The War Against The Rull

van Vogt, A E

ISBN 10: 0586028005 / ISBN 13: 9780586028001

Published by Granada / Panther, 1975

About this Item

© 1959: A stand-alone novel by A E van Vogt. 5th printing of 1969 edition. Based on several of A E van Vogt's short stories which appeared in Astounding Science Fiction:- 'Repetition', 'Cooperate Or Else', 'The Second Solution', 'The Rull' & 'The Sound':- Synopsis: Mankind threatened - By Aliens from beyond the galaxy. Man has conquered space and spread throughout the galaxy. Many civilisations on several thousand planets are joined in a vast confederation whose very existence is now threatened by the Rull - a paranoid, murderous race from beyond the frontiers of human territory. Equal to Man in intelligence, the Rull have a technology that may even be superior. Their spaceships have captured several hundred planets. The final titanic showdown that will decide Man's fate and that of the whole galaxy is imminent:- Review(s): A E van Vogt is one of the acknowledged masters of science fiction in th grand manner. In this gripping, fast-paced story packed with mind-stretching excitement, he gives his unmatched imagination full rein:- (original cost £0.40).

Seller Inventory # 18.003.00452

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The War Against The Rull
• Publisher: Granada / Panther
• Publication Date: 1975
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0586028005
• ISBN 13: 9780586028001
• Binding: Paperback: 7" x 4½"
• Illustrator: Cover Art: Colin Hay
• Edition: 1969 Edition
• Printing: 5th Printing
• Condition: Good: Moderate signs of wear
• Weight: 0.12 kilograms
• Seller catalogs:
  • Science Fiction

About this title

Synopsis

Alfred Elton van Vogt (1912-2000) was a Canadian-born science fiction author who was one of the most prolific and complex writers of the mid-twentieth century "Golden Age" of the genre. "The War Against the Rull" is a novel composed of shorter works originally published in John W. Campbell, Jr.'s "Astounding Science Fiction" magazine.

Review

You might easily mistake a list of A.E. van Vogt's classic stories for the names of bygone rides in Disney's Tomorrowland: Empire of the Atom, Mission to the Stars, Two-hundred Million A.D., Project: Spaceship. This Nebula Grand Master, while still writing well into the 1980s, was a pioneer of sci-fi's golden age, an author that the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction credits with creating--along with Heinlein and Asimov--"the first genuinely successful period of U.S. SF." A prolific contributor to such early mags as Thrilling Wonder, Startling Stories, and Astounding, van Vogt distinguished himself with his expert pacing, his mind-bending ideas, and--surprising in the starched-lab-coat 1940s--his serious access to weird. (Check out 1945's cult hit The World of Null-A as a prime example.)

The War Against the Rull, assembled from five stories written for Astounding between 1940 and 1950, is classic, keep-you-guessing van Vogt, even if it doesn't quite qualify for must-read status like Null-A and Slan. Our hero is Trevor Jamieson, chief scientist of the Interstellar Military Commission, on the front lines of humanity's war with a shape-shifting race of insectoid aliens known as the Rull. Jamieson may have found the key to victory, but first he must simply survive--marooned on a wild, hostile planet with a 6,000-pound, blue-furred, six-legged, human-hating telepathic bear, Jamieson escapes only to find himself trapped days later in a meteor-carved cave with a woman who wants him dead, armed with only a knife and his wits against a blood-thirsty giant weasel that can claw through solid rock. --Paul Hughes