The World of Null-A, sometimes written The World of Ā, is a 1948

1948 in literature

The year 1948 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* The Pulitzer Prize for the Novel is renamed the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction....

 science fiction novel by A. E. van Vogt

A. E. van Vogt

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....

. It was originally published as a three-part serial in Astounding Stories. It incorporates concepts from the General Semantics

General Semantics

General semantics is a program begun in the 1920's that seeks to regulate the evaluative operations performed in the human brain. After partial program launches under the trial names "human engineering" and "humanology," Polish-American originator Alfred Korzybski fully launched the program as...

 of Alfred Korzybski

Alfred Korzybski

Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski was a Polish-American philosopher and scientist. He is remembered for developing the theory of general semantics...

 and refers to non-Aristotelian logic

Non-Aristotelian logic

The term non-Aristotelian logic, sometimes shortened to null-A, means any non-classical system of logic which rejects one of Aristotle's premises .-History:...

.

Plot summary

Gilbert Gosseyn, a man living in an apparent utopia where those with superior understanding and mental control rule the rest of humanity, wants to be tested by the giant Machine that determines such superiority. However, he finds that his memories are false. In his search for his real identity, he discovers that he has extra bodies that are activated when he dies (so that, in a sense, he cannot be killed), that a galactic society of humans exists outside the Solar system, a large interstellar empire wishes to conquer both the Earth and Venus (inhabited by masters of non-Aristotelian logic

Non-Aristotelian logic

The term non-Aristotelian logic, sometimes shortened to null-A, means any non-classical system of logic which rejects one of Aristotle's premises .-History:...

), and he has extra brain matter that, when properly trained, can allow him to move matter with his mind.

Publication history

The World of Null-A appeared originally as a 1945 serial in the magazine Astounding Science Fiction, which was edited by John W. Campbell, Jr.  Van Vogt revised and shortened the tale for the 1948 novel release by Simon and Schuster. In 1970, van Vogt revised it yet again (though only slightly this time), and added an Author's Introduction in which he both defended the controversial work, and admitted that the original serial had been flawed.

Critical reception

The novel was the subject of an extended critical essay by noted author and critic Damon Knight

Damon Knight

Damon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, critic and fan. His forte was short stories and he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre.-Biography:...

. In "Cosmic Jerrybuilder: A. E. van Vogt", Knight writes that "far from being a 'classic' by any reasonable standard, The World of Ā is one of the worst allegedly-adult science fiction stories ever published." Knight criticizes the novel on four main levels:
It should be noted that Damon Knight and Van Vogt differed on a number of points of personal ideology. Damon Knight, the founder of the SFWA

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, or SFWA is a nonprofit association of professional science fiction and fantasy writers. It was founded in 1965 by Damon Knight under the name Science Fiction Writers of America, Inc. and it retains the acronym SFWA after a very brief use of the SFFWA...

, abhorred van Vogt’s style and politics and thoroughly demolished his literary reputation in the 1950s.

Sequels

The World of Null-A was followed by the sequels, The Pawns of Null-A (also known as The Players of Null-A) (1956) and Null-A Three

Null-A Three

Null-A Three, usually written Ā Three, is a 1985 science fiction novel by A. E. van Vogt. It incorporates concepts from the General semantics of Alfred Korzybski and refers to non-Aristotelian logic....

(1984).

In 2008 John C. Wright wrote a new chapter to the story of Gilbert Gosseyn, Null-A Continuum, in the style of van Vogt.

Related works

Æon Flux

Æon Flux

Æon Flux was originally an avant-garde science fiction animated television series that aired on MTV in various forms throughout the 1990s, with film, comic book, and video game adaptations following thereafter. It premiered in 1991 on MTV's Liquid Television experimental animation show as a...

(1991) by Peter Chung

Peter Chung

Peter Kunshik Chung Peter Kunshik Chung Peter Kunshik Chung (born April 19, 1961 in Seoul, South Korea, as 정건식 (Chung Geun-sik, or alternative spelling Jeong Geun-Sik) is a Korean American animator...

shares many motifs with The World of Null-A.

External links

• The World of Null A by A.E. van Vogt, reviewed by Ted Gioia (Conceptual Fiction)
• Chapter one online
• Review from the SF Site
• The Three Worlds of Null-A by Isaac Wilcott (Icshi), analyzing the three different publishings of The World of Null-A (not its sequels)