TODAY IN LITERARY HISTORY: January 26
A. E. van Vogt
A. E. van Vogt
A. E. van Vogt claimed that many of his ideas came directly from his dreams. Throughout much of his writing life, he arranged to be awakened every 90 minutes during sleep so he could record them—a practice that helped fuel the vivid, disorienting logic of his fiction.
In his early work, van Vogt displayed a startling, almost dreamlike imagination. His stories were marked by abrupt shifts in perspective, dense imagery, and narrative leaps that set him apart from the rockets-and-ray-guns science fiction of the period. At a time when the genre was struggling for literary credibility, his work hinted at something deeper and more psychological.
Encouraged by editor John W. Campbell, van Vogt brought ideas from psychology and language theory into traditional science-fiction themes—alien contact, interstellar war, time travel, immortality, and the superhuman. He became particularly fascinated by systems of knowledge, introducing readers to Nexialism in his earliest stories and later exploring general semantics, influenced by Alfred Korzybski.
Van Vogt was also deeply shaped by post-World War II revelations about totalitarianism. His novel The Violent Man (1962), set in Communist China and researched through more than 100 books, reflects his lifelong concern with power, control, and the psychology of dominance.
In his early work, van Vogt displayed a startling, almost dreamlike imagination. His stories were marked by abrupt shifts in perspective, dense imagery, and narrative leaps that set him apart from the rockets-and-ray-guns science fiction of the period. At a time when the genre was struggling for literary credibility, his work hinted at something deeper and more psychological.
Encouraged by editor John W. Campbell, van Vogt brought ideas from psychology and language theory into traditional science-fiction themes—alien contact, interstellar war, time travel, immortality, and the superhuman. He became particularly fascinated by systems of knowledge, introducing readers to Nexialism in his earliest stories and later exploring general semantics, influenced by Alfred Korzybski.
Van Vogt was also deeply shaped by post-World War II revelations about totalitarianism. His novel The Violent Man (1962), set in Communist China and researched through more than 100 books, reflects his lifelong concern with power, control, and the psychology of dominance.
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