"War of Nerves" by A. E. van Vogt (1950)

War of Nerves was first published in the May 1950 issue of the magazine Other Worlds Science Stories, only a month or two – according to a comment in the editorial column of that issue – before the publication of van Vogt’s epic novel The Voyage of the Space Beagle, of which it became a part.

This was the fourth van Vogt story about the adventures of the scientific exploration spaceship The Space Beagle (named in honour of Charles Darwin’s ship of exploration of then-undiscovered areas of the world, The Beagle), after Black Destroyer (1939), Discord in Scarlet (1939) and M33 in Andromeda (1943).

However, with a certain number of textual modifications, it became the second episode (Chapters 9-12) in the novel, perhaps in order to enable the novel to finish on the somewhat more optimistic note of the third story in the series, M33 in Andromeda.

This is the original May 1950 version of the story, complete with the splendid illustration by Bill Terry and the rather moving Other Worlds Science Stories cover artwork by Malcolm Smith.

(8,500 words)

An e-book is available for downloading below.

War of Nerves (e-book)