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Invasion galactique
249pages. poche. Broché.
244 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
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215 people want to read
About the author
A.E. van Vogt
648 books458 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 - 20 of 20 reviews
January 9, 2024
Space... vampires?! I was not expecting that, it was alright.
December 16, 2015
A Fix-up novel consisting of:
Asylum (1942)
The Proxy Intelligence (1968)
Research Alpha (1965)
All three are fine stories but assembled this way eats away at them. The strongest is the first, featuring vampires from space! (Had it been zombies, this story would be in vogue right now). The other two are fine stories but are clumsily linked by a plot based on “Great Galactic” overseers monitoring or inflicting interventions influencing human evolution (not at all close to the league of Clarke’s “Childhood Ends”).
Asylum (1942)
The Proxy Intelligence (1968)
Research Alpha (1965)
All three are fine stories but assembled this way eats away at them. The strongest is the first, featuring vampires from space! (Had it been zombies, this story would be in vogue right now). The other two are fine stories but are clumsily linked by a plot based on “Great Galactic” overseers monitoring or inflicting interventions influencing human evolution (not at all close to the league of Clarke’s “Childhood Ends”).
March 29, 2013
SUPERMIND, being a "fix-up" was an uneven reading experience.
I would like to read ASYLUM as a stand alone story because its elements of intergalactic vampires coming to Earth to take over has great appeal to me. The story was well written except where obviously new material was injected into it to link it and transition it to the second phase of the story.
The PROXY INTELLIGENCE might have well been a decent stand alone story. Here, it is a mishmash of the original with a great deal of obviously injected and incongruous new material that makes it disjointed and hard to follow. Van Vogt may have developed the character of Patricia in his original story as a strong willed, self sufficient woman. In Supermind, she is that at times, but at other times hopelessly weak and indecisive for no explicable reason.
RESEARCH ALPHA – even in this fix up book – is a great stand alone story and reveals what a great teller of short stories A.E. Van Vogt was. The characters are interesting and complex. In most stories of this sort, we see illustrated the old maxim of how absolute power corrupts absolutely. In the case of the young typist, it does corrupt her to some degree because she enjoys her omniscience. However, she retains her essential humanity and makes conscious decisions not to harm anyone. While it is long for a short story, it is well paced with no wasted words or actions.
Van Vogt is one of the more prolific writers of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. While many names from that era like Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov are recognized by most people today, Van Vogt has faded from the notice of even most science fiction fans.
Van Vogt wrote action oriented stories with thin characters. This was acceptable in the pulps of the 1940s and 1950s. More refined readers of today expect more. Bradbury, Asimov, and even the technically oriented Heinlein developed greater characters and greater settings for their tales. They also incorporated human emotion, human heroism, and human frailties into their tales. Van Vogt comes up short in this area most of the time.
I have several of these thin pulp books on my bookshelf authored by Van Vogt. While horribly dated, some are quite enjoyable. Supermind does not rank among Van Vogt’s enjoyable books. It reads like an author who has quickly and haphazardly pieced together unrelated stories to get a book to market.
I would like to read ASYLUM as a stand alone story because its elements of intergalactic vampires coming to Earth to take over has great appeal to me. The story was well written except where obviously new material was injected into it to link it and transition it to the second phase of the story.
The PROXY INTELLIGENCE might have well been a decent stand alone story. Here, it is a mishmash of the original with a great deal of obviously injected and incongruous new material that makes it disjointed and hard to follow. Van Vogt may have developed the character of Patricia in his original story as a strong willed, self sufficient woman. In Supermind, she is that at times, but at other times hopelessly weak and indecisive for no explicable reason.
RESEARCH ALPHA – even in this fix up book – is a great stand alone story and reveals what a great teller of short stories A.E. Van Vogt was. The characters are interesting and complex. In most stories of this sort, we see illustrated the old maxim of how absolute power corrupts absolutely. In the case of the young typist, it does corrupt her to some degree because she enjoys her omniscience. However, she retains her essential humanity and makes conscious decisions not to harm anyone. While it is long for a short story, it is well paced with no wasted words or actions.
Van Vogt is one of the more prolific writers of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. While many names from that era like Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov are recognized by most people today, Van Vogt has faded from the notice of even most science fiction fans.
Van Vogt wrote action oriented stories with thin characters. This was acceptable in the pulps of the 1940s and 1950s. More refined readers of today expect more. Bradbury, Asimov, and even the technically oriented Heinlein developed greater characters and greater settings for their tales. They also incorporated human emotion, human heroism, and human frailties into their tales. Van Vogt comes up short in this area most of the time.
I have several of these thin pulp books on my bookshelf authored by Van Vogt. While horribly dated, some are quite enjoyable. Supermind does not rank among Van Vogt’s enjoyable books. It reads like an author who has quickly and haphazardly pieced together unrelated stories to get a book to market.
September 26, 2024
Encore une fois, très bonne prémice, une bonne idée de départ mais tout ça vient à être un peu gâché par le style d'écriture de Van Vont. Trop souvent les choses passent du coq à l'âne sans préambule et cela casse le rythme. Le dernier tiers passé tout d'un coup à toute autre chose pour nous laisser sur une finale plutôt moyenne et ennuyante.
November 15, 2025
This fix-up of three stories was a bit of a mess. Space-vampires, Galactic Greats, overseers. It did't really make a lot of sense. Just a lot of ideas without a real beginning or end, held together by an unconvincing overarching plot. The best story (because at least it resembled a story) was the final segment about an experimental drug that jump-starts evolution.
I read the Dutch version and the wonky translation certainly didn't help.
Nice cover, though.
I read the Dutch version and the wonky translation certainly didn't help.
Nice cover, though.
June 17, 2017
Yes, it's from the pulp days.
Bit of trivia for James Schmitz readers:
vV wrote a short story named Asylum in the early 1940s.
Later he and James Schmitz discussed a collaboration that would fit with this (originally to be a prequel). Eventually Schmitz wrote Research Alpha based on the ideas they had discussed, but vV apparently was too busy - until it was finished, then touched it up to fit his current ideas of the story line, and published it. Not long after that, vV wrote another short, then put the three together with some significant changes. So far, I've never seen a version of the combined book that mentions Schmitz, but I have seen a copy of an Italian book whose cover says "A.E van Vogt e James H. Schmitz / RICERCHE ALFA e altri racconti."
And of course Schmitz expert Guy Gordon knew that Research Alpha was a collaboration (including in his list at the end of Flint's Eternal Frontiers volume).
Bit of trivia for James Schmitz readers:
vV wrote a short story named Asylum in the early 1940s.
Later he and James Schmitz discussed a collaboration that would fit with this (originally to be a prequel). Eventually Schmitz wrote Research Alpha based on the ideas they had discussed, but vV apparently was too busy - until it was finished, then touched it up to fit his current ideas of the story line, and published it. Not long after that, vV wrote another short, then put the three together with some significant changes. So far, I've never seen a version of the combined book that mentions Schmitz, but I have seen a copy of an Italian book whose cover says "A.E van Vogt e James H. Schmitz / RICERCHE ALFA e altri racconti."
And of course Schmitz expert Guy Gordon knew that Research Alpha was a collaboration (including in his list at the end of Flint's Eternal Frontiers volume).
December 9, 2017
Space vampires known as Dreeghs land on Earth in an attempt to dominate the planet and feed off humans, despite the fact that the planet is under protection from a being known as the Great Galactic. The Great Galactic uses lesser races such as Kluggs and Lennels to carry out its missions. These races are considered to be Observers and the Dreeghs begin by seeking them out to be destroyed first, thereby opening the floodgates for a full invasion.
In doing so, the first two Dreeghs to crash on Earth somehow assume that any random newspaper reporter will have all of the information they need to find the local Observer for Earth. After murdering two humans for nourishment, the Dreeghs encounter a journalist named William Leigh when he accompanies a strange woman on a mission to confront the vampires and warn them off.
The woman is later revealed to be Patricia Ungarn, daughter of renown Professor Ungarn. The space vampires conclude that this professor, who resides on a meteorite out near Jupiter, is the local Observer working for the Great Galactic. As such, he must be eliminated before the fleet of Dreegh vessels arrives in the solar system to take over Earth. However, the Great Galactic has foreseen this and initiates a plan to defeat the vampires by placing its enormous intelligence first into William Leigh and then into the mind of the Ungarn's dim space freighter pilot, Steve Hanardy.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, research scientist Doctor Gloge is experimenting with the Omega serum, intended to increase human evolution in stages from several hundred thousand years to—ultimately—one million years. Frustrated by years of failed experimentation on animals, Gloge chooses two human subjects who work in lower positions for the Project Alpha research facility. During chance meetings with them, the scientist successfully injects them with the serum using an air gun. Each reacts in their own unique—and unexpected—way...
Did any of the above make sense to you? Do you see how the space vampire plot relates to the Omega serum story? No? Well, don't worry, you're not alone.
Van Vogt is a legend, but SUPERMIND is, by far, not one of the grand master’s finest works. It’s a conglomeration of three short stories poorly stitched together ("Asylum", "The Proxy Intelligence", and "Research Alpha"). A byproduct of this attempt to blend and connect the three included minor rewrites that inserted some characters from each story into the others, however loosely.
The concept of space vampires has no appeal to me at all, but the final section of the novel, based on "Research Alpha," is a fantastic story and a fine example of Van Vogt at his best.
There were a few bothersome aspects early in the novel that either threw me briefly out of the story or gave me a chuckle such as odd character reactions, jarring jump cuts where characters abruptly turned up in a new location, and a handful of cheesy lines of narrative: “...her eyes struck me like a blow,” “Vampire victory is near,” and “His brain tensed.” Oy vey!!
I would not recommend SUPERMIND as a first book for readers interested in Van Vogt. Instead, I suggest beginning with SLAN.
In doing so, the first two Dreeghs to crash on Earth somehow assume that any random newspaper reporter will have all of the information they need to find the local Observer for Earth. After murdering two humans for nourishment, the Dreeghs encounter a journalist named William Leigh when he accompanies a strange woman on a mission to confront the vampires and warn them off.
The woman is later revealed to be Patricia Ungarn, daughter of renown Professor Ungarn. The space vampires conclude that this professor, who resides on a meteorite out near Jupiter, is the local Observer working for the Great Galactic. As such, he must be eliminated before the fleet of Dreegh vessels arrives in the solar system to take over Earth. However, the Great Galactic has foreseen this and initiates a plan to defeat the vampires by placing its enormous intelligence first into William Leigh and then into the mind of the Ungarn's dim space freighter pilot, Steve Hanardy.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, research scientist Doctor Gloge is experimenting with the Omega serum, intended to increase human evolution in stages from several hundred thousand years to—ultimately—one million years. Frustrated by years of failed experimentation on animals, Gloge chooses two human subjects who work in lower positions for the Project Alpha research facility. During chance meetings with them, the scientist successfully injects them with the serum using an air gun. Each reacts in their own unique—and unexpected—way...
Did any of the above make sense to you? Do you see how the space vampire plot relates to the Omega serum story? No? Well, don't worry, you're not alone.
Van Vogt is a legend, but SUPERMIND is, by far, not one of the grand master’s finest works. It’s a conglomeration of three short stories poorly stitched together ("Asylum", "The Proxy Intelligence", and "Research Alpha"). A byproduct of this attempt to blend and connect the three included minor rewrites that inserted some characters from each story into the others, however loosely.
The concept of space vampires has no appeal to me at all, but the final section of the novel, based on "Research Alpha," is a fantastic story and a fine example of Van Vogt at his best.
There were a few bothersome aspects early in the novel that either threw me briefly out of the story or gave me a chuckle such as odd character reactions, jarring jump cuts where characters abruptly turned up in a new location, and a handful of cheesy lines of narrative: “...her eyes struck me like a blow,” “Vampire victory is near,” and “His brain tensed.” Oy vey!!
I would not recommend SUPERMIND as a first book for readers interested in Van Vogt. Instead, I suggest beginning with SLAN.
December 13, 2022
Meh, really didn't age well. I remember reading this in the 80s and it already felt really pulp-ish, in a bad way. The whole "higher IQ means random physical power X" stuff felt really gratuitous and over the top. Yes, it drove the plot, but that's about it.
I generally avoid Golden Age SF - at least in novel form, short stories can be better - and this is a prime exhibit why.
I generally avoid Golden Age SF - at least in novel form, short stories can be better - and this is a prime exhibit why.
June 11, 2025
Asylum is a choppy tale of space vampires warring against inferior low-IQ lifeforms. It provided some interest and intrigue at times.
“We Dreeghs live a cold, lonely life. So lonely that I sometimes cannot help thinking our struggle to remain alive is a blind, mad thing. We’re what we are through no fault of our own.”
“We Dreeghs live a cold, lonely life. So lonely that I sometimes cannot help thinking our struggle to remain alive is a blind, mad thing. We’re what we are through no fault of our own.”
November 17, 2018
A bit choppy but good or exceptional content throughout.
April 22, 2020
Silly. I'm not sure it's supposed to be silly. Okay read if you are looking for something a bit old and fluffy.
November 29, 2019
this was one crazy poorly constructed piece of pulp sci fi. enjoyed it for all the wrong reasons. very silly.
March 22, 2025
It's best to know this is three stories later tied together to be a book. As three loosely tied stories it was an enjoyable read.
March 6, 2014
‘EARTH WAS IN DANGER,
its population threatened by the nomadic space-travellers, the Dreeghs.
For Earth’s inhabitants could provide the Dreeghs with blood, the essence of ‘life’ imperative for their survival. It was the beginning of a struggle, a conflict that was to be decided not by force of arms but by intelligence, by the supermind.
But how far can the mind go? Research Alpha had to find out. If the evolutionary process could be speeded up so that a million years’ development could take place within a few days, could Point Omega be reached, the point of supreme intelligence, where man is at one with totality?’
Blurb from the 1979 NEL paperback edition
This is one of van Vogt's more successful fix-up novel, based on the stories 'Asylum', 'Research Alpha' and 'The Proxy Intelligence'.
Unbeknown to terrestrials, Earth’s humans are part of a Galactic seeding project from before the dawn of time. Now, a party of vampire Dreeghs have discovered Earth, and they plan to replenish their life-force by drinking the blood of humanity.
However, Earth is under observation by a small number of alien humans who report to the Great Galactics.
This is van Vogt almost back to his old form with his surreal sciences, the rational men with enormous IQs and the secret space-ships and bases.
One of the alien agents makes contact with a reporter, a man whom the Dreeghs are pursuing for very different reasons, and in so doing triggers an evolutionary process within the reporter which increases his IQ into four figures.
A complex game of cat and mouse ensues until the Dreeghs are defeated in a manner, if not audacious, then downright baffling.
The problem with Supermind is that is a book of two halves, and once the Dreeghs are dealt with we have a situation in which a renegade scientist is experimenting on humans to produce the evolutionary effect.
It’s a far more satisfactory piece than much of late van Vogt and there are flashes of his earlier panache and technicolor widescreen bravado.
The writing is always compelling however. van Vogt has an inexplicable talent for describing the environments in which his protagonists do whatever they have to do, and making it just slightly off-kilter from reality.
its population threatened by the nomadic space-travellers, the Dreeghs.
For Earth’s inhabitants could provide the Dreeghs with blood, the essence of ‘life’ imperative for their survival. It was the beginning of a struggle, a conflict that was to be decided not by force of arms but by intelligence, by the supermind.
But how far can the mind go? Research Alpha had to find out. If the evolutionary process could be speeded up so that a million years’ development could take place within a few days, could Point Omega be reached, the point of supreme intelligence, where man is at one with totality?’
Blurb from the 1979 NEL paperback edition
This is one of van Vogt's more successful fix-up novel, based on the stories 'Asylum', 'Research Alpha' and 'The Proxy Intelligence'.
Unbeknown to terrestrials, Earth’s humans are part of a Galactic seeding project from before the dawn of time. Now, a party of vampire Dreeghs have discovered Earth, and they plan to replenish their life-force by drinking the blood of humanity.
However, Earth is under observation by a small number of alien humans who report to the Great Galactics.
This is van Vogt almost back to his old form with his surreal sciences, the rational men with enormous IQs and the secret space-ships and bases.
One of the alien agents makes contact with a reporter, a man whom the Dreeghs are pursuing for very different reasons, and in so doing triggers an evolutionary process within the reporter which increases his IQ into four figures.
A complex game of cat and mouse ensues until the Dreeghs are defeated in a manner, if not audacious, then downright baffling.
The problem with Supermind is that is a book of two halves, and once the Dreeghs are dealt with we have a situation in which a renegade scientist is experimenting on humans to produce the evolutionary effect.
It’s a far more satisfactory piece than much of late van Vogt and there are flashes of his earlier panache and technicolor widescreen bravado.
The writing is always compelling however. van Vogt has an inexplicable talent for describing the environments in which his protagonists do whatever they have to do, and making it just slightly off-kilter from reality.
March 21, 2010
I'm not sure what to make of this. It consisted of three almost independant short stories each building on the last about a threat to Earth and how it was dealt with by the "Great Galactics", beings of enormous power, watching over the galaxy, and what happens when humans are accelerated along the evolutionary path.
As I say, I don't really understand what happened, certainly not at the end, but it was enjoyable enough for most of it.
As I say, I don't really understand what happened, certainly not at the end, but it was enjoyable enough for most of it.
June 10, 2015
3.5 Very much a product of the 70s. Has all the elements - psychological emphasis, speculation based on improved evolutionary tendencies - though the notion of evolution is thin in concept. And a belief in IQ as a given. Still, pretty fun. Start is a bit rough, but the third act ties things together nicely.
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June 21, 2009Science Fiction
March 16, 2013
I really enjoyed this book, I think someone could make a great movie out of it .
Read
January 20, 20151967 Edition
January 13, 2022
Too many characters, terribly edited and felt misogynistic. Didn't finish it
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews