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novels; now at last this collection (Destination: Universe!) (curiously labeled by the publishers as "an anthology") displays what the magazine-reader has long known: his mastery of the economical short story adventurously developing a startling imaginative idea. As usual, his prose is graceless, even cumbrous; and the introductory analysis of science fiction in general and his own work in particular is faintly embarrassing. But here are some of the most striking concepts in the last ten years of imaginitive fiction, with a fine sense of vigorous storytelling and a small-scale, convincing impact lacking in more pretentious works. |
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Anthony Boucher (as "H. H. Holmes"), [Review of Destination: Universe!], New York Herald Tribune Books, 1 June 1952, p. 12 |
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As a typical example of the best type of popular science fiction, consider A. E. van Vogt's volume of stories Destination Universe. Its opening story, "Far Centaurus," deals with the problem of reaching the stars. A scientist discovers a drug capable of keeping men in a state of suspended animation. This partly answers the problem of how men could keep alive through the enormous periods of time that it would take to reach the nearest starseven for a space ship that could travel at the speed of light. Several drugged men are shot towards Alpha Centauri. They wake up after fifty years or so, take more of the drug, and sleep for another fifty years. In this way they are still young men when they reach the star. But when they arrive, a surprise awaits them. Since their space ship set out, human science has made immense advances, and has constructed space ships that can cover the journey in a fraction of the time. When they arrive, the star is already colonised by men from earth. Unfortunately, the author has no idea how to finish his story, but the first part is impressive because it makes the reader aware of the immensity of space. The men who leave earth on a two-hundred-year-voyage are severing themselves from all their human connections, and from the human race. By the time they arrive on the star, all their relatives on earth will be dead. The story jars the reader's imagination to a new viewpoint. Our imaginations are anthropocentric, earthbound; they prefer to deal with the emotions with which they are familiarhuman love and hate. In this sense, a story like van Vogt's can be considered as a new departure for the human imagination, which since Homer has dealt with warmer and more familiar emotions. For its first half, |
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