Book Review: Away and Beyond by A.E. van Vogt
This paperback anthology is a partial reprint of the first hardcover collection of A.E. van Vogt short stories from 1952, with 7 of the 9 1940s tales. It’s not explained why two stories were dropped, but my research suggests they were lesser works.
“The Great Engine” starts us off with a disabled veteran discovering a mysterious engine partially buried in a mountainside. If he can discover its secrets and harness its power, he could become rich and famous. But he doesn’t know how long the engine has been there. Might the owners still be alive and wanting their toy back? In the end, isn’t Pendrake better off reconnecting with the life and joys he already has?
I’m pretty sure I’ve reviewed this story before. Perhaps the best thing about it is that the ending is nothing you could have predicted from the beginning.
“The Great Judge” takes place in one of those dystopian futures where things are actually pretty comfortable as long as you don’t care about freedom. Scientist Douglas Aird has been found guilty of suggesting that absolute obedience to the Great Judge is not, perhaps, the best form of government. As a result, he must turn himself in for conversion to energy. But until his execution date, he can do whatever he likes as there is no way to escape.
But for a man who’s given a dog the nerve impulses of a chicken, perhaps there is one way out after all. Mind you, his plan’s success hinges entirely on no one guessing it’s possible.
“Secret Unattainable” brings us back to the early days of World War Two, and the mad science so beloved of pulp fiction about the Nazis. In this case, the scientist has devised a means of tapping unlimited resources from other planets. The catch is that he’s developed a new form of physics that no fascists could ever bring themselves to accept in their mindset. Thus all the precautions in the world won’t help the Third Reich control the device or prevent his revenge. It’s done in the epistolary style, all letters, memos, and transcripts.
“The Harmonizer” is about an alien plant that was released accidentally on Earth millions of years ago and helped kill off the dinosaurs. The aliens thought they’d gotten rid of all of them, but one last shoot comes to the surface during World War Three.
“The Second Solution” is more hopeful; an alien “monster” is semi-accidentally released on Earth. One man realizes it’s not quite the monster it seems. But why has no one in the bar heard this story before?
“Film Library” is a gimmick story. The short films sent out by a distribution house are not always what they are advertised to be. Turns out that a school’s movie projector is quantum entangled with its future counterpart. One teacher tries to ruin his rival, but it backfires, and the situation is resolved without any human intervention.
“Asylum” ends the volume with a longer story, maybe a novelette. Two of the Dreegh, basically space vampires, have stumbled on the location of the forbidden planet Earth. The Earthlings are primitives who have barely made it to their own asteroid belt, so will be easy prey for the massed Dreegh forces, and are isolated so that the much hated vampires will be able to hide there. That is, if the Dreegh can manage to find and silence the local Galactic Observer.
In pursuit of this goal, they create a mystery to lure in ace reporter William Leigh so that he can investigate on their behalf. The plan is somewhat complicated when a Mr. Patrick insists on coming along with Leigh, only for us to learn her name is actually Patricia. (There’s a certain amount of sexism in future society.) The encounter seems to end in a draw, but Leigh is the puppet of more than one force.
This is another of those twisty tales where you may need to page back a couple of times to figure out what’s going on.
Galactic society seems to be a little less than ideal; the Dreegh have a tragic backstory involving accidental mutation that the Great Galactics decided was better dealt with by wiping them out than curing them. But by the point we meet them, the Dreegh have long since become arrogant murderers who gleefully plan to murder entire planetary populations, so they don’t get much sympathy. Also there’s social ranking based on intelligence groups, with IQ scores tossed about like Dragonball Z power levels. Which results in presumably neutral descriptive words for certain classes of people being treated as slurs, ala “idiot” or “moron.”
The ending is either horrific or liberating, depending on your philosophical view point.
I like “Secret” and “Asylum” best of this lot. “Judge” is a little too short to fully develop its ideas. I don’t think this anthology has been reprinted lately so it may be hard to find, but most of the stories have been anthologized elsewhere and can be located separately. Check them out if you like psychologically interesting science fiction that’s a bit dated.
