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Quest For The Future
Worlds of differing probabilities and the constant search for immortality are the twin themes of this mind-toppling story. Expanding the enigmas of time, van Vogt carries the reader to the furthermost edges of past and future and outwards to a place where time loses all meaning.
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First published January 1, 1970
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About the author
A.E. van Vogt
648 books457 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 edtion 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 edtion of the popular "Astounding Science Fiction" magazine.
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
June 24, 2012
Another gem from the golden age.
I first read the short story that started this novel going. The short
story, about a man on a trip to Alpha Centauri who wakes up centuries later
to find it already colonized, captivated me. Van Vogt added a lot more
material and turned it into a novel about a man trying to track down a
woman through time after discovering a film showing future tech in
operation. About every type of time travel back and forth are shown, until
a time traveling organization is uncovered. Like most works of this time
period the style is somewhat difficult for modern readers, but the idea is
wonderful and the story great, which is all I can ask.
I first read the short story that started this novel going. The short
story, about a man on a trip to Alpha Centauri who wakes up centuries later
to find it already colonized, captivated me. Van Vogt added a lot more
material and turned it into a novel about a man trying to track down a
woman through time after discovering a film showing future tech in
operation. About every type of time travel back and forth are shown, until
a time traveling organization is uncovered. Like most works of this time
period the style is somewhat difficult for modern readers, but the idea is
wonderful and the story great, which is all I can ask.
May 3, 2012
An interminable bore fest, I'm afraid. The mechanics of the time travel loops are important to the plot, but are not well described. I found myself in the dark throughout much of the story. The main character is not very likeable.
October 15, 2019
This is the most chauvinistic piece of crap story. Especially the ending. Yeah I get that the concept is cool. But come on. Did not age well at all.
October 13, 2019
This is perhaps the most intricately-plotted time travel story I have ever read, but that intricacy comes at a cost. Its complexity makes it hard to follow by the end, and and a couple of the devices to advance the plot are pretty obviously deus ex machina. Van Vogt designed the lead character to be not very likable (which is essential to the plot), but he does not change enough over the course of the book that I ever came to be sympathetic towards him. Finally, there are loose ends. An atomic bomb threat is mentioned, but the bomb is apparently forgotten after it was put in place. And it is never explained how a man who was feeling virtually powerless for most of the book was able to accomplish one of the greatest feats of all time.
September 24, 2010
This is my favorite A.E. Van Vogt book. I have read it several times over the years and enjoy every time.
March 10, 2013
Fun light novel to read before bed. Lots of time travel to the point that it can be hard to follow, but I think I pieced it together at the end.
May 13, 2014
Dated style, but still fun.
January 27, 2020
This book was quite a surprise package. I thought that it would be a simple tale of travel between the stars, but it ends up as a story about a man who attempts to cross the themes of the multiverse. There is so much in the book that it is quite a feat to unpack it.
The core idea revolves around a central clearing house from which the strands of time emanate. Within this, travellers can move across timescapes to see how any one particular timeline plays out. If it doesn't have a satisfactory ending, the travellers can replicate themselves, go back to the clearing house, and start again. The whole idea is based upon the notion that there is no single timeline, but numerous timelines of multiple possibilities. This notion sits quite well with contemporary futurist thinking.
Into this framework falls the hero of the story. He first becomes aware of this possibility when hiring films for a science class. It sounds a bit dated, but the book was published in 1971, slightly before the onset of the videotape. Anyway, some of the tapes have been swapped around so that he receives a batch of films from the future. Those around him treat it as a novelty. He decided to follow the scent.
It is while he was following this trail that he stumbles upon the clearing house. One of the interesting properties of the clearing house is that it allows time to flow backwards, thus rejuvenating him. We later learn that, in the clearing house, time runs in a loop between 1977 AD and 9812 AD. It is the backstroke of the loop that allows travel back in time. This is a really clever plot device.
Within the clearing house, there are factions and divisions. This provides the dramatic tension within the book. I wasn't much taken by that because I wanted to focus on the underlying ideas of an explorer travelling across a vast timescape. This, combined with the possibility of being able to produce a duplicate person, gave me a lot to think about.
On the whole, I rather enjoyed the book. I have in idea if it is still in print. I bought mine second hand in a charity shop. If you ever see a copy, buy it. It's well written, well paced, and absolutely jam packed with ideas about science that have only started to be explored.
The core idea revolves around a central clearing house from which the strands of time emanate. Within this, travellers can move across timescapes to see how any one particular timeline plays out. If it doesn't have a satisfactory ending, the travellers can replicate themselves, go back to the clearing house, and start again. The whole idea is based upon the notion that there is no single timeline, but numerous timelines of multiple possibilities. This notion sits quite well with contemporary futurist thinking.
Into this framework falls the hero of the story. He first becomes aware of this possibility when hiring films for a science class. It sounds a bit dated, but the book was published in 1971, slightly before the onset of the videotape. Anyway, some of the tapes have been swapped around so that he receives a batch of films from the future. Those around him treat it as a novelty. He decided to follow the scent.
It is while he was following this trail that he stumbles upon the clearing house. One of the interesting properties of the clearing house is that it allows time to flow backwards, thus rejuvenating him. We later learn that, in the clearing house, time runs in a loop between 1977 AD and 9812 AD. It is the backstroke of the loop that allows travel back in time. This is a really clever plot device.
Within the clearing house, there are factions and divisions. This provides the dramatic tension within the book. I wasn't much taken by that because I wanted to focus on the underlying ideas of an explorer travelling across a vast timescape. This, combined with the possibility of being able to produce a duplicate person, gave me a lot to think about.
On the whole, I rather enjoyed the book. I have in idea if it is still in print. I bought mine second hand in a charity shop. If you ever see a copy, buy it. It's well written, well paced, and absolutely jam packed with ideas about science that have only started to be explored.
December 7, 2023
I've just re-read this novel for the 5th or 6th time. Even so, I still can't unravel all the time travel loops. Maybe we're not meant to?
Several reviewers have said that the central character is a 'not likeable' character. No, he's not, but those reviewers seem to have missed the main point: Van Vogt has very successfully portrayed an anti-hero whose neuroticism and paranoia are essential to the plot. The prose style is rather workmanlike by modern standards, but for the 70s it was rare to find a central character like Peter Caxton whose obsessive quest drives the story forward.
Yes, the ending - driven by the concept of different probability worlds - is both confusing and carries a Big Thought that could have been the basis for a second novel rather than being suddenly imposed upon the reader. However, if you pay attention to the time loops, it's an absorbing satisfying read.
(please note: this is not a review of the ebook, but it's the only edition on Goodreads that has the cover of my 1972 pbk)
Several reviewers have said that the central character is a 'not likeable' character. No, he's not, but those reviewers seem to have missed the main point: Van Vogt has very successfully portrayed an anti-hero whose neuroticism and paranoia are essential to the plot. The prose style is rather workmanlike by modern standards, but for the 70s it was rare to find a central character like Peter Caxton whose obsessive quest drives the story forward.
Yes, the ending - driven by the concept of different probability worlds - is both confusing and carries a Big Thought that could have been the basis for a second novel rather than being suddenly imposed upon the reader. However, if you pay attention to the time loops, it's an absorbing satisfying read.
(please note: this is not a review of the ebook, but it's the only edition on Goodreads that has the cover of my 1972 pbk)
October 2, 2025
Digging into the reason why he keeps getting bizarre films sent to him instead of the more mundane fare he'd paid for, Peter Caxton -physicist, paranoid, sexist- stumbles across a fantastic secret society that moves up and down the timelines via a huge inter-dimensional house in order to make humanity the best it can be... and incidentally making its operatives immortal. Desperate to join them, or desperate at least for immortality, Caxton begins his own time travels, but by whatever means are available to him (including an interstellar trip at relativistic speeds)...
The reader never really warms to the almost totally self-centred and neurotic Caxton, the "science" is very fuzzy and confused, and Van Vogt has a tendency to dwell on things that really aren't that interesting. But, if you can put up with these things, QftF is a fast read and not short of some good retro fun.
The reader never really warms to the almost totally self-centred and neurotic Caxton, the "science" is very fuzzy and confused, and Van Vogt has a tendency to dwell on things that really aren't that interesting. But, if you can put up with these things, QftF is a fast read and not short of some good retro fun.
June 22, 2021
I had great hopes when I started the novel, by the end it felt more like a poor man's Philip K. Dick attempt. As others have said the main character of this story is hard to like, also hard to hate. Just a small man wanting to be more important than he is and even though he does seem to attain his goal by the time we arrive to this conclusion it is hard to care either way.
September 3, 2021
I've read a few van Vogt novels, and enjoyed them, but this was a big disappointment. The early part is lifted almost verbatim from two short stories in his 'Destination:Universe!' collection, and the rest jumps all over the place until the unsatisfying ending.
December 9, 2022
This book is a time travel / multiverse type of scenario, which sounds really cool in theory but in practice is like a knot no one can unravel. Tough to follow. Get out the scissors. I like other works by this author but this one's not for me.
July 23, 2017
Rattled through multiple twists and plot explorations. Highly entertaining.
March 10, 2022
This was an amazing book, I want to read it again after 53 years!
August 17, 2025
Une des meilleures réflexion sur le voyage dans le temps mêlé au voyage interstellaire. Certe une écriture simple, mais néanmoins un de mes livres préférés.
January 14, 2009
Interesting time travel novel. It was first published in 1970 but I had the nagging feeling that I had read parts of this story before. And I was right, for Van Vogt stitched some old stories together to create this novel. It really has more of a 1950's felling to it than 1970. Interesting anachronisms such as mechanical postal delivery systems for transporting films in the late 21st century. No thought whatsoever of digital media, no computers.
The story I remember is that of the first space voyage to Alpha Centauri using suspended animation and then arriving five hundred years later to an established human colony. And the psychological consequences to the voyagers. Can you say culture shock? But this novel takes an entirely different twist to that earlier story.
The story I remember is that of the first space voyage to Alpha Centauri using suspended animation and then arriving five hundred years later to an established human colony. And the psychological consequences to the voyagers. Can you say culture shock? But this novel takes an entirely different twist to that earlier story.
September 13, 2014
Well, no doubt only Van Vogt would think of doing this (ie, tying a bunch of his--seemingly unrelated--stories together to concoct a novel), and only A E would be able to pull it off! As mind-boggling as any of his other stuff...and I suppose at the end it all hung together (the same way he usually gets me feeling toward the finish). The first time I read this I was a kid (it was one of the first things I ever ordered up from the Science Fiction Book Club)...and I don't suppose I understand it all now much better than I did then. :)
February 9, 2011
I read this book as a child and was captivated by the breadth of the story and the suprise ending. I forgot about it and years later searched for it finally remembering the title. I'm now re-reading it. Its what got me into Sci-Fi in the first place.
March 17, 2013
Great story, got a little lost in a few places... But that is what the book is about honestly! An awesome read for someone who likes to think of the possibilities of probability of inter dimensional travel.........
December 19, 2009
Kind of a mediore Vogt story. Not horrible but far from his best.
August 25, 2023
Excellent read. I am officially a Van Vogt fan.
January 5, 2013
My favorite SF book.
October 27, 2014
I don't know why - it's not great science fiction - but I enjoy reading this book every so many years.
December 22, 2014
It's actually not as good a book as my rating, but it just really hits my sci-fi nerve where it counts. I love how van Vogt can write a wretched, paranoid person so well it hurts.
September 24, 2025
Brilliant concept, very dated in execution. Loved it, although it's cheesy and there were a lot of eye-rolling moments because of the blatant sexism that was typical in the era this book was written.
June 4, 2015
1982 grade B+
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews