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were part of the same ultimate Unity as we, and consequently in some sense might be knowable by us. |
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This new construction of things allowed van Vogt to operate freely and easily in mental and physical territory that was too far out for his more conventional colleagues. And it also allowed him to imagine utter strangeness close at hand where ordinary perception would never expect to find it. |
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To an audience that was still struggling to come to terms with materialism and the apparently accidental and meaningless nature of existence, van Vogt's new perspective seemed mysterious and elusive. It permitted him to come at his readers from impossible directions and to show them marvels completely beyond their ability to anticipate. |
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Even John Campbell was captivated, charmed and awed by the sheer inexplicability of A. E. van Vogt. Shaking his head in wonder, Campbell would say, "That son of a gun is about one-half mystic, and like many another mystic, hits on ideas that are sound, without having any rational method of arriving at them or defending them." |
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However, nearly fifty years after the original serialization of Slan, with the advantages lent to us by hindsight, by the changes that have taken place in thinking patterns during the intervening time, and by van Vogt's own self-explanations, we don't need to be quite as baffled or as hypnotized by the story as readers were in 1940. We can see that what was present in Slan to be taken away by a readerwhether consciously or notwas precisely those elements that van Vogt had labored so long and so hard to put into his story in the first place: Names of significance. A sense of the mutability of things. Sudden emotional and intellectual recognitions. Patterns and relationships. Awareness of the whole. |
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Alexei and Cory Panshin, The World beyond the Hill: Science Fiction and the Quest for Transcendence (Rigelsville, PA: Elephant Books, 1989), pp. 48485 |
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Slan. 1946. |
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The Weapon Makers (One against Eternity). 1947, 1952. |
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The Book of Ptath (Two Hundred Million A.D.). 1947. |
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The World of A (The World of NullA). 1948, 1970. |
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