Vous voulez voir cette page en français ? Cliquez ici.

Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
 
World of Null-A
  
Search inside another edition of this book

World of Null-A (Paperback)

by A.E. Van Vogt (Author) "THE OCCUPANTS of each floor of the hotel must as usual during the games form their own protective groups. . . ..." (more)
3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

Available from these sellers.


2 used from CDN$ 2.92

Product Details

Product Description

Product Description

The classic novel of non-Aristotelian logic and the coming race of supermenGrandmaster A. E. van Vogt was one of the giants of the 1940s, the Golden Age of classic SF.Of his masterpieces, The World of Null-A is his most famous and most influential. It was the first major trade SF hardcover ever, in 1949, and has been in print in various editions ever since. The entire careers of Philip K. Dick, Keith Laumer, Alfred Bester, Charles Harness, and Philip Jose Farmer were created or influenced by The World of Null-A, and so it is required reading for anyone who wishes to know the canon of SF classics.It is the year 2650 and Earth has become a world of non-Aristotelianism, or Null-A. This is the story of Gilbert Gosseyn, who lives in that future world where the Games Machine, made up of twenty-five thousand electronic brains, sets the course of people's lives. Gosseyn isn't even sure of his own identity, but realizes he has some remarkable abilities and sets out to use them to discover who has made him a pawn in an interstellar plot. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.


About the Author

A. E. Van Vogt was a SFWA Grand Master. He was born in Canada and moved to the U.S. in 1944, by which time he was well-established as one of John W. Campbell's stable of writers for Astounding Science-Fiction. He lived in Los Angeles, California and died in 2000.
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Inside This Book (Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
First Sentence
THE OCCUPANTS of each floor of the hotel must as usual during the games form their own protective groups. . . . Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Search inside this book:

Tag this product

 (What's this?)
Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items.
Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags
 

Customer Reviews

2 Reviews
5 star:    (0)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most helpful customer reviews

 
3.0 out of 5 stars An early SF classic, Jan 25 2004
By JW "dixiedean2003" (Dublin, Ireland) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The World of Null-A (Paperback)
The year is AD 2560. Earth is controlled by a gigantic computer, the "Games Machine", which each year determines who is eligible for emigration to Venus, home to an utopian society based on the precepts of "Null-A" philosophy, a discipline which allows an individual's intellectual and emotional processes to work in perfect harmony.

Gilbert Gosseyn is a man seemingly without a past. He is drawn into a complex web of intrigue by Earth's leaders and soon discovers a plot by an alien Galactic League to conquer the Solar System. Whats more, he realises he is also being used as a pawn by an unknown power, the nature of which he must uncover to determine his true purpose and identity.

As one of the earliest commercial SF novels, written in 1948, the "World of Null-A" is predictably anachronistic in its description of a world of the future. Yet the book is suitably action-packed and fast-paced to hold your interest. In fairness to it, in the late-1940s it would have been groundbreaking. The plot is only partially resolved at the end and its clear that the book was intended as the first in a series. Probably worth reading only for serious connoisseurs of sci-fi.

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Dated, but still fun, Feb 21 2004
This review is from: The World of Null-A (Paperback)
As a classic Sci-Fi novel it reads pretty good. Much of the futuristic speculative science is not yet either obsolete nor proven impossible 60 years later. Some of the high-tech foreseen by Vogt includes a society run by a mega-computer which selects leader based on a mental discipline and philosophy called "Null-A." Our hero enrolls in the annual selection by the computer after some years of study. Selected winners are sent to an imaginative colony on Venus. Everything in perfect order, until he finds out that his brain has been tampered with, he isn't who he thinks he is, and nothing is as it seems. The Earth is a pawn in a galaxy wide political plot wherein one evil dictator is planning to destroy Earth and Mars as and use it as justification to start a huge interstellar war. Our hero finds out that his brain has been genetically augmented to give him extra abilities, and his body is being cloned and the clones receiving his mental patterns so that when he is killed the clone takes over without loss, a sort of immortality. Typical of early sci-fi the characters are mostly cardboard cutouts. There is a woman in the plot, and he almost but not quite manages a relationship. In Vogt style it ends when he gets tired of writing without the reader finding out what ever became of the space war. Still, it's an entertaining read on a lazy afternoon.
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
Only search this product's reviews


Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject





i.e., each book must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.