From Publishers Weekly
Working fluently from an incomplete draft and outline by the late van Vogt, Anderson picks up where the classic pulp predecessor,
Slan (1940), left off, with the true mutant (or slan) Jommy Cross trying to head off the impending invasion of Earth by the Mars-based group of slan without tendrils. Opposing him again are John Petty, head of the secret police and chief slan hunter, and Jem Lorry, traitorous presidential adviser and leader of the invasion. Seeking his dead father's hidden retreat, Jommy hopes to uncover the origins of both the true and the tendrilless slan, to stop their internecine war and to relieve human fears of being replaced by artificially created supermen. Van Vogt and Anderson (
Of Fire and Night) produce a convincingly styled book that could have been published in the 1940s. Though Anderson can't plug all the holes in Grand Master van Vogt's logic, the fast pacing, melodramatic situations and snappy (if dated) dialogue all match the original seamlessly.
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From Booklist
Sf legend van Vogt launched his storied career with Slan (1940), a now-classic tale about a race of telepathic mutants, the slans, battling oppression. Before his death in 2000, he had sketched the outlines of a sequel continuing the story of slan Jommy Cross and an invasion from Mars by the slans' malevolent, tendrilless cousins. Alhough less powerful than tendriled Jommy and his peers, the tendrilless slans have largely succeeded in overthrowing Earth's governments. The notorious slan hunter John Petty has had Jommy imprisoned, but the slan escapes and, with deposed President Kier Gray, flees across a disintegrating landscape in search of methods to defeat the tendrilless. A subplot follows a new mother who, while clueless about her slan identity, may hold the key to reconciling humans with both tendriled and tendrilless slans. Already an accomplished sequel spinner with several Dune volumes to his credit, sf veteran Anderson captures van Vogt's dynamic style and vision with immaculate precision. He even re-creates the original novel's 1940s-era flavor, so that deep-dyed sf buffs can take a nostalgic trip back to sf's golden age. Hays, Carl