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Alfred Elton van Vogt was a Canadian-born American science fiction author. His fragmented, bizarre narrative style influenced later science fiction writers, notably Philip K. Dick. He was one of the most popular and influential practitioners of science fiction in the mid-twentieth century, the genre's so-called Golden Age, and one of the most complex. The Science Fiction Writers of America named him their 14th Grand Master in 1995.
A sleeper ship is a hypothetical type of crewed spacecraft, or starship in which most or all of the crew spend the journey in some form of hibernation or suspended animation. The only known technology that allows long-term suspended animation of humans is the freezing of early-stage human embryos through embryo cryopreservation, which is behind the concept of embryo space colonization.
The Voyage of the Space Beagle (1950) is a science fiction novel by Canadian-American writer A. E. van Vogt. An example of space opera subgenre, the novel is a "fix-up" compilation of four previously published stories:
The Uplift Universe is a fictional universe created by American science fiction writer David Brin. A central feature in this universe is the process of biological uplift.
The Slitheen are a fictional family of massive, bipedal extraterrestrials from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. They are adversaries of the Ninth Doctor and later Sarah Jane Smith. The Slitheen are a family of egg-laying calcium-based aliens from Raxacoricofallapatorius. Though their family name is Slitheen, their species are named Raxacoricofallapatorians. The Slitheen are instinctive hunters who are trained from a young age to be ruthless criminals whose main motivation is profit. They were convicted on their home world, not willing to return to their planet in fear of receiving a death sentence.
First contact is a common science fiction theme about the first meeting between humans and extraterrestrial life, or of any sentient species' first encounter with another one, given they are from different planets or natural satellites. The theme allows writers to explore such topics such as xenophobia, transcendentalism, and basic linguistics by adapting the anthropological topic of first contact to extraterrestrial cultures.
A fix-up is a novel created from several short fiction stories that may or may not have been initially related or previously published. The stories may be edited for consistency, and sometimes new connecting material, such as a frame story or other interstitial narration, is written for the new work. The term was coined by the science fiction writer A. E. van Vogt, who published several fix-ups of his own, including The Voyage of the Space Beagle, but the practice exists outside of science fiction. The use of the term in science fiction criticism was popularised by the first (1979) edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, edited by Peter Nicholls, which credited van Vogt with the creation of the term. The name “fix-up” comes from the changes that the author needs to make in the original texts, to make them fit together as though they were a novel. Foreshadowing of events from the later stories may be jammed into an early chapter of the fix-up, and character development may be interleaved throughout the book. Contradictions and inconsistencies between episodes are usually worked out.
The planetary systems of stars other than the Sun and the Solar System are a staple element in many works of the science fiction genre.
The Excalibur Alternative is a science fiction novel by American writer David Weber, published by Baen Books in 2002. It is one of several novels based on the premise of David Drake's 1986 novel Ranks of Bronze. This novel is based on the short story "Sir George and the Dragon", which appeared in the 2001 anthology Foreign Legions.
Rogue Ship is a 1965 science fiction novel by Canadian-American writer A. E. van Vogt, adapted from three short stories to form a novel. The three short stories used were:
The Revelation Space series is a book series created by Alastair Reynolds. The fictional universe it is set in is used as the setting for a number of his novels and stories. Its fictional history follows the human species through various conflicts from the relatively near future to approximately 40,000 AD. It takes its name from Revelation Space (2000), which was the first published novel set in the universe.
The Silkie is a fix-up science fiction novel by Canadian-American writer A. E. van Vogt, first published in complete form in 1969. The component stories had previously been published in Galaxy Science Fiction magazine.
A human disguise is a concept in fantasy, folklore, mythology, religion, literature, iconography, and science fiction whereby non-human beings such as gods, angels, monsters, extraterrestrials, or robots are disguised to seem human. Stories have depicted the deception as a means used to blend in with people, and science fiction has used the dichotomy to raise questions about what it means to be human.
"The Monster" is a science fiction short story by Canadian-American writer A. E. van Vogt, originally published in Astounding in August 1948.
Supermind is a 1977 science fiction novel by A. E. van Vogt, published by DAW. Like most of van Vogt's book-length works, it is a fix-up, comprising several shorter pieces written over a period of more than twenty-five years:
Star Rangers, also known as The Last Planet, is a science fiction novel by the American author Andre Norton. The novel was published on August 20, 1953, by Harcourt, Brace & Company. This is one of Norton's Central Control books, which lay out the history of a galactic empire through events suggested by Norton's understanding of Terran history.
The War Against the Rull is a science fiction novel by Canadian-American writer A. E. Van Vogt, first published in 1959 by Simon & Schuster. The novel is a fixup made from six short stories and two connecting chapters.
"Black Destroyer" is a science fiction short story by Canadian-American writer A. E. van Vogt, first published in Astounding SF in July 1939. It has been marked as the story that represents the start of the Golden Age of Science Fiction.
A formal description of an alien language in science fiction may have been pioneered by Percy Greg's Martian language in his 1880 novel Across the Zodiac, although already the 17th century book The Man in the Moone describes the language of the Lunars, consisting "not so much of words and letters as tunes and strange sounds", which is in turn predated by other invented languages in fictional societies, e.g., in Thomas More's Utopia.
References
- ↑ Contento, William (26 January 2008). "Destination: Universe!". Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections. Retrieved 21 October 2012.
- ↑ "Destination, Universe!". Galaxy Science Fiction. July 1952. pp. 105–106. ISBN 9781944409074.