1.5

While there are competent elements, because of its terrible foundation, everything built on top comes crumbling down. The result is something that starts off interesting, but morphs into frustration and boredom. There's a neat idea for a twist at the end, but ultimately it just isn't enough to pull the story out of the mess it creates.

I did do some reading on non-Aristotelianism and general semantics beforehand in the hopes of gaining some context, but it didn't really make much difference. The book is so vague that it just feels like one big white room packed with cardboard characters and empty twists.

I hoped to at least enjoy this ironically, but no. Van Vogt's reputation seems to be justified, because this really is just a bad book. ( )

I remember having either this book or its sequel, The Players of Null-A, on my shelf when I was much younger, but I never got around to reading it. Having just gotten hold of the eBook version, I was expecting a fairly entertaining, if dated, novel, but was disappointed. I was, in fact, completely underwhelmed. Gilbert Gosseyn lives in 2560 AD, an era in which mastery of the mental disciplines of Non-Aristotelian logic gives superior intelligence, emotional control, and even athleticism to its adepts. As the story opens, he is about to begin a month of testing by the Machine, success in which is the gateway to a better job, or even residence among the elite on Venus. We are then presented with a rapid succession of ideas, none of which are ever adequately developed. It quickly emerges that Gosseyn's memories of his past life are false. He soon discovers that the government of Earth has been taken over by subversives who are allied to a Galactic Empire. He is then killed. and shortly resurrects in another body, which is a surprise to himself as well as his adversaries. An invasion of both Earth and Venus by the galactics follows. These ideas could have made for an intriguing book if well presented; but the ideas alone do not make up a coherent, engaging novel.

What I found annoying about The World of Null-A is that Van Vogt constantly introduces concepts, characters, events, and plot elements by merely mentioning them in passing, without ever developing or explaining them. In my opinion, this practice – which is pervasive throughout the book – really destroys the story. The titular concept, Null-A, is depicted as almost miraculous in allowing humans to realize their potential, but it's never explained in any way that makes it remotely credible. The great Galactic Empire consists of human beings, evidently not of Earth origin, but their actual origin is never explained. Parallel evolution? Is Earth a lost colony? No one even speculates. When Van Vogt describes a device or technology, it is completely unconvincing. Granted, this is science fiction, and one doesn't expect accurate science in any but "hard" SF, but the depiction of science and technology must cohere at least to the point that the reader can maintain “willing suspension of disbelief”. Yet when Van Vogt introduces a device called the “Distorter”, it is at one point a device that dampens computing power and neurological activity, and is later revealed to also serve as a teleporter. The pseudoscience with which the distorter is described is, even by the standards of 1948, sheer gobbledegook, effectively making the device a “Deus ex machina”. My objections to this novel are well summed up in Damon Knight's 1970 review “Cosmic Jerrybuilder”. To quote: "The World of null-A abounds in contradictions, misleading clues and irrelevant action...It is [van Vogt's] habit to introduce a monster, or a gadget, or an extra-terrestrial culture, simply by naming it, without any explanation of its nature...By this means, and by means of his writing style, which is discursive and hard to follow, van Vogt also obscures his plot to such an extent that when it falls to pieces at the end, the event passes without remark." The only addition I would make is that I think the plot falls apart long before the end of the novel.

Respects to all who ranked The World of Null-A higher than I did, and I'm glad you enjoyed it. ( )

This is an ambitious idea, but the muddled presentation of Aristotelian vs non-Aristotelian thought is such a mess that it kills anything special about the book. Our null-A protagonist just becomes a superman working his way through the mysterious information that the author has hidden from us. Oh, and accidentally uncovering multiple, complicated layers of treachery.

I enjoy a good golden age SF book, but this isn't one of them. ( )

van Vogt, A. E. The World of Null-A. 1948. Revised. Berkley, 1970.
The persistence of a writer’s ego cannot be overestimated. Twenty-five years after the World of Null-A’s original magazine publication, A. E. van Vogt was still bothered enough by a review in a long-gone fanzine that he revised the novel. The revision inspired by the early review from Damon Knight, at the time an unknown critic, substantially shortened the novel. Cutting the fat from an already famous work is not the usual course. What director’s cut of a movie ever made a film shorter? The revision also gave van Vogt an opportunity to explain and defend the novel’s theme, which I am sure was opaque to many readers. In a reasonably distant future, a man named Gosseyn (pronounced “go sane,” says Wikipedia) awakens with amnesia and false memories. The answer to all this involves interacting with a machine intelligence that today we would call a strong AI, cloning, memory implants, non-Aristotelian logic, and the semantic theories of Alfred Korzybski. Korzybski’s subjectivist theories of perception and his distrust of positive assertions based on experience were claimed to be a scientific refutation of Aristotelian logic. The key to it all, van Vogt explains, is that self-identity is defined by the continuity of memory. In the end, it is not as simple as that, and how all the thematic pieces fit together remains nebulous. Korzybski’s ideas just aren’t as valuable as van Vogt seems to think they are. File them in the back of the mental drawer where you keep Dianetics and the philosophy of Ayn Rand. 4 stars as a museum exhibit. ( )

What an odd novel. It grabbed during the first few chapters but then started getting a little weird when Gosseyn is killed and then wakes up on Venus. I could not follow when & how he learned the Sol was going to be invaded by a Galactic Empire. Part of it, for me, were the passages which tried to explain how Null-A philosophy enabled human brains to transcend themselves. It seemed like a lot of prose was wasted on something that really didn’t make any sense. And yet there are portions of the book that are gripping.
What an odd novel. I wish that this Easton Press edition was a reprint of the 1970 edition that Van Vogt apparently revised in response to Damon Knight’s public criticisms of the book. Was it an improvement over the original? ( )