A.E. van Vogt The Battle of Forever (1971)
It makes a nice change to read a van Vogt novel which appears to have been written as a novel rather than being a number of short stories jammed together like something from the weirder end of the Taco Bell menu, and an internet search for discussion of this title pulls up a number of other reviews opening with the very same observation, therefore representing, I suppose, some huge collective sigh of relief; and to continue this positive note, this one's absolutely fucking mental.
Humanity has evolved itself into a sort of futuristic foetal state and Earth is populated by humanised animals for no obvious reason, hippo-men, fox-men, hyaena-men and others who seem to talk like rubes and schills from the lower east side during prohibition. Our main character, van Vogt's customary man at war with his own environment, emerges from his miniaturised state and passes himself off as an ape-man so as to avoid suspicion. Humanity has achieved something resembling immortality and therefore no longer practices sexual intercourse, although van Vogt manages to keep from dwelling on this for once, aside from a couple of awkward - for them and for us - episodes wherein a futuristic woman named Soodleel comments on our man's genital rigidity. Then it transpires that Earth is under the dominion of the hyaena-men; and then it transpires that the hyaena-men are under the dominion of the alien Nunuli; and then it transpires that the Nunuli are under the dominion of the alien Gunyan, or at least I think they are. I was lost by this point. The Gunyan themselves may even be under the dominion of someone else.
It twists, swerves, and stubbornly fails to make sense just like many of van Vogt's best; but lacks the startling, angular prose of his better novels, and also seems to lack that weird eight-hundred word rhythm which rendered his more peculiar, dreamlike efforts so compelling. So it almost reads like something written by a regular science-fiction author in terms of pace; and yet van Vogt retains a few of his more aggravating habits, turning adjectives into nouns and vaguely scrabbling around at what he means, leaving descriptions of what is happening riddled with ambiguity. Characters experience a thought-feeling, or deliver an awareness, or perform an indication. In fact, Modyun, our main guy, seems to perform a lot of indications in terms which suggest we're talking about a telepathic act of some description, but after nearly two-hundred pages, I still have no fucking idea what is meant.
The Battle of Forever would appear to be about evolution, maybe even free will in a deterministic universe, although it's difficult to tell what A.E. was actually trying to say. I'm fairly certain it must be some point of Korzybski's General Semantics about the wisdom of not reading a book by its cover, the actual thrust of which is lost amongst the indeterminate wash of thought-feelings and awarenesses. Otherwise, it's approximately fun - as you would expect of a novel featuring a hippo-man who talks like James Cagney - but not quite so much fun as it probably should have been.
It makes a nice change to read a van Vogt novel which appears to have been written as a novel rather than being a number of short stories jammed together like something from the weirder end of the Taco Bell menu, and an internet search for discussion of this title pulls up a number of other reviews opening with the very same observation, therefore representing, I suppose, some huge collective sigh of relief; and to continue this positive note, this one's absolutely fucking mental.
Humanity has evolved itself into a sort of futuristic foetal state and Earth is populated by humanised animals for no obvious reason, hippo-men, fox-men, hyaena-men and others who seem to talk like rubes and schills from the lower east side during prohibition. Our main character, van Vogt's customary man at war with his own environment, emerges from his miniaturised state and passes himself off as an ape-man so as to avoid suspicion. Humanity has achieved something resembling immortality and therefore no longer practices sexual intercourse, although van Vogt manages to keep from dwelling on this for once, aside from a couple of awkward - for them and for us - episodes wherein a futuristic woman named Soodleel comments on our man's genital rigidity. Then it transpires that Earth is under the dominion of the hyaena-men; and then it transpires that the hyaena-men are under the dominion of the alien Nunuli; and then it transpires that the Nunuli are under the dominion of the alien Gunyan, or at least I think they are. I was lost by this point. The Gunyan themselves may even be under the dominion of someone else.
It twists, swerves, and stubbornly fails to make sense just like many of van Vogt's best; but lacks the startling, angular prose of his better novels, and also seems to lack that weird eight-hundred word rhythm which rendered his more peculiar, dreamlike efforts so compelling. So it almost reads like something written by a regular science-fiction author in terms of pace; and yet van Vogt retains a few of his more aggravating habits, turning adjectives into nouns and vaguely scrabbling around at what he means, leaving descriptions of what is happening riddled with ambiguity. Characters experience a thought-feeling, or deliver an awareness, or perform an indication. In fact, Modyun, our main guy, seems to perform a lot of indications in terms which suggest we're talking about a telepathic act of some description, but after nearly two-hundred pages, I still have no fucking idea what is meant.
The Battle of Forever would appear to be about evolution, maybe even free will in a deterministic universe, although it's difficult to tell what A.E. was actually trying to say. I'm fairly certain it must be some point of Korzybski's General Semantics about the wisdom of not reading a book by its cover, the actual thrust of which is lost amongst the indeterminate wash of thought-feelings and awarenesses. Otherwise, it's approximately fun - as you would expect of a novel featuring a hippo-man who talks like James Cagney - but not quite so much fun as it probably should have been.
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