M 33 in Andromeda

by A.E. van Vogt

SIEGE OF THE UNSEEN. (1946) For Slade, that shocking third eye was his entry into a strange new dimension of terror and adventure that would wrap itself around him forever!
DISCORD IN SCARLET. (1939) It was utterly unkillable. Frightfully armed and armored - and ready to rue a new universe as it had ruled the old!

M 33 IN ANDROMEDA. (1943) From a tiny puff of invisible mist it had grown to fill a galaxy...and the death of others was its life.

THE EXPENDABLES. (1963) To the fifth-generation colonists aboard The Hope of Man, the alien invader was less dangerous than their private power struggles...

HEIR UNAPARENT. (1945) For 50 years Arthur Clagg had been emperor of Earth. Now he had a revolution on his hands. A four-day poison in his veins - and a successor who might be the poisoner!

THE WEAPON SHOP. (1942) From the moment the shop appeared, it had been Fara Clark's enemy...until it sold him the gun that he needed to kill himself.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories

252 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 1, 1971

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 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of a half-dozen of van Vogt's novelettes; five of them originally appeared in John W. Campbell's Astounding magazine 1939-1946, and The Expendables was from a 1963 issue of If edited by Frederik Pohl. There were a great many van Vogt collections published back in the day, many with overlapping contents and different titles (which was most likely the work of his literary agent, the redoubtable 4SJ AKAman), and some, such as this one, which contained the original versions of stories which he later expanded or fixed-up into novels. For example, this one includes The Weapon Shop (one of van Vogt's true classics), and two of the stories that made up The Voyage of the Space Beagle (my favorite van Vogt volume!), the title story and Discord in Scarlet. In my opinion, their influence on later sf works like Star Trek and Alien is unarguable. I didn't much care for the first and longest story here, Siege of the Unseen, but enjoyed the rest quite a bit.

[Eric Herboso · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great collection of soft science fiction stories from a classic author. Well worth the read, though none of the stories in this collection jumped out at me as being particularly worthy of praise. Good consistent quality stories like this rare to find, so even though none of these are on my favorites list, I'm still glad that I took the time to read this book.

[Bill Meehan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable collection of classic sci-fi stories. These stories predictions of the future all hold up well despite their age as there is more of a focus on social conditions than technology.Recommend to van Vogt and sci-fi fans.

[Sir Blue · Rating 5 out of 5]

He can leave his body
Like transcendental meditation
He goes in the body of many
Woman blacks asians all walks of life
Then is on another planet
In a humans body
To experience Joy's of perfect world