Btw... when I read Van Vogt's wikipedia page, in the critical reception part of the page, it basically said that a lot of critics and other sci-fi writers considered him to be like, an extremely terrible writer or something. What's that all about? I've never read any of his books and don't really know anything about him.
Does he have a really bad writing style or something? Or are his sci-fi concepts not usually very deep? Or does he fail in regards to the hard-sci-fi aspects of the science parts of his books? Why are his books considred so bad by a lot of people, basically? (I'm not asking in a trolling type of way btw, I am just honestly asking, since I'm an almost complete novice in the realm of sci-fi and am just curious what that's all about)
The wikipedia article itself supplies the most relevant information, I think. Damon Knight seems to have adopted Stendhal's maxim about entering society with a duel, so slagged van Vogt. Philip K. Dick rebuts this nicely:
Damon feels that it's bad artistry when you build those funky universes where people fall through the floor. It's like he's viewing a story the way a building inspector would when he's building your house. But reality really is a mess, and yet it's exciting. The basic thing is, how frightened are you of chaos? And how happy are you with order? Van Vogt influenced me so much because he made me appreciate a mysterious chaotic quality in the universe which is not to be feared.
Does he have a really bad writing style? If you are looking for melodiously flowing prose or evaluating things with a Flesch–Kincaid mindset then, sure, an argument could be made for bad style. But if you're looking for effective dramatic prose that portrays things that can't be found in more ordinary or elegant writing, then his style is excellent. I'd point out one of my favorite lines in the SFE where John Clute says, "[van Vogt's signature concerns] are presented in a prose that uses crude, dark colours but whose striking Sense of Wonder is conveyed with a dreamlike conviction". (I recommend the
entire article.) Are his concepts very deep? Well, they are often about self-improvement unto transition into supermen and often deal with exotic life-forms or physical structures and often deal with power and personality. So they are certainly powerful and loaded concepts - there is something almost comic-book-like to them sometimes, so could be seen as shallow/superficial but van Vogt was so genuinely concerned with these things that I find them "deep" in the sense of being endlessly provocative. Does he fail in the hard SF aspects? Not exactly - he would only fail if he was writing hard SF and getting it wrong. His SF is more "super-science" based - indistinguishable from magic. He had a great deal of interest in technical matters and drew inspiration from science and tech but wasn't really a hard SF writer. (He makes some interesting comments relevant to this in a radio interview I've
mentioned elsewhere -
direct link to mp3.
Anyway - I recommend
Mission to the Stars,
The Voyage of the Space Beagle, the "Weapon Shops" books,
War Against the Rull (Gardner Dozois' favorite van Vogt), the first "Null-A" duo,
Slan,
The House That Stood Still, and I think even
The Mind Cage, as well as the variety of stories found in
Away and Beyond,
Destination Universe, and
The Masters of Time and elsewhere. Some of the above notwithstanding, his fixups aren't always the best so I wouldn't recommend too many of them unless you're already a fan and the "Clane" series is weak so I'd recommend delaying or avoiding it, too. Before Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein, the "big three" was Asimov, Heinlein, and van Vogt and titles like
Slan, Weapon Shops, and Null and the stories in the "Space Beagle" fixup are landmarks and historical necessities to know about in SF.
This doesn't seem to be very well known, but I really like it.
Yeah, it does seem to sort of get lost in the flood of Anderson titles, but it does stick out to me, too.
