The Anarchistic Colossus

by A.E. van Vogt

Vintage paperback

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

248 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Alfred Elton van Vogt was a Canadian-born science fiction author regarded by some as one of the most popular and complex science fiction writers of the mid-twentieth century—the "Golden Age" of the genre.

van Vogt was born to Russian Mennonite family. Until he was four years old, van Vogt and his family spoke only a dialect of Low German in the home.

He began his writing career with 'true story' romances, but then moved to writing science fiction, a field he identified with. His first story was Black Destroyer, that appeared as the front cover story for the July 1939 edtion of the popular "Astounding Science Fiction" magazine.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is certainly not one of van Vogt's best works. It's something of a challenging hodgepodge of scientific philosophy and economic theory and political speculation that's tenuously strung together by Kirlian extrapolation and a random space invasion with hypnotism and game theory. There's little in the way of characterization and I couldn't develop any interest in any of their stories; my mind kept wandering. Hardcore van Vogt fans should give it a shot, but he produced many, many excellent works that readers should enjoy first.

[D'Ailleurs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Αρκετά φιλόδοξο βιβλιαράκι: απίστευτο μέλλον όπου οι δυνάμεις των δεξιών-αναρχικών (πιθανών εννοεί τους φιλελεύθερους) έχουν κυριεύσει τη γη και διοικούν χωρίς κυβέρνηση αλλά μέσω Κιρλιανών θεωριών (έπρεπε να ψάξω να δω τι είναι, στην αρχή νόμιζα ότι ήτανε εξωγήινοι: https://ethernews.com/fwtografia-kirl...). Υπάρχουν όμως εξωγήινοι, μάλιστα έχουν περικυκλώσει το πλανήτη και ετοιμάζονται για το τελικό ντού. Και μέσα σε όλα αυτά ένας νεαρός πρωταγωνιστής, θύμα των εξωγήινων, που του έχουν πάρει τα μυαλά και προσπαθεί να βγάλει άκρη. Όπως είπα φιλόδοξο αλλά στη πράξη δεν τα καταφέρνει τόσο καλά, είναι πολύ μπερδεμένο, βγάζεις άκρη μετά τη μέση του βιβλίου, και γενικά είναι δύσκολο στην ανάγνωση. Η κακή μετάφραση δεν βοηθάει. ΑΛΛΑ έχει το αγαπημένο retro συναίσθημα, την αύρα της χρυσής εποχής, και τον απενεχοποιημένο αέρα ενός δημιουργού που έζησε σε άλλες εποχές. Στα "σύν" η κλασσική Ελληνική έκδοση τσέπης που φέρνει αναμνήσεις από καλοκαίρια, καρπούζι, παγωτό πατούσα και λοιπά και λοιπά. Όχι για όλους αλλά για αυτούς που μπορούν να το εκτιμήσουν.

[Steven · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ah, van Vogt -- a writer with grand cosmic ideas and a 1928 writing style, which makes for a contradictory experience at times. Less so in this lumpen novel, though...the cosmic ideas are limited (there's still vast distances and great mental powers) and the social ideas are, well, daft - the world has fallen under the sway of sorta kinda anarcho-capitalists as a result of "extreme rightists" working together with so left they're right again bomb-throwing anarchists, and this happy crew installed supercomputers to run Kirlians, which use the much-debunked notion of Kirlian imaging to detect moods and bad mindsets, and thus nip badness in the bud by, I kid you not, stunning the naughty thinker.

Now, you might think that this is then a book about examining the pitfalls of this kind of world. Which, very slightly, it is. But, really, it's not about that at all...it's about how the world is being viewed by far distant malign alien intelligences whose notion of a good time is watching other worlds and understand their cultures and their peoples...and then sportingly wiping them out.

These are the Ig. They are far from noble. One might even say they're Ignoble, given that the Ig viewpoint here is that of a Baron. So, yes, Ig noble.

Dear God, McDonald, leave the poor bloody horse alone....

SO, we have this every man for himself (whenever the Kirlians allow it) Earth, and the Ignobles on the way, and, oh, yes, the Ig have come face to face with the Earth's private Space Navy already, and subverted it with Vast Mental Powers. These powers, incidentally, seem to have erased EVERY vestige of personality from the muscularly named main characters, such as Chip. Um...Chip *is* manly, right?

Well, never mind, anyway, because after wandering around in circles for most of the novel, the story rolls to a close with the Ig going home due to having been impressed with the Earth's anarcho-capitalist-whatever-Kirlian society and starting their *own* version.

To summarise...it was awful.

[Иван Величков · Rating 5 out of 5]

Един доста по-зрял и систематичен ван Вогт, макар че ми липсваше лишената от логика експлозия на идеи от ранните му романи. Социалният модел на земята е изграден с внимание към детайла и поднесен постепенно с всичките му плюсове и минуси, а развръзката, както обикновено, никога не е на ниво физическа битка.

Земното население е приело чисто анархистичен модел на управление, контролиран внимателно от система от камери, роботи и наказания за тези, които пречат на другите хора. Има капиталистически и социалистически елементи, има военни, има и измет. На този фон се вихри война с извънземна олигархия, внимателно внедрила обработени с хипноза шпиони, а залогът е унищожението на земята. До последно изглежда невъзможно пълната анархия да предотврати доминацията им. Тогава на преден план излизат шепа хора, които ще използват всички възможни средства, разрешени и забранени от режима, но ще подсигурят оцеляването.

Чудна фантастика от златните години с щипка от новата вълна, а реакциите на роботите посредством кирилианова фотография и релейно-контакторни мрежи беше една от най-сладурските смесици от наука и фантазия, които съм чел. И финалът изкърти - човечен и оптимистичен.

[King_In_Yellow · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the 22nd century, Earth has become a kind of anarcho-capitalist paradise. A system of computerized Kirlian photo-sensors (remember that hokum from the 70s?) keeps tabs on the population and zaps temporarily comatose those who do (or even contemplate) violence against others. How will an earth lacking any government defend itself against an alien race that considers global genocide a game? As this is Van Vogt, the answers will have you saying "What?" and "Wait...What?".

As usual, Van Vogt has these really big, whacked out cosmic ideas and then buries them in clunky exposition, a disjointed narrative and some bizarre, stilted dialogue. It still works for me, though this is nowhere near the best of his I've read.

There is always something fundamentally askew in Van Vogt's writing that I find entertaining no matter how technically bad it is. It's almost as if an alien intelligence or a sentient computer was trying to write a story with no understanding of how humans act or talk to each other. Simple things are over-explained while mind-blasting concepts are off-handedly introduced or passed over. Events follow a weird dream logic (and not just because a lot of his novels are barely connected short stories stitched together, either). And through it all you know Van Vogt is dead serious about all this shit, and he's trying to say something, but you're often not really sure what it is.

All of these elements are present here, even if this isn't the Van Vogt of Slan or Null-A. It's still worth a read for the more-than-casual Van Vogt fan.

[Travis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Recommended to me as a big influence on P.K. Dick, but with the warning that Van Vogt's writing style was seriously clunky. Both seem true, but I enjoyed the take on a near-future society operating on anarchistic principals. Basically, if you transgress then the master computer punishes you. And there's an alien invasion for whom world-destroying is a game. If you can further handle the dated quality of the characters this might be fun, light reading for you.

[Chris Aldridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting and scary future Earth in which the purportedly politically anarchistic population is strictly policed by ubiquitous emotion detecting devices. The protagonist is a young man, a rather contrary and rebellious individual who is caught up in the impending war with an autocratic alien race intent on genocide, its hive mind able to covertly control individuals. Really it’s a discussion of human nature and the cooperative versus selfish impulses within us all. It wasn’t easy to see how the alien invasion could be prevented, given their super spying tech and the lack of responses available within this post 1984 society.

(Rant: Having just been informed my pre 1988 electric meter has reached “the end of its life” (right), I will be reluctantly giving up my personal data to burglars and the ability to even read my U.K. “Smart” meter, so power cartels can easily change my tariff in future to a USA by the minute one perhaps without my permission or knowledge. The meter readers are being scraped and the profits are soaring. Bit by bit the nanny state grows and perhaps the world described in this story will soon be here.

[Alexis · Rating 3 out of 5]

An alien race whose ruling cast has the hobby of destroying other civilisations is about to invade an anarchistic Earth where peace and order are maintained by a worldwide array of sensors that prevent all acts of violence by detecting emotions / mood swings, their work (aliens', that is) being made easier due to their um, telepathic control (?) skills. The story isn't particularly exciting in its development, and at times is a bit hard to follow, but the complex anarchistic society van Vogt imagined is interesting. Probably not one of the books van Vogt is famous for (to be honest, I haven't read more than a couple of short stories by him). The mediocre translation didn't help.

[Sir Blue · Rating 5 out of 5]

In a future wear psycho anarchist emotions
Rule the mind
They play computer games like Tron
They go in computers to play Tron
The vortex of psycho emotions fuels them
Then the sex drugs alchohol
Aliens come with kerilian computers
To fix problems humans make
The aliens place technology there
The anarchist colossus is
The alien mothership
That saves earth from wars distruction

[Aaron Rivacoba · Rating 4 out of 5]

Provocative as essential van Vogt, this story of an anarchist Earth make me question many beliefs about human nature and politics

[Deb Omnivorous Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

Has a really, crazy good basic hypothesis – or does it?

So the notion is that a whole society can live peacefully within an anarchy 'structure' I guess you would call it... These days anarchy is normally thought of as a bad thing, post-apocalyptic and so on. Politically speaking Anarchy advocates for a decentralised society without rulers, government or established order. To make it WORK you would have to have close to one hundred percent voluntary cooperation and animosity free self-governance. Here however, van Vogt postulates something quite different: It is an incredibly stable, non violent, organised society in which 'anarchy' has become a way of life since it is regulated by Kirlian computers which can instantly detect an individuals intent to commit harm and prevent it. Except, at the end, they don't anymore or they will let harm occur as long as the person committing it is happy and peaceful while he does so. So, not sure if the author just got bored with the Kirlian crime prevention, was trying to make a point of some kind (that was too obscure for me to understand) or just went off the rails generally.

Kirlian photography, btw or bio-photography or a whole of different other names, was developed accidentally by a Russian in the 30's. Van Vogt in the intro talks about it as – I think - the science of the future and was a bit arrogant about how good he was to predict this amazing new trend. Again, I think. This introduction, incidentally, is a must read, it sets up what the author is aiming for and without it the first few chapters might be completely mystifying instead of only sixty percent mystifying

Now as well as al the societal stuff we have an alien riding inside out mostly-main protagonist Chip. The alien is there because he is 'playing a game' kind of like a gamer. Only the aim is to learn all he can about our society before our plant is razed in a couple of days. Slug-Ig or, whatever it's name is is a member of the aliens who defeated humanities fleet, hypnotized them all and sent them back to Earth with these implants that let the Ig ride them like a game avatar. Why? Well, y'know reasons. Maybe they get social bonus points.

This is certainly not one of van Vogt's best works. It's something of a challenge to unentangle the science, the philosophy and Social/economic theory from the very unlikely political speculation, all of which is schizophrenically mashed together. The theoretical Anarchy society, the Kirlian computers, the random space invasion is all good stuff, but it is not laid out in a particularly linear way and often seems pointless. The lack of characterisation makes the named individuals seem more like wooden game pieces than people and I wish I could believe that was something van Vogt did internationally..

However, criticism aside, lack of coherence notwithstanding, it has led to a lot of thinking back over it, and as time goes by I find myself thinking more fondly of it than while I was actually reading.

Is it for you? If you love PKD and the new age stuff yes, definitely. If you like classic authors maybe. With caution.

[N.]

So. Ever just read a book and you're just. Unable to leave a concrete word as to your take on it? Yeah, that happened. I had fun reading this odd book, but effectively I just realized I kept checking the progress meter in my copy and realized I wasn't getting into it.

I think the talk about Anarchist talk didn't initerest me, but it's your call if you wish to try this out. I'll hop out.

[Georges · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pas le meilleur de Van Vogt c'est certain mais bon. Si vous réussissez à tenir le coup jusqu'à la fin au travers de toute la théorie politique, philosophique et sociologique entre mêlé par une histoire peu attrayante d'invasion planétaire vous y trouverez peut être votre compte. Il est ok mais sans plus.

[Jess Louise · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting read for sure, simple enough.
The writing style is a bit clunky and dated, it’s both understandable and yet not considering Isaac Asimovs work is not so difficult to read through.
A lot seemed to happen for nothing to actually happen? I’m at a loss for what Chip achieved

[Finn Raae · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love the complex story lol and the way the gov is run is pretty cool

[Graham]

Could not follow the plot. Gave up.

[Akeesa · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found this to be quite boring

[Mseitz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too much hypnotism.
Too much mind control.
Too much capitalism.
Too much Red Scare.
Too much "no violence" ... except when "the righteous" know when it is necessary!

[M · Rating 5 out of 5]

AEVV again produces an extremely peculiar, improbable book -- the title pushes it from four to five stars.

[Jonathan Palfrey · Rating 2 out of 5]

This has the usual van Vogt readability, wooden characters, and intense feeling of self-importance.

[Emma D · Rating 2 out of 5]

un ton très décalé du début à la fin, la confusion règne et je ne saurai dire si c’est dû à une mauvaise traduction ou à la touche artistique de l’auteur

[Eric N. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Intrigue and confusion under this cover. I'll try it again at some point.

[Minerva B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was quite fun, quick and easy to read, though some parts were a bit confusing.

The main POV is that of a remote alien of the Ig race, who is viewing Earth from the eyes of a human named Chip, who recently returned to Earth from a battle between humans and the Ig. The humans don't remember what occurred when they "boarded" the Ig ship (or rather, the humans were boarded by them).

The Slua-Ig (the alien in charge of remote viewing), gave the green light to his ships to head to Earth to destroy the planet, because this is a fun game for the noble Igs to play (to destroy worlds).

In this futuristic society, capitalist-anarchist advanced Kirlian computers have been placed all over Earth because they can read people's energies, which give off distinct patterns based on a given emotion. Whenever humans engage in emotions that relate to anger and violent tendencies, the computers activate and a beam of light hits the perpetrator before they commit the crime, incapacitating them for a short period.

The Ig aliens see humans as easy targets because they don't have advanced technology to protect themselves anymore, save for the Kirlian computers that prevent crime. But in the end, the Ig fail to destroy Earth because of this anarchistic technology, and this type of thinking to prevent crime inspires the lower class Ig to rebel against the nobles and stop these galactic games of destroying planets because humans and the Ig are spiritually connected since they're part of the same energy of the Universe.

This is a nice underlying theme that wraps up the story, that both anarchism and spirituality are essential for a better society.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full of interesting ideas which are never really fully explained and ultimately rely on the usual hand-wavy "impossible alien tech" explanation for them to work and what is presented as this ideal anarchistic society is in fact a tyranny of said computer system. The plot could be contained in a paragraph without missing anything. Most of the book is showing off this future society. A fun thought experiment.

[Michael Wormsbecher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Als je geen hardcore Van Vogt fan bent, dan kun je dit maar beter links laten liggen. En anders ook. Tot op zekere hoogte zijn er aardige ideeën in dit boek verwerkt. Maar de uitwerking is niet best en hier en daar is sprake van onlogische zaken. Vertaling is overigens ook niet goed. Twee voor de moeite.

[Freek]

N/A

[Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of those stories based on an excellent premise that didn't quite hit the spot with me

[Lawrence · Rating 2 out of 5]

http://gnomeship.blogspot.com/2013/09...

[SciFiOne · Rating 4 out of 5]

1983 grade B