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A. E. van Vogt: Difference between revisions
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{{quote| ''You have to remember that I was a bright but simple fellow from Canada who seldom, if ever, met another writer, and then only a so-called literary type that occasionally sold a story and meanwhile worked in an office for a living.''}}
A hardworking writer of [[Science Fiction]] during the [[Golden Age]], Alfred Elton van Vogt was certainly one of the most prolific. Though often overshadowed by the "Big Three" ([[Arthur C. Clarke
[[The Other Wiki]] states that van Vogt was born in Edenburg, a Russian Mennonite community near [[Canada, Eh?|Gretna, Manitoba.]] He spoke German until he was four years old. He got his start by writing for pulp magazines, but decided to switch to something he liked a lot better.
[[Love It or Hate It|Critics are sharply divided]] over the quality and merit of van Vogt's work. While it's true that he won few awards during his lifetime, his name is often mentioned along with the Big Three. It's worth pointing out that Clarke, Asimov, and John W. Campbell, Jr. all spoke highly of him. Damon Knight, however, called him "a pygmy who has learned to operate an overgrown typewriter." Despite his critics, van Vogt did manage to inspire several prominent sci-fi writers, such as [[Harlan Ellison]] and [[Philip K. Dick]]. Ellison in particular was so outraged that van Vogt had received so little recognition that he went on a [[One-Man Army|one-man media rampage]] until the SFWA finally presented the aging van Vogt with a Grand Master Award.
Van Vogt claimed that [[Based
=== This author's works contain examples of: ===
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* [[Atomic Hate]]: The Riss (from ''The Wizard of Linn'') have a nasty habit of bombing human cities into smoking craters. {{spoiler|[[Science Hero|Our hero]] [[The Grotesque|Clane]] gets hold of something even more powerful, though, and defeats the Riss with it.}}
* [[Badass Bookworm]]: A lot of van Vogt's protagonists are [[The Smart Guy|scientists and other academic types]] who wind up playing [[Science Hero|the hero.]]
* [[Bizarre Alien Biology]]: Giant cats with tentacles, anacondas with antlers, and blue-furred, [[Vertebrate
* [[Brains and Brawn]]: Clane and Czinczar from ''The Wizard of Linn'', though Czinczar [[Magnificent Bastard|is by no means unintelligent.]]
* [[Enemy Mine]]: Professor Jamieson and the ezwal are forced to work together to survive the hostile surface of Eristan II in ''Co-Operate--or Else!''
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** And the Mixed Men from ''Mission to the Stars.''
* [[Plant Aliens]]
* [[Recycled in Space]]: ''The Empire of the Atom'' and ''The Wizard of Linn'', which were amalgamated into the ''Mutant Mage'' series, were inspired in part by the Roman Empire, particularly the reign of Claudius. The resemblance is almost painful at times. The series is basically [[I, Claudius]] {{smallcaps|IN SPACE}}!
* [[Science Hero]]
* [[Standard Sci-Fi Fleet]]
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