The Mixed Men

I inherited a battered copy of this book from my father a few years ago and finally got around to reading it. A. E. van Vogt is one of the "big" names in early science fiction, although his imagination is better-regarded than his writing. And this does contain big ideas, ranging from what I'll call lost colonies in the Large Magellanic Cloud to genetic engineering gone wrong to mental conditioning capable of forcing people into and out of love. It's also the story of one man of superhuman mental capacity standing at the intersection of two civilizations and four disparate groups of people, trying to figure out his place in the cosmos while seeking to align these groups to form a unified whole.

The story is breathtaking. The writing show more might often make you wince. That's basically van Vogt in a nutshell. The latter aside, he's an essential part of the history of the genre, which alone makes him worth the read, and one can't argue too much with his grand visions. Even if all you have is a battered copy.

By the by, my father had a habit. When he bought a book, he put the date of purchase in the front. At the end, he recorded when he finished reading it. If he re-read it later he would record that date, too. In this copy, he noted the following:

Purchased: January 15, 1956 (which was over 2 years before I was born).
Finished: January 16, 1956
Additional read dates: July 20, 2003, October 24, 2013, October 29, 2013, August 30, 2014.

I'm not sure why he read it twice in one week in 2013. I think he may have been reading it again around the time of his death, because there's a blank piece of note paper at page 106, the start of chapter 18. Clearly he liked this book! show less

I read quite a bit of Van Vogt when I was young. His stories entertained me. He was "out there" more than many. I haven't read him in a very long time and picked up several old paperbacks recently when I happened upon them. The Richard Powers cover on my copy screams 1950's. So I started this book to see how well time has treated him. I was very pleased. This is classic golden age space opera in all the right ways and few of the wrong. This novel is based on three shorter stories first published from 1943-1945 and put together as a novel in the early 50's. The mixed men are a kind of robot human hybrid who were persecuted long before the time in the story and who fled the influence of earth's civilzation to the far stars along with many show more normal humans. Then, 15,000 years later an enormous city size Earth battleship has been exploring the Greater Magellenic Cloud and happens by chance on an outpost. They quickly realize that a large civilization spanning 50 suns has arisen away from earth, and has kept itself hidden. The mission of the female commander of the battleship switches from mapping to discovery of the hidden civilization and reintegration with Earth. Parts of the story show their age (nearly 70 years old), but this really was an enjoyable story. I didn't quite ever buy the whole human - "robot" hybrid thing, and the different sorts of humans, but I accepted it for the sake of the story.

My long held fondness for early science fiction has dimmed a little in recent years but this one helped make that old light a little brighter. This short novel was fun to read. I can see more Van Vogt in my near future.

A version of this story seems to be available online from Baen: http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/13-TheBalticWarCD/TheBalticWarCD/Transgalacti...

However, this seems to be the original three short stories. My copy of the novel is much longer than these stories and the three stories are tied together pretty well in the actual book. show less

Set 15,000 years from now, an Earth ship has spent the last ten years in the Greater Magellanic Cloud looking for a space empire that calls itself the Fifty Suns. They are a group of mutated humans who left Earth many years previously to get away from prejudice and discrimination.

Earth promises a benevolent leadership; the Fifty Suns will generally be able to rule themselves. But Earth makes it very clear: Join Us or Be Destroyed. Long ago, Earth decided to not allow any other star empires to exist. The Fifty Suns decide on silence, and let the Earth ship try to find them among the Cloud’s millions of stars.

A minority among the population of the Fifty Suns is the Mixed Men. Possessing a sort of double brain (not two separate brains, show more but more like pairs of molecules where there is only supposed to be on molecule), they have been subject to prejudice also, and have had to resort to extreme secrecy to hide their cities. Maltby, hereditary leader of the Mixed Men, finds himself on board the Earthship, the Star Cruiser, ordered to pilot it to the capital of the Fifty Suns. His secret orders, from the leaders of the Fifty Suns, are to pilot the ship right into a space storm, powerful enough to destroy even a hundred-deck behemoth like the Star Cruiser.

It’s obvious to the people that, even if the Star Cruiser is destroyed, which does not happen, it won’t be long, in cosmic terms, before Earth sends thousands of ships looking for the Fifty Suns empire. Many psychological methods are used to get Maltby to talk, including conditioning him to fall in love with Gloria Cecily, Grand Captain of the Star Cruiser.

This is an excellent far-future space opera in the grand tradition. Few writers can do it quite like A.E. van Vogt. This one is very much worth reading. show less

What are the Mixed Men?? It’s a question I had when I started into this book. It turns out that the ‘Mixed Men’ are a product of the union between men and robots. A union under normal circumstances impossible, but made feasible with the ‘cold fusion’ process. Sound interesting?? Intriguing?? It did to me.

Complete review at: The Great Gnome Press Science Fiction Odyssey, and a close-up examination of the book itself.

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