Funny, to feel that so strongly. To know that learning about himself was more important than anything else. (pgs. 45-46)
Picked this book up at the local library because PKD kept namedropping it throughout The Last Interview and Other Conversations. It's easy to see why he gave nods to it - it has got the shifting realities, shifting bodies, shifting body-realities and the requisite femme fatale.
But...throughout...I kept commenting to myself "Hmmm...that sounds familiar" and "What th'...that's really familiar" etcetera. So, I looked the author up on Wikipedia and was surprised but not surprised to learn that, yes, he had a hand in the early development of Dianetics.
The "games" are too easily seen as the Dianetics auditing process and, well, there's other things. No need to go into it here. Everybody thinks Scientology is a joke, anyways, when, really, it's got some good ideas once you get beyond the controversy, the celebrities.
There was a curious psychological law that protected men with purposes from those who had none. (pg. 198)
Picked this book up at the local library because PKD kept namedropping it throughout The Last Interview and Other Conversations. It's easy to see why he gave nods to it - it has got the shifting realities, shifting bodies, shifting body-realities and the requisite femme fatale.
But...throughout...I kept commenting to myself "Hmmm...that sounds familiar" and "What th'...that's really familiar" etcetera. So, I looked the author up on Wikipedia and was surprised but not surprised to learn that, yes, he had a hand in the early development of Dianetics.
The "games" are too easily seen as the Dianetics auditing process and, well, there's other things. No need to go into it here. Everybody thinks Scientology is a joke, anyways, when, really, it's got some good ideas once you get beyond the controversy, the celebrities.
There was a curious psychological law that protected men with purposes from those who had none. (pg. 198)
May 9, 2020
Gilbert Gosseyn (Go-sane, get it?) has outrageous sci-fi adventures in search of his lost identity. Based on General Semantics, Van Vogt was trying to create a rational philosophy for the irrational Atomic Age. The result is pulp fiction in the service of philosophy that keeps bumping into bizarre, ahead-of-their time ideas. I like to say that Van Vogt rationalized himself into surrealism. A metaphor for life in uncertain times, even though it may have been meant to be taken literally.
November 2, 2012
Oddly, there's a cover quote from The New Yorker on this edition--"Fine for addicts of science fiction". This is not actually an endorsement or compliment.
At some point of this rocket-powered sled ride I started wondering: would a background in (van Vogt's version of) General Semantics make this novel more comprehensible? The characters, and indeed most of the story, doesn't seem to make conventional sense, and things sort of happen because they need to push Gosseyn into the events of the next chapter, and working backwards I found it difficult to rationalize each stage of the process ("Okay, why did they not kill him now that they have the chance? Why are they allowing him to develop his powers? Why was the second body located on Venus? How is any of this the best way to combat an invasion?"). It is entirely possible that the story is just moving too damn fast and I couldn't keep up.
At some point of this rocket-powered sled ride I started wondering: would a background in (van Vogt's version of) General Semantics make this novel more comprehensible? The characters, and indeed most of the story, doesn't seem to make conventional sense, and things sort of happen because they need to push Gosseyn into the events of the next chapter, and working backwards I found it difficult to rationalize each stage of the process ("Okay, why did they not kill him now that they have the chance? Why are they allowing him to develop his powers? Why was the second body located on Venus? How is any of this the best way to combat an invasion?"). It is entirely possible that the story is just moving too damn fast and I couldn't keep up.
November 21, 2023
Oddly, this book simultaneously seems both extremely weird and like generic 1940s science fiction. Knowing that it exists is more interesting than actually reading it. I'll give van Vogt more credit for ambition than for execution. If you want to know what big-idea science fiction was like in the 1940s, this is a good choice. If you're looking for something inherently fun, skip it.
January 23, 2022
Окей, по сравнению со Слэном, эта книга большой прогресс для нашего поддельного Воннегута (ага, Ван Вогта).
* Тут меньше восклицательных знаков! И теперь читать роман легче! Как это только удается Ван Вогту!
* В целом, его подход про маленькие главы меньше 800 слов с клиффхэнгерами и поворотами сюжета — работает. Примерно так написаны все комиксы Киркмана, и это увлекательный способ повествования.
* И да, повороты сюжета такие странные, а в голове Госсейна такая каша, что во всем этом есть легкий дух Твин Пикса (или какого-то сюра). Я понял, почему К. Дик так вдохновился этим.
* Вообще, Ван Вогт — словно одна треть полноценного автора. Вторая треть — Кларк. Ван Вогт умеет клиффхэнгеры, а Кларк умеет науку, и еще им нужен третий автор для полноценных людей персонажей. Я пока не придумал кто :)
* Ах да, персонажи тут опять картонные (особенно женщины) и никак не развиваются. Их больше чем в Слэне, а потому читать легче.
* Как же я обрадовался концовке!
* Читать все это, зная, что Ван Вогт стоял у истоков дианетики (прекурсора сайентологии) и вместе с Кэмпбеллом угорал по парапсихологии, — одно удовольствие. Они там все знатно упоролись. А Госсейн еще и напрямую использует фразу "Карта — не территория".
* Вообще, вся книга похожа на краткий пересказ восточной философии возбужденным подростком. По сути, Мир Нуль-А — это мир победившего буддизма и психотерапии. Правда, в самом примитивном и неправильном понимании :)
Рубрика "Фантастика прошлого":
* Патриция курит сигареты, и у нее есть электронный портсигар для прикуривания. (А вэйпа нет.)
* Все записи на магнитных полосах. Их выдают роботы, по телефону :)
* У одного мужчины был наручный диктофон. Почти Apple Watch :)
* На Венере есть беспилотное аэротакси. Но заказывать его нужно по проводному телефону :)
* Фонарик на атомных батарейках
* Тут меньше восклицательных знаков! И теперь читать роман легче! Как это только удается Ван Вогту!
* В целом, его подход про маленькие главы меньше 800 слов с клиффхэнгерами и поворотами сюжета — работает. Примерно так написаны все комиксы Киркмана, и это увлекательный способ повествования.
* И да, повороты сюжета такие странные, а в голове Госсейна такая каша, что во всем этом есть легкий дух Твин Пикса (или какого-то сюра). Я понял, почему К. Дик так вдохновился этим.
* Вообще, Ван Вогт — словно одна треть полноценного автора. Вторая треть — Кларк. Ван Вогт умеет клиффхэнгеры, а Кларк умеет науку, и еще им нужен третий автор для полноценных людей персонажей. Я пока не придумал кто :)
* Ах да, персонажи тут опять картонные (особенно женщины) и никак не развиваются. Их больше чем в Слэне, а потому читать легче.
* Как же я обрадовался концовке!
* Читать все это, зная, что Ван Вогт стоял у истоков дианетики (прекурсора сайентологии) и вместе с Кэмпбеллом угорал по парапсихологии, — одно удовольствие. Они там все знатно упоролись. А Госсейн еще и напрямую использует фразу "Карта — не территория".
* Вообще, вся книга похожа на краткий пересказ восточной философии возбужденным подростком. По сути, Мир Нуль-А — это мир победившего буддизма и психотерапии. Правда, в самом примитивном и неправильном понимании :)
Рубрика "Фантастика прошлого":
* Патриция курит сигареты, и у нее есть электронный портсигар для прикуривания. (А вэйпа нет.)
* Все записи на магнитных полосах. Их выдают роботы, по телефону :)
* У одного мужчины был наручный диктофон. Почти Apple Watch :)
* На Венере есть беспилотное аэротакси. Но заказывать его нужно по проводному телефону :)
* Фонарик на атомных батарейках
«Дав предмету название, вы поступили неверно…» Кресло – не просто кресло. Это – структура необычайно сложная: химическая, атомная, электронная и т.д. Следовательно, если вы думаете о нем как о кресле, вы ограничиваете свою нервную систему – как на то указал Коржибский – одним определением. Общая сумма таких определений по отношению к разным предметам делает человека нестабильным, неврастеничным, а иногда сводит с ума.
Аноним
August 10, 2019
When I was a kid, my world consisted in part of books my father had acquired during a brief membership in the Science Fiction Book Club, in the 1950s. That's how I learned about Heinlein, Simak, and especially Asimov. (I don't think there was any Clarke, if memory serves, dunno why.) And there was one by A.E. van Vogt. I don't remember which book it was, but I remember distinctly _not_ liking it. I never pursued more books by him. Lately, though, I'm on an SF binge, some recent, some classic, and I decided to give this famous novel a shot.
It's...not bad, not great, and very much of its era.
The year is 2650, but women still make dinner and have inscrutable brains, and are mostly just props for the male actors. There are still hotels, quarters (the money kind), messenger boys, machine guns (alongside "blasters") and door locks. The anachronism level is high enough to be distracting.
van Vogt here is aiming for a complex political plot, with shifting alliances and lots of intrigue. The trouble is, he's not _quite_ a good enough writer to pull it off. Too bad, it has promise.
There are AIs (though this is a almost decade before the term was coined) and lie detectors that talk, but they have carefully circumscribed roles in society. Exploring that more would be interesting.
The fundamental idea of a society built on post-Aristotelian logic, post-Newtonian physics, and post-Euclidean math makes for a clever structure. I assume he fleshes this out in other novels set in the same universe.
Overall, I'm glad I read it, but didn't develop a desire to dig further into his works. It's a quick, diverting read, though, which was just what I needed.
It's...not bad, not great, and very much of its era.
The year is 2650, but women still make dinner and have inscrutable brains, and are mostly just props for the male actors. There are still hotels, quarters (the money kind), messenger boys, machine guns (alongside "blasters") and door locks. The anachronism level is high enough to be distracting.
van Vogt here is aiming for a complex political plot, with shifting alliances and lots of intrigue. The trouble is, he's not _quite_ a good enough writer to pull it off. Too bad, it has promise.
There are AIs (though this is a almost decade before the term was coined) and lie detectors that talk, but they have carefully circumscribed roles in society. Exploring that more would be interesting.
The fundamental idea of a society built on post-Aristotelian logic, post-Newtonian physics, and post-Euclidean math makes for a clever structure. I assume he fleshes this out in other novels set in the same universe.
Overall, I'm glad I read it, but didn't develop a desire to dig further into his works. It's a quick, diverting read, though, which was just what I needed.
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