The July 1939 issue of Astounding Science Fiction magazine, featuring A. E. van Vogt’s first published s-f story Black Destroyer on its iconic cover by Graves Gladney, is generally considered to have initiated the golden age of science-fiction, extending throughout the forties and into the early fifties.
It later became the initial six chapters of van Vogt’s great 1950 novel of interstellar exploration, The Voyage of the Space Beagle. However there are very many textual variations between (…)
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THE 83 VAN VOGT STORIES ON THIS SITE
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"Black Destroyer" (1939) - the original text of A. E. van Vogt’s first published s-f story
21 December 2016, by A. E. van Vogt -
The "Mixed Men" series of golden-age s-f stories by A. E. van Vogt
20 December 2016, by A. E. van VogtThese three linked golden-age stories pursue the theme of man’s expansion beyond the Milky Way Galaxy explored in van Vogt’s initial and iconic Black Destroyer (1939) tale.
From a completely different but just about as interesting perspective: the discovery by a gigantic Earth exploration spaceship of a race of super-evolved men that had escaped from Earth’s domination of the entire Milky Way galaxy into the nearby Lesser Magellanic Cloud galaxy some thousands of years earlier.
These (…) -
Fifteen golden-age science-fiction stories by A. E. van Vogt
31 January 2016, by A. E. van VogtThese fifteen stories are all fine examples of this great writer’s best work from his most creative period - the forties and early fifties, the "golden age" of science-fiction.
All of the stories published here are the original magazine versions, with the magazine artwork and cover for each story. An e-book of this sizeable anthology (185,000 words, 600+ standard printed pages) is available for downloading below. TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Repetition (1940) - an emissary from Earth struggles (…) -
"Destination: Universe!" - A. E. van Vogt’s superb first anthology of his science-fiction short stories (1952)
9 October 2015, by A. E. van VogtA. E. van Vogt’s first anthology of his golden-age short stories, published in early 1952, with the author’s introduction and all the original magazine texts, artwork and covers of each story. TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION by A. E. van Vogt.
1. Far Centaurus (1944) Getting to Centaurus on a spaceship can take a long time indeed, and when you get there, there will be surprises! (7,700 words).
2. The Monster (1948) Aliens of the ever-expanding Ganae race check out Earth as a suitable (…) -
"Away and Beyond" - A. E. van Vogt’s other great 1952 anthology
5 October 2015, by A. E. van VogtThis outstanding collection of nine of van Vogt’s best golden-age science-fiction stories was published in 1952, as a sort of companion volume to Destination Universe, his first short-story anthology published earlier that same year.
Curiously, almost all editions of Away and Beyond printed after 1952, notably the (American) Berkley Books, the (British) Panther and the (French) Presses Pocket editions, have omitted the remarkable first story in this anthology, Vault of the Beast – van (…) -
"Dormant" - a great golden-age sci-fi story by A. E. van Vogt (1948)
21 July 2015, by A. E. van VogtThis dramatic tale of the harrowing results of the discovery of a huge and very strange alien object on a remote Pacific island in the immediate post-WW2 years, told in typical and most effective van-Vogt-style from the “other’s” point of view, was first published in the November 1948 issue of Startling Stories, whose snappy cover here has surely not escaped your attention.
There was the following interesting comment by the editors in that rather splendid issue (198 large-format pages!!) (…) -
"Vault of the Beast" – the first s-f story written by A. E. van Vogt (1940)
24 March 2015, by A. E. van VogtA. E. van Vogt’s first published story was the celebrated Black Destroyer, that appeared in the August 1939 edition of Astounding Science Fiction.
But Black Destroyer was not actually van Vogt’s first science-fiction story : that distinction goes to this one, a remarkably inventive and dramatic space-adventure tale that he had submitted to the Astounding magazine in 1938.
Its publication was however delayed for editorial reasons, as a shape-changing alien had featured in Who Goes There?, (…) -
"The Sea Thing" by A. E. van Vogt (1940)
11 February 2015, by A. E. van VogtIn this very early story first published in the January 1940 edition of Unknown magazine, A. E. van Vogt made a rare but very successful venture into the realm of fantasy. Or rather near-fantasy, as the shark-god "Thing" (in human form!) that comes out of the sea to wreak revenge on a group of fishermen in an isolated area of the South Seas is an interesting and just-about-credible (especially at night in sufficiently-eerie surroundings) incarnation of the ancestral lore of the native (…)
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"Centaurus II" by A. E. van Vogt (1947) - a golden-age novelette never before republished
10 February 2015, by A. E. van VogtThis novelette, which was the cover story in the June 1947 issue of the celebrated science-fiction magazine Astounding Science Fiction, covers some of the same ground as van Vogt’s magnificent 1950 novel The Voyage of the Space Beagle: exploration of far-off star systems, discovery of highly-developed not to say superior alien civilisations and, especially, the grave dangers that internal social/sociological conflicts can and probably always will pose to the very survival of such long-term (…)
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"The Monster" (1948) - A. E. van Vogt’s best short story
3 October 2013This golden-age story, first published in the August 1948 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, was considered by its author to be one of his – an opinion we heartily concur with.
It was later republished in some anthologies as Resurrection, but it appeared in van Vogt’s first anthology of his own short stories (Destination: Universe!, in 1952) with its original title, and it was referred to by that name by him in later interviews, so The Monster clearly is the proper "canonical" title of (…)