Van Vogt's Supermind, or, It's Funny How Things Go

I don’t remember when I did it, but at some point in my childhood I gave Dad a book by A.E. van Vogt with a fuzzy green shape on the cover. For years I thought it was called The Green Brain and I carried an inexplicable pride in having given it to him. Mum had probably chosen it and she definitely paid for it, but it was my gift to Dad. He had five van Vogt novels, including that one, and somehow that name became a magnet to me so that when I had disposable income and easy access to second-hand bookstores I began building up my collection of his works. I’ve probably read more books by him than any other SF author, possibly any author, even P.K. Dick who I consider my favourite. Until last week, however, I hadn’t read The Green Brain.

Actually, I still haven’t since there is no A.E. van Vogt novel of that name. The real title is Supermind and it explores a galaxy where humans are a low-level species under the protection of the vastly superior Great Galactics, and under threat from the Dreeghs, a race of “space vampires” who can only survive a mysterious illness by draining the blood and life energy of others.

In typical van Vogt fashion the novel is a “fix-up” where he patched three shorter works together into one. The seams are distinct but he “fixed” it so they seem like logical progressions of one narrative. It would be interesting to read the originals to see how much he had to fix/change. There are some clashes, the first and third parts feature the Great Galactics while the second part declares that they don’t exist per se but are a freaks of the moment, but there are ways to forgive that and move on with the story.

I’d be overstating it if I called van Vogt a great writer, but he never fails to draw me in. The stories are simple, the characters forever trapped in the 1950s despite their futuristic settings, and the ideas can be a tad whacky, but he pulls them all together into a readable and fun package.

I doubt my dad, who loves the hard SF of Asimov and Clarke, was that into it – he did just give me all five of his van Vogt books – but somehow, this book, or its cover, combined with the childish joy of having given it to him myself, led me to read many books by someone I may not otherwise have read at all. Then I would never have travelled on the Space Beagle, visited the Weapon Shops, or marvelled at the many possibilities of the Reflected Men. And if I hadn’t read those books, what other authors might I have not read? Somewhere out there is a reflected version of me who never read any SF, and that is not the best possible me, of that I am sure.

Keep dreaming!

The Broken Road by A.E.W. Mason - A Review

The Broken Road by A.E.W. Mason

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The Broken Road was sold to me as adventure fiction, but I’m not sure that’s a comfortable label for it to carry. It certainly bears a romantic air that fits the name, and there are moments which are ‘adventurous’, for lack of a better word, but overall there is no single adventure running through it. The hero, if he is one, does very little, while the villain is closer to an antihero in many respects, and is arguably the most sympathetic character for at least a portion of the book. Neither of them ‘get the girl’, who is clearly better off without them, and vice versa – although the ‘villain’ is ruined in figuring that out. Besides a somewhat illusory kidnap attempt, there is very little danger encountered and almost no hardships endured besides the psychological ones suffered by the erstwhile villain.

It starts well enough as an adventure, there’s a siege and a tough-as-nuts hero, but he dies of overexertion and the siege ends, and it’s all a prologue anyway. There’s the expected siege towards the end of the book, but it never happens, and the characters involved are asides, included more for completeness in the narrative than anything else. The war, such as it is, and the hunt for a fugitive across a remote alien land, are dealt with in summation, the latter in a portion of dialogue years after the event. The book is not about adventurous undertakings.

Instead, The Broken Road, is a novel about two young men filled with ideals, who learn through bitter experience that the world simply does not work the way they dreamed. That the main character, in terms of taking up most of the stage, is an Indian prince sent away to England to learn at Eton, gives the novel its central position as a colonial fiction. It is he who, if this were an adventure novel, would be the villain, and he is described as becoming one as events progress, but he is more pathetic in the end than villainous. A mere cog in the wheels of other people’s plans.
It is his progression from proud Oxford graduate who sees himself as White and better than his own people, to religious fanatic avowed to drive the English out of Chiltistan, his fictional home province, and ultimately to sorry drunk removed from any sense of home or identity he once had, that is the centre of the work.

There is much that can be made and said of the book in terms of colonialism and race, but the largely metaphorical nature of the three central characters and the Road itself means there’s no chance of applying a definitive reading on the book – thank goodness. It can be read as sympathetic to subject nations, or not. For my part, it seemed somewhere in the middle. That the British had a position of cultural superiority is not questioned, but that they should therefore force their will upon their supposed subjects – to ‘better’ them – is shown to be ill-fated at best.

Overall, despite some apparent sympathy for the ‘villain’, the sense of English superiority is too strong, and its surrounding narrative too weak, for this to escape the gravity of being ‘colonial’. That said, it is a fascinating read, with strong characters that can give much thought to an open-minded reader.




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