Alfred Elton (A. E.) van Vogt
(1912-2000) was a Canadian-born author who is more or less forgotten
in the modern age thanks to fellow Sci-Fi author and Science Fiction
Writers and Fantasy Writers of America founder Damon Knight who
savagely vilified van Vogt in the 50s. Which is odd, considering that
van Vogt is also credited with ushering in “The Golden Age of
Science Fiction” when he sold his first SF story to John W.
Campbell's Astounding Science Fiction in
1939. (There is, of course, contention about whether the Campbellian
period should be considered the Golden Age, but that's a beside the
point of this review).
The story in question is Black
Destroyer, and it was the
featured cover story of its issue of Astounding.
While retroactively crediting it with
starting “The Golden Age” of Sci-Fi feels like a stretch, it does
feature a lot of elements common to later Hard Sci-Fi stories. A team
of scientists travel to another world to conduct research and
discover a dangerous life form that they have to survive using their
brains. The threat in question is an intelligent, malevolent,
cat-like creature called a coeurl with a pair tentacles sprouting
from its back as extra appendages that feeds on “id-creatures” by
draining all the phosphorus from their bodies. The unnamed world is a
dying wasteland filled with Barsoomian ruins and the coeurl is
starving, having exhausted all of the food in its territory. The
humans show up and its a veritable buffet for the starving creature.
Using guile, the coeurl (no, I don't
know how to pronounce that) pretends to be a simple beast curious
with the visitors, but then secretly starts killing them off for food
and, later, for sheer bloodthirstiness. As the science team learns
about the threat, they also learn that the “pussy” they adopted
is far more intelligent and powerful than they first thought.
Its simple, but also fairly effective
Space Horror, and its DNA is clearly visible in movies like Alien.
The coeurl itself has loads of personality despite not being able to
communicate with the humans, but in no way is it treated as a
sympathetic monster. Its a killer and a barbarian, a degenerated
relic of the creatures that once ruled its world, and the coeurl's
spite and malice end up sabotaging itself even while it schemes to
unite its kin so they can conquer the stars.
The
humans, on the other hand, are clearly heroic, if terribly naive.
After one of the team is found dead by mysterious means, several of
the team suspect the coeurl (its the only living thing they've found)
but the captain, Morton, doubts that and allows it on the ship so
they can study it more. Its a stupid call that gets a dozen of his
crew murdered, and Morton feels really bad about that, rallying his
men to find a solution through their collective intelligence (and
disintegration guns).
And
then when discussing civilizations, van Vogt has the Japanese
archaeologist (Pearl Harbor was still some years away) say this:
“You
may ask, commander, what has all this to do with your question? My
answer is: there is no
record of a culture entering abruptly into the
period of contending states. It is always a slow
development; and the
first step is merciless questioning of all that was once held sacred.
Inner
certainties cease to exist, are dissolved before the ruthless
probings of scientific and analytic
minds. The skeptic becomes the
highest type of being.”
That's
heavy stuff, and a thorough rejection of postmodern thought. Its no
wonder that a Futurian hard leftist like Damon Knight would hate him
enough to try to destroy his career.
A
small, fairly simple story, the plot is straightforward but
satisfying enough that I can recommend for a quick read. It was
eventually “fixed up” by van Vogt for inclusion in 1950's The
Voyage of the Space Beagle, but
it works well as a stand-alone. The real draw are the ideas at play,
from the foundation it lays for Space Horror that still stands today
to the interesting dead world, and the coeurl is just a damn cool
monster. So cool, that it its the direct ancestor of D&D's
Displacer Beast.
But
that's an essay for another day.
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