Editing A. E. van Vogt (section)

==Critical reception==
Critical opinion about the quality of van Vogt's work is sharply divided. An early and articulate critic was [[Damon Knight]]. In a 1945<ref>Van Vogt, A E (1970).  Introduction to ''The World Of Null-A'' (London: Sphere Science Fiction, 1976), p. viii</ref> chapter-long essay reprinted in ''[[In Search of Wonder]],''<ref name=DK/> entitled "Cosmic Jerrybuilder: A. E. van Vogt", Knight described van Vogt as "no giant; he is a pygmy who has learned to operate an overgrown typewriter". Knight described ''The World of Null-A'' as "one of the worst allegedly adult science fiction stories ever published". Concerning van Vogt's writing, Knight said:

{{blockquote|In general van Vogt seems to me to fail consistently as a writer in these elementary ways: 1. His plots do not bear examination. 2. His choice of words and his sentence-structure are fumbling and insensitive. 3. He is unable either to visualize a scene or to make a character seem real.}}

About ''[[Empire of the Atom]]'' Knight wrote:

{{blockquote|If you can only throw your reasoning powers out of gear—something many van Vogt fans find easy to do—you'll enjoy this one.}}

Knight also expressed misgivings about van Vogt's politics. He noted that van Vogt's stories almost invariably present [[absolute monarchy]] in a favorable light. In 1974, Knight retracted some of his criticism after finding out about Vogt's writing down his dreams as a part of his working methods:<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/3/notes3.htm|title=Notes, Reports, and Correspondence: Spring 1974|access-date=March 15, 2016}}</ref>

{{blockquote|This explains a good deal about the stories, and suggests that it is really useless to attack them by conventional standards. If the stories have a dream consistency which affects readers powerfully, it is probably irrelevant that they lack ordinary consistency.}}

Knight's criticism greatly damaged van Vogt's reputation.<ref name="latham2009">{{Cite book |title=The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction |last=Latham |first=Rob |publisher=Routledge |year=2009 |isbn=9781135228361 |editor-last=Bould |editor-first=Mark |pages=80–89 |chapter=Fiction, 1950-1963 |editor2-last=Butler |editor2-first=Andrew M. |editor3-last=Roberts |editor3-first=Adam |editor4-last=Vint |editor4-first=Sherryl |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y7CNAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA80}}</ref> On the other hand, when science fiction author [[Philip K. Dick]] was asked<ref name=vertex>[http://www.philipkdick.com/media_vertex.html "Vertex Interviews Philip K. Dick"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101012062459/http://www.philipkdick.com/media_vertex.html |date=October 12, 2010 }} . ''[[Science fiction magazine#Other magazines|Vertex]]'', Vol. 1, No. 6, February 1974.</ref> which science fiction writers had influenced his work the most, he replied:

{{blockquote|I started reading [science fiction] when I was about twelve and I read all I could, so any author who was writing about that time, I read. But there's no doubt who got me off originally and that was A. E. van Vogt. There was in van Vogt's writing a mysterious quality, and this was especially true in ''[[The World of Null-A]]''. All the parts of that book did not add up; all the ingredients did not make a coherency. Now some people are put off by that. They think that's sloppy and wrong, but the thing that fascinated me so much was that this resembled reality more than anybody else's writing inside or outside science fiction.|author=|title=|source=}}

Dick also defended van Vogt against Damon Knight's criticisms:

{{blockquote|Damon feels that it's bad artistry when you build those funky universes where people fall through the floor. It's like he's viewing a story the way a building inspector would when he's building your house. But reality really is a mess, and yet it's exciting. The basic thing is, how frightened are you of chaos? And how happy are you with order? Van Vogt influenced me so much because he made me appreciate a mysterious chaotic quality in the universe which is not to be feared.}}

In a review of ''Transfinite: The Essential A. E. van Vogt'', science fiction writer [[Paul Di Filippo]] said:

{{blockquote|Van Vogt knew precisely what he was doing in all areas of his fiction writing. There's hardly a wasted word in his stories. ... His plots are marvels of interlocking pieces, often ending in real surprises and shocks, genuine paradigm shifts, which are among the hardest conceptions to depict. And the intellectual material of his fictions, the conceits and tossed-off observations on culture and human and alien behavior, reflect a probing mind. ... Each tale contains a new angle, a unique slant, that makes it stand out.<ref>DiFilippo, Paul: [http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue326/books2.html "Off The Shelf"]. Retrieved January 19, 2003.  {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050403090307/http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue326/books2.html |date=April 3, 2005 }}</ref>}}

In ''The John W. Campbell Letters'', Campbell says, "The son-of-a-gun gets hold of you in the first paragraph, ties a knot around you, and keeps it tied in every paragraph thereafter—including the ultimate last one".<ref name="HLDrake">{{cite book | last = Drake| first = Harold L. | title = The Null-A Worlds of A. E. van Vogt | publisher = C. Drumm Books | date = 1989 | isbn = 093605543X}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last = Campbell | first = John W.| author-link = John W. Campbell | title = The John W. Campbell Letters With Isaac Asimov and A. E. van Vogt | volume = 2 | publisher = A.C.Projects | date = 1991| isbn = 978-0-931150-19-7 }}</ref>

[[Harlan Ellison]] (who had begun reading van Vogt as a teenager)<ref name="harlan">Ellison, Harlan (June 1999), [http://www.sfrevu.com/ISSUES/2000/ARTICLES/20000128-03.htm "Van is Here, But Van is Gone"]. Introduction to ''Futures Past: The Best Short Fiction of A. E. van Vogt'' (Kilimanjaro Corp., 1999). Reprinted in "A. E. van Vogt, 1912–2000" (''SFRevu'' 2001-01-28). Retrieved 2001-08-31.<br /> Quote: "Van is still with us, as I write this, in June of 1999, slightly less than fifty years since I first encountered van Vogt prose in a January 1950 issue of ''Startling Stories''{{nbsp}}..."</ref> wrote, "Van was the first writer to shine light on the restricted ways in which I had been taught to view the universe and the human condition".<ref name="HLDrake" />

Writing in 1984, [[David Hartwell]] said:<ref name="Hartwell1984">{{cite book|first=David G. |last=Hartwell|title=Age of Wonders: Exploring the World of Science|url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=5GpIPgAACAAJ|page=131}}|date=1 June 1984|publisher=Washington Ave Books Incorporated|isbn=978-0-89366-163-2|pages=131–32}}</ref>

{{blockquote|No one has taken van Vogt seriously as a writer for a long time. Yet he has been read and ''still'' is. What no one seems to have noticed is that van Vogt, more than any other single SF writer, is the conduit through which the energy of [[Gernsback]]ian, primitive wonder stories have been transmitted through the [[John W. Campbell|Campbellian]] age, when earlier styles of SF were otherwise rejected, and on into SF of the present.}}

The literary critic [[Leslie A. Fiedler]] said something similar:<ref name="SlusserRabkin1983">{{cite book|first=Leslie A. |last=Fiedler|editor1-first=George Edgar |editor1-last=Slusser|editor2-first=Eric S.|editor2-last= Rabkin|editor3-first=Robert E. |editor3-last=Scholes|title=Coordinates: placing science fiction and fantasy|url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=fX9ZAAAAMAAJ|page=10}}|date=1 August 1983|publisher=Southern Illinois University Press|isbn=978-0-8093-1105-7|pages=10–11}}</ref>

{{blockquote|Van Vogt is a test case ... since an apology for or analysis of science fiction which fails to come to terms with his appeal and major importance, defends or defines the genre by falsifying it.}}

American literary critic [[Fredric Jameson]] says of van Vogt:

{{blockquote|that van Vogt's work clearly prepares the way for that of the greatest of all Science Fiction writers, Philip K. Dick, whose extraordinary novels and stories are inconceivable without the opening onto that play of unconscious materials and fantasy dynamics released by van Vogt, and very different from the more hard-science aesthetic ideologies of his contemporaries (from Campbell to Heinlein).<ref>Jameson, Fredric. "The Space of Science Fiction: Narrative in Van Vogt", ''Archaeologies of the Future. The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions'' (New York: Verso, 2005).</ref>{{rp|315}}}}

Van Vogt still has his critics. For example, [[Darrell Schweitzer]], writing to ''The New York Review of Science Fiction'' in 1999,<ref>Schweitzer, Darrell (1999), "Letters of Comment", ''The New York Review of Science Fiction'', May 1999, Number 129, Vol. 11, No. 9.</ref> quoted a passage from the original van Vogt novelette "The Mixed Men", which he was then reading, and remarked:

{{blockquote|This is the realism, and logic, of a small boy playing with toy soldiers in a sandbox. I'm tougher than you. I've got a ''billion'' spaceships! They're brand-new. They only took 800 years to develop.
And this is a story in which most of the cast either have two brains or are really robots ... and even the emotions of the human characters are programmed or deprogrammed as part of plots within counter plots. Next to this, [[Doc Smith]] was an icy realist. There is ''no'' intersection with adult reality at any point, for all van Vogt was able to write was that small boy's sandbox game with an adult level of intensity. This is, I think, the secret of van Vogt's bizarre fascination, as awful as his actual writing might be, and why he appealed so strongly to Philip K. Dick, who managed to put more adult characters and emotions into equally crazy situations. It's ultimately very strange to find this sort of writing so prominently sponsored by supposedly rational and scientifically minded John W. Campbell, when it seems to contravene everything the Golden Age stood for.}}