Back in 1943, when A. E. Van Vogt was just beginning his career as a science fiction writer, Van Vogt wrote a fantasy story for Unknown Worlds. The setting was a depleted planet Earth 200 million years in the future (with the same tone as Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth stories). Ptath, summoned from a previous time line, arrives in this future with an impaired memory. Through trickery, Ptath is manipulated into disarming several of the guardian spells that keep the forces of Evil at bay. Ptath, like many of Van Vogt’s characters, operates with fragmentary information and has to figure out what the Truth is. Even in this early work, plenty of Van Vogtian plot and character devices are at work. You can see the signs of Van Vogt’s future greatness in The Book of Ptath.
I must admit Van Vogt is one of the (many) sf writers I’ve never read.
Great pick. Van Vogt was huge at one time, but now he’s hardly remembered.
Bill, I was a fan of Van Vogt from the time I read THE WEAPON SHOP OF ISHER when I was a kid.
Jeff, like most prolific SF writers, A. E. Van Vogt’s work is wildly uneven. Much of Van Vogt’s best writing can be found in his short story collections or his “fix-up” novels. You might try VOYAGE OF THE SPACE BEAGLE.
Thanks, George. I’ll try that one first.
Jeff, any of Van Vogt’s short story collections would also be good places to start. His “The Black Destroyer” inspired the ALIEN movies.
Read a lot of Van Vogt as a teenager back in the 60’s. tried rereading Slan a couple years back and couldn’t get thru it. Just so badly written.
Steve, I prefer Van Vogt’s short stories to his novels (which Damon Knight declared were unintelligible).
SLAN and THE WEAPON SHOPS OF ISHER are probably his best known works. I prefer the latter. I haven’t read this one.
Rick, Van Vogt’s NULL-A books caused a sensation in the SF world when they appeared. John C. Wright wrote a sequel which I own.
I’m in Slan-Apa, though the theme of the group isn’t Van Vogt or even skiffy. New members always welcome.
Nice to see your item about The Book of Ptath by A. E. van Vogt. We’ve just released the first e-book edition on the Apple iBookstore, Kindle and Nook. Nice job of collecting some of the covers from past paper editions.
Ashley, thanks for the heads-up on the ebook version of THE BOOK OF PTATH! I hope you release more of A. E. Van Vogt as ebooks.