The Beast

The Beast (1964) by A E van Vogt. I am I'm afraid an unashamed Vogt fan. He is one of my favourite writers. I'm not saying his books are good, I'm just saying I enjoy them. The Beast is another of his post-Slan evolving superhuman stories.

This time our hero gets slugged unconscious four times, loses his memory twice - but lucky develops the ability to acquire other people's telepathically, looses two arms (not at the same time and it may be the same arm twice, I'm not sure) but grows them/it back, and at the end of the book renounced absorption into the Universal Wholeness for the love of a good woman. (His other wife has previously renounced her absorption with him so he can do this).

This all sounds all pretty usual van Vogtian fare show more but add in -big deep breath - noiseless Aeroplanes that can fly to (and crash on) the moon, multiple kidnappings, off-screen sex riots, gaol breaks, presidential elections, secret tunnels (at least two lots), American presidents disguising themselves with lifelike 'flesh masks' and leading his all women secret service agents on desert operations, two rival secret organizations: one of evil space Nazis, the other of possibly beneficent immortal human anti-vampires (they have the power to grant long life to normal humans by giving them a transfusion of their blood), a million year old Neanderthal who rules an underground city on the moon... - gasp - and then cram it all into 160 pages.... thrillingly bewildering stuff.

There are more stupidly bonkers ideas per chapter in the average van Vogt novel than most authors cram into a lifetime of writing. Of course, with all those bonkers ideas jostling for very limited space, there's not much left for luxuries like coherent plot development and character but what the hell, you can get those anywhere, by the yard; books with immortal sabre tooth tigers fed on a diet of cowboys are very rare and to be treasured. show less

While the lot line is roughly that of the "Alien" movie, this was the earlier form by some decades. Imported by a time travel accident the beast ravages the moon base of a secret society, until our dauntless hero puts it down. Often copied, and seldom bettered by other writers.

Besides featuring all of VanVogts' worst tendencies in excess, it's a fixup fashioned from fundamentally disparate stories that are malled to fit together. The Changeling is better read by itself, and I'm hunting for the short story that features the million year old Neanderthal-"the Big Oaf" (that's what VanVogt says -a million years old). He is a somewhat amusing VanVogt creation, but even he can't save this carcrash of a novel.

Stay away. No good.

This is a fascinating book, as it is an expansion of a prior short story of the same title -- something Van Vogt did fairly often. One can learn much about form from evaluating such practices.

F/SF

I read this several times in my youth, so I must have thought it worth reading once, but the last time I read it I noted in my diary, “What a load of rubbish—why do I read such stuff?”

It’s a fix-up based on three originally separate stories from the 1940s: not originally conceived as a novel. If you want the best of van Vogt, this is probably not it.

Jorden og omegn, år 1971
Et rumskib styrter ned og motoren ligger og kører videre. Den er formet som en doughnut og hvis man stikker ting ind i hullet bliver de hvirvlet rundt på kompliceret vis afhængig af form, sammensætning og belastning. En mand ved navn Jim Pendrake finder den og slæber den hjem for at sælge den som skrot, men da han opdager dens kræfter tager han den med for at studere den i stedet. Jim er gift med Eleanor, men hun har brudt forbindelsen, da hun fandt ud af at han havde haft andre kvinder.
Jim er 32 år, tidligere pilot og har mistet højre arm i en nedstyrtning. Før det var han kendt for at være overmenneskelig stærk og han har stadig mange kræfter i sin venstre arm.
Egentlig havde han givet Eleanor show more kontrol over sin formue, da de skiltes, men hun har i hemmelighed givet den tilbage på den betingelse at banken først måtte sige det, når han på et tidspunkt kom og manglede penge. Han opdager det, da han vil optage et lån for at købe en flyvemaskine til at putte motoren i. Da han har fløjet en kort tur i maskinen, bliver han holdt op af et par typer, der giver ham en smule flere penge end han gav for flyvemaskinen og så ellers stikker af med den. Det tænker han lidt over og så melder han det til politiet, der spørger hvorfor han ikke har meldt motoren som hittegods. Tjah, det er jo ikke så let at svare på. Motoren virker superavanceret, så han kontakter en ven, der har med patenter at gøre. Vennen kontakter en af sine venner, der er i flyvevåbnet og de minder Jim om at han også har svoret loyalitet til nationen. En mand ringer til Jim og truer ham med at gøre Eleanor fortræd, hvis han ikke stopper sine undersøgelser. Det virker mod hensigten for han kontakter Eleanor og sætter hende ind i sagen.
Han forklæder sig (med en flesh mask, der åbenbart er god nok til helt at forandre en persons udseende, navnlig i den militære udgave) og forsøger at finde ud af om landets ledende atomfysikere kan have noget med den forsvundne motor at gøre. Nummer 17 på listen er doktor McClintock Grayson, der er ansat af millionæren Cyril Lampton i dennes forskningsafdeling. Lampton har også gang i et landbrugsprojekt, hvortil han søger unge mennesker uden familie og venner, men med landbrugsbaggrund. Jim og Eleanor melder sig.
Efter at have rodet rundt med motoren har Jim fået ondt i armstumpen og armen ser ud til langsomt at vokse ud igen. Den deforme arm får Lampton folkene til at mistænke ham, så de bedøver både ham og Eleanor.

???
Hæsblæsende historie, hvor ideerne og plotdrejninger vælter over hinanden. Fremtidsversionen er sjov, for atommotorer er vildt avancerede, men vi møder ingen lasere eller computere og man sender telegrammer og ringer fra telefonbokse. show less