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The gryb
A scale armored, blood-sucker gryb glinted off the small and gem-like disk of sun, which rose higher and higher from the fantastic horizon of europa, blinding Thomas. The man in front was desperately hard to see against the relentless brilliance, and it seemed as if he was deliberately holding himself in the sun's glare to distract thomas's wearying mind and dull his strength.
Had the guide uncovered the real reason for his mission to this alien world? Thomas's mind suddenly ticked coldly with a sense of something repeated; for he knew death from before, during those bold, tremulous years when he had roamed the farthest planets.
Originally published as "The Proxy Intelligence and other Mind Benders" in 1971. Kent Johnson writes that the title story of the original collection from 1971 (The Proxy Intelligence) was dropped from later editions, and replaced by Humans, Go Home. The Gryb contains the following stories:
The Gryb (1940 as "Repetition")
Humans, Go Home (1969)
The Problem Professor (1949 as "Project - Spaceship")
The Invisibility Gambit (1943 as "Abdication" by E. Mayne Hull)
Rebirth: Earth (1942 as "The Flight That Failed" by E. Mayne Hull)
The Star-Saint (1951)
Had the guide uncovered the real reason for his mission to this alien world? Thomas's mind suddenly ticked coldly with a sense of something repeated; for he knew death from before, during those bold, tremulous years when he had roamed the farthest planets.
Originally published as "The Proxy Intelligence and other Mind Benders" in 1971. Kent Johnson writes that the title story of the original collection from 1971 (The Proxy Intelligence) was dropped from later editions, and replaced by Humans, Go Home. The Gryb contains the following stories:
The Gryb (1940 as "Repetition")
Humans, Go Home (1969)
The Problem Professor (1949 as "Project - Spaceship")
The Invisibility Gambit (1943 as "Abdication" by E. Mayne Hull)
Rebirth: Earth (1942 as "The Flight That Failed" by E. Mayne Hull)
The Star-Saint (1951)
- GenresScience FictionFiction
Paperback
First published March 1, 1976
About the author
A.E. van Vogt
612 books488 followersAlfred 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 edition of the popular Astounding Science Fiction magazine.
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 edition of the popular Astounding Science Fiction magazine.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 31, 2020
There are several strange things about this book. First, the copyright page claims that the book is copyrighted by A. E. van Vogt and James H. Schmitz, yet none of the stories are by Schmitz. There are two collaborations included but they're both written with van Vogt's wife, E. Mayne Hull, and there's no mention anywhere within of Schmitz. Next, four of the six stories in the collection have been given new titles from their initial magazine appearance which seems like an abnormally high percentage. Also, the cover painting is a retread; it was initially used on a book by Leo P. Kelley, The Man From Maybe. Next, five of the six stories were published in a van Vogt collection just a few years earlier, The Proxy Intelligence and Other Mind Benders. The Gryb drops the titular tale from that book and substitutes Humans, Go Home from a 1969 issue of Galaxy. Finally, there was an explanatory section in that issue of Galaxy that The Gryb omits; unfortunately, it contained necessary information without which Humans, Go Home makes little sense. Strange indeed, eh?
As to the stories themselves, three were initially published in John W. Campbell's Astounding during the Second World War. The Gryb is an odd story in which two humans, trapped on a very hostile Europa (the choice of one of them), argue about economics, politics, and sociology. The Invisibility Gambit, one of the Hull collaborations, is a nice caper story, if a bit dated. (The women submitted spine x-rays... really?) The character is named Rand and the planet is called Zand, which is both a tad silly and confusing, but it's a fun piece otherwise. The last of the three is Rebirth: Earth, the other one upon which he collaborated with his wife, and my favorite of the lot. It's a tense time-travel story set during the War, with alternate time-line overtones. I'm a little surprised that Campbell went along with the "moon-ray-time-reflector-machine," but hey, it was 1942. The Problem Professor appeared in Thrilling Wonder Stories magazine in 1949; it's okay, a bit similar to Heinlein's The Man Who Sold the Moon. I would have guessed it was written ten years before then. My favorite story from the book is The Star-Saint, from Planet Stories Magazine's March, 1951 issue. It's a sly and clever little story, rather dated from a modern perspective, and features rolling stones. Really. It's a terrific alien planet exploration/colonization tale. All in all a fairly solid assortment, and though it doesn't offer any of his real classics, it shows his importance in the early times of the genre.
As to the stories themselves, three were initially published in John W. Campbell's Astounding during the Second World War. The Gryb is an odd story in which two humans, trapped on a very hostile Europa (the choice of one of them), argue about economics, politics, and sociology. The Invisibility Gambit, one of the Hull collaborations, is a nice caper story, if a bit dated. (The women submitted spine x-rays... really?) The character is named Rand and the planet is called Zand, which is both a tad silly and confusing, but it's a fun piece otherwise. The last of the three is Rebirth: Earth, the other one upon which he collaborated with his wife, and my favorite of the lot. It's a tense time-travel story set during the War, with alternate time-line overtones. I'm a little surprised that Campbell went along with the "moon-ray-time-reflector-machine," but hey, it was 1942. The Problem Professor appeared in Thrilling Wonder Stories magazine in 1949; it's okay, a bit similar to Heinlein's The Man Who Sold the Moon. I would have guessed it was written ten years before then. My favorite story from the book is The Star-Saint, from Planet Stories Magazine's March, 1951 issue. It's a sly and clever little story, rather dated from a modern perspective, and features rolling stones. Really. It's a terrific alien planet exploration/colonization tale. All in all a fairly solid assortment, and though it doesn't offer any of his real classics, it shows his importance in the early times of the genre.
November 21, 2016
The Gryb is a collection of six science fiction stories from the 1940s and early 1950's culled from Van Vogt's work in Astounding Science Fiction magazine, Thrilling Wonder Stories, and Planet Stories. All told, the quality of the works range from good to excellent.
"The Gryb" - Two men stranded on the surface of Europa struggle to survive on their way toward the nearest spaceport, only to find themselves hunted by the carnivorous and scale-armored beast known as the Gryb.
"Humans, Go Home" - Dav and Miliss, a human couple living on the planet Jana, have been assisting the primitive and violent population advance toward a more civilized society. However, they are eventually arrested by Prime Minister Jaer on the charge of cultural corruption. At the same time, the Janae king, Rocquel, returns from a year long absence and must convince the nobility that he is still capable of leading them toward the civilized age promoted by the humans, but can he save Dav and Miliss from execution... or is there a higher power at work?
"The Problem Professor" - Bob Merritt, member of the U.S. Spaceship Society, has been tasked with drumming up support for the cause of sending a man into space. His organization has the technology and personnel. What they require are letters of recommendation and funding from some of the country's most prominent scientists and statesmen in order to convince the President to institute a space program. One such celebrity is Professor Hillier, eccentric and reclusive physicist. Another is a mildly interested Hollywood movie star. It doesn't help that Bob's wife views him as a failure for his inability to provide a luxurious living—which she might have had she remained with her first husband who made his fortune after they divorced.
"The Invisibility Gambit" - With intention to retire and raise a family, legendary space explorer and prospector Jim Rand take his final voyage on an Earthbound spaceship from the far end of the Milky Way. Soon after boarding, Rand encounters a familiar face and decides to take the man into his confidence, all the while being threatened by a group of thugs who have mistaken Rand for another famous adventurer, Artur Blord. However, prospects for increasing his fortune on the planet Zand might delay Rand's retirement... but is he being unwittingly manipulated in that direction?
"Rebirth: Earth" - Aboard a WWII cargo plane, Squadron Leader Clair is shocked to find a stowaway on board, one who consistently escapes incarceration and speaks with knowledge of future events. The stowaway insists that Clair allow him to man one of the machine guns, else the cargo plane—and all hands—will be destroyed. To prove himself, the stranger surrenders a book published in what is now New York City, but will be renamed Nach Hitler unless Clair's mission is successful in delivering its cargo, and the only way to assure that is to believe the impossible claims of this inscrutable stowaway...
"The Star Saint" - Aboard the Colonist 12 starship, engineer and leader-elect of the human colonists, Leonard Hanley is charged with investigating the inexplicable destruction of the human colony on a planet called Ariel. Assisting him in this matter is the enigmatic explorer known as Mark Rogan, an alien capable of traversing the galaxy without need of a vessel. Viewing Rogan as competition, Hanley insists on being the first to solve the mystery of the dead Ariel colony only to find himself in a near fatal battle of Man versus Nature.
"The Gryb" - Two men stranded on the surface of Europa struggle to survive on their way toward the nearest spaceport, only to find themselves hunted by the carnivorous and scale-armored beast known as the Gryb.
"Humans, Go Home" - Dav and Miliss, a human couple living on the planet Jana, have been assisting the primitive and violent population advance toward a more civilized society. However, they are eventually arrested by Prime Minister Jaer on the charge of cultural corruption. At the same time, the Janae king, Rocquel, returns from a year long absence and must convince the nobility that he is still capable of leading them toward the civilized age promoted by the humans, but can he save Dav and Miliss from execution... or is there a higher power at work?
"The Problem Professor" - Bob Merritt, member of the U.S. Spaceship Society, has been tasked with drumming up support for the cause of sending a man into space. His organization has the technology and personnel. What they require are letters of recommendation and funding from some of the country's most prominent scientists and statesmen in order to convince the President to institute a space program. One such celebrity is Professor Hillier, eccentric and reclusive physicist. Another is a mildly interested Hollywood movie star. It doesn't help that Bob's wife views him as a failure for his inability to provide a luxurious living—which she might have had she remained with her first husband who made his fortune after they divorced.
"The Invisibility Gambit" - With intention to retire and raise a family, legendary space explorer and prospector Jim Rand take his final voyage on an Earthbound spaceship from the far end of the Milky Way. Soon after boarding, Rand encounters a familiar face and decides to take the man into his confidence, all the while being threatened by a group of thugs who have mistaken Rand for another famous adventurer, Artur Blord. However, prospects for increasing his fortune on the planet Zand might delay Rand's retirement... but is he being unwittingly manipulated in that direction?
"Rebirth: Earth" - Aboard a WWII cargo plane, Squadron Leader Clair is shocked to find a stowaway on board, one who consistently escapes incarceration and speaks with knowledge of future events. The stowaway insists that Clair allow him to man one of the machine guns, else the cargo plane—and all hands—will be destroyed. To prove himself, the stranger surrenders a book published in what is now New York City, but will be renamed Nach Hitler unless Clair's mission is successful in delivering its cargo, and the only way to assure that is to believe the impossible claims of this inscrutable stowaway...
"The Star Saint" - Aboard the Colonist 12 starship, engineer and leader-elect of the human colonists, Leonard Hanley is charged with investigating the inexplicable destruction of the human colony on a planet called Ariel. Assisting him in this matter is the enigmatic explorer known as Mark Rogan, an alien capable of traversing the galaxy without need of a vessel. Viewing Rogan as competition, Hanley insists on being the first to solve the mystery of the dead Ariel colony only to find himself in a near fatal battle of Man versus Nature.
February 2, 2021
A wonderful set of short stories by one of the old masters of SciFi. Some of the futuristic ideas are a bit dated, but the underlying imagination and speculation on immutable characteristics of humankind are as fresh and relevant as ever. There’s a reason that some works and artists are eventually considered “Classics”. Go back and read them.
May 15, 2026
This was interesting. I'd never heard of AE van Vogt before and I only found this (and the novel Slan) at a Half-Priced Books and liked the covers enough, as well as the weird naming conventions, intriguing enough to give this a shot.
I was fascinated to look up the author and find that he was both kind of a well-liked and also lowly-reviewed writer in the golden age of science fiction. He apparently spent most of career writing "fix-ups" which was sort of just revising his stories and then republishing them. Kind of what it seems like many indie/self-published authors do, but without changing pen names and all that.
Anyway, the stories were cool. I applaud the attempts of giving women some kind of agency in the stories presented here, while also firmly sticking them in the margins and usually characterizing them negatively. The fantastical elements were fun, but I was disappointed that the eponymous gryb only appears in the first story, and there doesn't appear to be any further connections between the stories. Reading this reminded me of that Cthulhu anthology where the reviews derided the many authors as fundamentally being the "who?" of weird literature. I feel like, at least as of this reading, van Vogt falls firmly in that "who" of science fiction writer who had a career, but today in unrecognized and may be seen, a little, as someone purely of that time and not a timeless "household name." Still, helps to broaden the knowledge of classic science fiction.
I was fascinated to look up the author and find that he was both kind of a well-liked and also lowly-reviewed writer in the golden age of science fiction. He apparently spent most of career writing "fix-ups" which was sort of just revising his stories and then republishing them. Kind of what it seems like many indie/self-published authors do, but without changing pen names and all that.
Anyway, the stories were cool. I applaud the attempts of giving women some kind of agency in the stories presented here, while also firmly sticking them in the margins and usually characterizing them negatively. The fantastical elements were fun, but I was disappointed that the eponymous gryb only appears in the first story, and there doesn't appear to be any further connections between the stories. Reading this reminded me of that Cthulhu anthology where the reviews derided the many authors as fundamentally being the "who?" of weird literature. I feel like, at least as of this reading, van Vogt falls firmly in that "who" of science fiction writer who had a career, but today in unrecognized and may be seen, a little, as someone purely of that time and not a timeless "household name." Still, helps to broaden the knowledge of classic science fiction.
February 23, 2015
40s and 50s era science fiction doesn't always age well. This is no exception. Some of Van Vogt's lesser stories are collected here. Fine if you don't expect too much. The Star Saint was the only real standout to me.
June 1, 2015
1982 grade B
short stories
short stories
August 14, 2014
My Dad gave me this book to read when I was 12/years old. I enjoyed it then and I enjoyed it now.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews