More Than Superhuman

by A.E. van Vogt

UK edition. Six stories (two collaborations, one each with James Schmitz and Forrest Ackerman), concerning the Ubermensch.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Short Stories, Anthologies

220 pages, Paperback

First published January 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 edition of the popular Astounding Science Fiction magazine.

Reviews

[Craig]

This is a collection of six works by van Vogt from the latter stage of his career. There are two short-short stories (one a shaggy dog collaboration with 4SJ Ackerman... I scream clone...), two novelettes from Galaxy magazine when Ejler Jakobsson was the editor from 1969 and '71, and one, All the Loving Androids, original to this collection. My favorite piece in the book is another collaboration, a novella called Research Alpha, from the July 1965 issue of If magazine edited by Frederik Pohl. Schmitz and van Vogt seem like a very odd team-up, but they made it work and came up with a terrific story that was nominated for a Nebula award as the best of the year. (They lost to a great story by Roger Zelazny, He Who Shapes, which was expanded a bit into The Dream Master.) Some of van Vogt's later work was honestly sub-par, but these are some of his better ones.

[Denis]

A collection of "later" Van Vogt Novellas and short stories written in the sixties and seventies. "The Reflected Men", "Him", "Research Alpha", "Humans, Go Home!" and "All the Loving Androids".

Typically they are extremely strange in concept and style. Van Vogt is an abstract painter of unusual subject matter. Dreamy. Not in the way of colourful misty castles but like real dreams. The kind that take place in the home you grew up in when a child but the people living there are from work... And it 's a different city. And your sister is a completely different person, but somehow you're not at all phased by this... And where, when is this? That kind of dream.

And, there are a couple short humorous stories in there that sort of bring you back to reality (weird).

[Peri]

I quite enjoyed this collection. All the stories are about humans that are more than regular humans. There is some great commentary here on the evolution of humans and where we're going as a species. I was most entertained by Laugh, Clone, Laugh and Him. Two very short and unexpectedly funny stories included in between all the seriousness of the collection. Him was especially great as it went back to A.E. van Vogt's Manitoba roots with beer being integral to the tale. This is certainly an anthology I'll be reading again.

[Wilson E. Stevens Sr.]

This is the second time I have read this book, the first time was in the 1970's when it was first issued. I have always like A.E. van Vogt's works, and this is no exception. Most of the short stories in this book are excellent and well worth the time to read. A couple I didn't care for very much, but such is Science Fiction. His stories have always been original, not like the modern paper cutter novels that take the same plot, put different people in them, and run off a dozen book for rapid readers. This one will give you some things to think about.

[Emily]

This collection of short stories deals with varieties of beings who are, as the title states, more than superhuman. Androids, alien-enhanced humans, scientifically-enhanced humans, and the like. Mostly, androids, though. It's a fascinating discourse about the evolution of humanity and what might be next for mankind.

[Terry Mulcahy]

The stories, originally published in separate magazines from 1965 to 1971, reflect that very fact. They are short and simple, written for a very young reader, or simply for the quick sale. van Vogt is a fantastic writer, and 'Humans, Go Home' shows that. 'Reflected Men' is also quite inventive. All in all, it's a nice set of stories, worth the quick read.

[Adrian Hunter]

eww. old scifi, while sometimes charming, and sometimes groundbreaking, isn't always well written or exciting. this collection of shorts tries to really bring scientific and character concept up front, but it just ends up bland and weird.

[Randal]

Half a dozen short stories dealing with nonhumans. Stands up better than a lot of classic SF. I almost think of it as "golden age" SF, although if I had picked it up in my teens it would have been contemporary (published 1971).

[Tatu Saloranta]

Ok, was not sure what to expect: mostly chose to buy second-hand copy after reading that A.E van Vogt was highly influential for PKD, my all-time sci-fi favorite.
So, this is a remarkably uneven collection: ignoring 2 very short... stories? that were... not great, there are 4 fully-formed short stories of varying quality.
For whatever reason, I really liked the last one most, by far; considered the newly written story to be basically awful, and 2 others somewhere in-between (at best "ok", but certainly not good).
So quite a roller-coaster ride. From what I read from Wikipedia, this is not unusual distribution for "VV" book. :)

[Lawrence]

https://gnomeship.blogspot.com/2020/0...

[Marko]

I have the german edition: Zeit der Androiden