Ullstein Taschenbuch Verlag
1987, November
Cover art © by B. Barnard

This novel, which was never published in English, has been summarized by Alexander Martin Pfleger.

Frederick Fell
1954
Cover artist unknown

This first edition was released under E. Mayne Hull's name alone. Subsequent editions included van Vog'ts name as co-author in order to increase sales. The dusk jacket interior contains some biographical details about Hull, including some items of interesting information that I've never come across anywhere else.

Book Company of America
1965
Cover art © by Albert Nuetzell

Starting with this edition A.E. van Vogt's name was added as co-author, at the publisher's insistence, in order to increase sales. The original hardback edition was credited solely to his wife E. Mayne Hull.

Albert Nuetzell, brother to the writer and editor Charles Nuetzell, also did the cover for the 1969 edition of Out of the Unknown.

Tempo
1970, November
Cover art © by Paul Lehr

Berkley Medallion
1966, March
Cover art © by Jerome Podwil

Berkley Medallion
1974, April
Cover art © by Paul Lehr

Berkley
1982, August
Cover art © by Vincent Di Fate

Incidentally, this is the copy that was autographed and given to me by van Vogt when I met him in 1994. You can read my account of this meeting elsewhere on my site, along with a photo of him and his wife Lydia.

Di Fate's cover painting was later used as the frontispiece of the Easton Press leatherbound edition of The World of Null-A.

Paperback Library
1971, January
Cover art © by Jack Gaughan

This book has some excellent blurb descriptions for the stories on the back cover. In particular, the blurb for "Rebirth: Earth" is as good an encapsulation of that surreal story as I've ever come across.

Zebra
1976, March
Cover art © by D.A. Daily

Ace
1970, July
Cover art © by John Schoenherr

Please excuse the rather unsightly stains on this cover, and on the 1972 printing. Both seem to be candle wax, oddly enough — I guess the previous owners didn't have electricity.

Science Fiction Book Club
1970, December
Cover art © by Gary Viskupic

Ace
1972, December
Cover art © by John Schoenherr

Pocket
1979, May
Cover art © by Jerome Podwil

New English Library (UK)
1980, October
Cover art © by Gerald Grace

This is one of my favorite covers.
You can read my comments on it here.

DAW Books
1980, May
Cover art © by Greg Theakston

Reward / Prentice-Hall
1974, March
Cover art © by Ann Layman Chancellor

I swear to you people, this scan has not been altered — it really is that hideous. It goes along quite well with the book's equally bad content. Manor Books also put bichromatic disasters on the covers of their 1974 run of van Vogt novels: The Changeling (pink & purple), Empire of the Atom (red & light blue), Masters of Time(orange & lime green!), The Voyage of the Space Beagle (green & pink), and The Wizard of Linn (dark blue).

1974 — as can be seen all too clearly — was truly an awful year for book covers, at least as far as van Vogt was concerned.

Paperback Library
1967, September
Cover art © by Jerome Podwil

published with The World-Swappers by John Brunner

Ace Double
1959, October
Cover art © by Ed Valigursky

Ace
1969
Cover art © by Jack Gaughan

Ace
1973, December
Cover art © by Bart Forbes

DAW Books
1982, January (Canadian printing)
Cover art © by Wayne D. Barlowe

This is one of my favorite covers, though I have yet to write any commentary on it.

Simon & Schuster
1951
Cover design © by Edward R. Collins

This was the first readily available edition of Slan ever published, being preceded in 1946 by the rare volume published by Arkham Press. This Simon & Schuster edition contained a number of revisions from previous versions of the novel. This copy that I recently acquired had a nice surprise inside: the original feedback card that came with it, which readers would use to tell the publisher how satisfied they were with the novel.

Dell
1953
Cover artist unknown

Ballantine
1961, May
Cover art © by Richard Powers

This edition has an interesting illustration on the title page, presumably also by Powers.

Berkley Medallion
1968, April
Cover artist unknown

Berkley Medallion
1975, July
Cover art © by Paul Lehr

This is one of my favorite covers, though I have yet to write any commentary on it.

Science Fiction Book Club
1978
Cover art © by Gary Viskupic

This is a very striking painting, and the full-scale scan came out so well — with the texture being unusually rich — that I decided to create a wallpaper out of it. The dimensions are wrong for a desktop background so you can trim to fit your screen, or just enjoy it as is. It makes a nice companion piece to Jensen's Slan Hunter cover below.

Berkley
1983
Cover art © by Vincent Di Fate

art without titles
© by Bruce Jensen

This is not a scan — rather, it is a file sent to me by the artist himself, Bruce Jensen, of the wonderful painting he did for Kevin J. Anderson's Slan Hunter which was published by Tor in July 2007. I'd like to thank Bruce very much for sharing his art in this "textless" form, which is always a real treat to see.

SFBC
2007, June
Cover art © by Vincent Di Fate

This is the combined edition of Slan and its new sequel, as put out in hardcover by the Science Fiction Book Club, featuring a very nice painting by Di Fate. It also includes Anderson's new introduction to Slan as well as Lydia's touching forward to Slan Hunter. And contrary to what the copyright page may say, this reprints the 1951 text of Slan, not the 1968 version.

Even though it's the same image as the front cover I've included the back as well, mainly because of that very nice moon in the background that was blotted out by the title on the front. (Although on the back we see one of those darn pesky barcodes blocking a different portion!)

Since I'm not a member of the SFBC, I came by this book indirectly — it was a gift to me from that very generous superslan, Mark McSherry.

DAW Books
1977, January
Cover art © by Vincent Di Fate

DAW Books
1978, February
Cover art © by Attila Hejja

Sidgwick & Jackson (UK)
1973, June
Cover design by Mike Cook

J'ai Lu
1985, April
Cover art © by Barclay Shaw

Although originally contracted for DAW Books in the mid-70s, this novel has never been published in any language other than French.

Baen
2006, October
Cover art © by Bob Eggleton

This oversized trade paperback is the most recent van Vogt collection to appear in print. It contains the original magazine versions of the tales in the Clane, Ezwal, and Mixed Men series. Like many Baen books, it can also be purchased for $5 as a nifty digital download in a variety of formats.

published with One of Our Asteroids is Missing
      by Calvin M. Knox [Robert Silverberg]

Ace Double
1964, January
Cover art © by Jack Gaughan

Paperback Library
1964, July
Cover art © by Jack Gaughan

Paperback Library
1971, October
Cover artist unknown

published with The World of Null-A


Ace Double
1953, October
Cover art © by Paul Orban

Ace
1967
Cover art © by Jack Gaughan

Ace
1974, March
Cover art © by Bart Forbes

Timescape / Pocket
1982, November
Cover art © by Jerome Podwil

Sphere (UK) (published with his short story "The Proxy Intelligence")
1985
Cover art © by Peter Elson

Carroll & Graf
1992, April
Cover artist unknown

Incidentally, this is the copy that was signed by van Vogt when I met him in 1994. You can read my account of this meeting elsewhere on my site, along with a photo of him and his wife Lydia.

Avon
1964, January
Cover art © by Robert Jones

Avon
1967, January
Cover art © by James Bama

Avon
1970, February
Cover art © by James Bama

This copy is in bad condition — it looks like somebody gave it a rub-down with a sheet of sandpaper — but it can be clearly seen that it merely reproduces a cut-out portion of Bama's painting for the 1967 edition.

By the way, I'm none too sure if I believe that bit about "350,000 COPIES IN PRINT." I'll believe it when I see 350,000 copies sitting in front of me, and no sooner.

Pocket
1978, April
Cover art © by Vincent Di Fate

Macfadden
1963
Cover art © by Richard Powers

Manor
1976
Cover art © by Bruce Pennington

This is one of my favorite covers, though I have yet to write any commentary on it.


This art originally appeared on the NEL edition of Brian Aldiss' book Equator, as well as at least one other book put out by Manor in the 1970s, the anthology 4 Futures (which it didn't suit at all).

Manor
c. 1977
Cover art © by Bruce Pennington

Timescape / Pocket
1981, July
Cover art © by Gerry Daly

This is one of my favorite covers.
You can read my comments on it here.

And be sure to read this fascinating interview with Daly.

Science Fiction Book Club
1982, May
Cover art © by Clyde Caldwell

Perma / Pocket
1962, December
Cover art © by Richard Powers

Ace
1972, November
Cover art © by John Schoenherr

Ace
1977, August
Cover art © by Don Ivan Punchantz

This is one of my favorite covers.
You can read my comments on it here.

Timescape / Pocket
1982, September
Cover art © by Vincent Di Fate

Incidentally, this is the copy that was signed by van Vogt when I met him in 1994. You can read my account of this meeting elsewhere on my site, along with a photo of him and his wife Lydia.

Ace
1966
Cover art © by Jack Gaughan

New English Library (UK)
1970, June
Cover art © by Bruce Pennington

Curiously, this is the same painting that adorned the cover of the 1976 Manor edition of The Changeling.

Tempo
1970, November
Cover art © by Paul Lehr

Pocket
1979, February
Cover art © by Jerome Podwil

Ace
1961, January
Cover artist unknown

Ace
1969, December
Cover art © by John Schoenherr

This is one of my favorite covers, though I have yet to write any commentary on it.

New English Library (UK)
1970, July
Cover art © by Bruce Pennington

Ace
1973, November
Cover art © by Bart Forbes

Ace
1974
Cover art © by Bart Forbes

Pocket
1977, August
Cover art © by Adams (first name unknown)

Pocket
c. 1980
Cover art © by Gerry Daly

This is one of my favorite covers.
You can read my comments on it here.

And be sure to read this fascinating interview with Daly.

Berkley Medallion
1967, May
Cover art © by "Hoot"
     (full name: Hubertus Octavio von Zitzewitz)

Berkley Medallion
1970, November
Photo/Cover art © by Ira Cohen

DAW Books
1980, March
Cover art © by Douglas Beekman

It's worth noting that when this edition was released again in 1985, the quality of printing on the cover was dramatically improved. All copies of this 1980 edition that I've seen have darker, murkier colors.

DAW Books
1985, July
Cover art © by Douglas Beekman

Ace
1962
Cover art © by Ed Valigursky

Macfadden-Bartell
1968, December
Cover art by Jack Faragasso (?)

Manor
1974, February
Cover artist unknown

New English Library (UK)
1979, February
Cover art © by Joe Petagno

Timescape / Pocket
1983, August
Cover art © by Wayne D. Barlowe

Simon & Schuster
1948
Cover art © by Leo Manso

Grosset & Dunlap
1950
Cover artist unknown

This hardback reprint of the 1948 Simon & Schuster text of the novel contains a two-page introduction by the influential anthologist Groff Conklin.

published with The Universe Maker


Ace Double
1953, October
Cover art © by Robert Schulz

Ace
1964
Cover art © by Ed Emshwiller

Berkley Medallion
1974, March
Cover art © by Paul Lehr

Berkley Medallion
1977, January
Cover art © by Paul Lehr

Berkley
1982, March
Cover art © by Vincent Di Fate

Easton Press
1995?
Book design and artwork © by Vincent Di Fate

This is the ultra-deluxe leather-bound gold-edged edition published intermittently by Easton Press since 1988. It's an exquisitely beautiful volume and these scans don't do it justice — for the full effect, you really do need to hold a copy in your hands, run your fingers over the rivulets in the cover, whiff the leather, open it up and flip the smooth, gilded pages while relishing the amazing craftsmanship that went into every aspect of its production. It even has its own built-in satin bookmark! You know it's a really fancy book when it has one of those...

The stunning frontispiece is a reproduction of Di Fate's painting for the '82 Berkley edition of The Players of Null-A.

Orb / Tor
2002, October
Cover art © by Hubert Rogers

This painting (erroneously attributed to "Mark Rogers" on the back of this book) originally adorned the cover of the November 1948 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, which contained Part 2 of The Players of A.

Ace
1974, January
Cover art © by Bart Forbes

The Arkham Sampler
1949, Winter

Contains "Dear Pen Pal"
   (not illustrated)










Astounding Science Fiction
1939, July

  — Table of contents

Cover art © by Graves Gladney
   for van Vogt's story

Contains "Black Destroyer"
   illustrated by F. Kramer







Astounding Science Fiction
1939, December

  — Editorial

Cover art © by H. Gilmore
   for van Vogt's story

Contains "Discord in Scarlet"
   illustrated by Paul Orban







Astounding Science Fiction
1940, April

Cover art © by Hubert Rogers
   for L. Ron Hubbard's Final Blackout

Contains "Repetition"
   illustrated by F. Kramer







Astounding Science Fiction
1940, September

Cover art © by Hubert Rogers
   inspired by R.S. Richardson's article "Universes for Lenses"

Contains Slan, Part One
   illustrated by Charles Schneeman







Astounding Science Fiction
1940, October

Cover art © by Hubert Rogers

Contains Slan, Part Two
   illustrated by Charles Schneeman








Astounding Science Fiction
1940, November

Cover art © by Hubert Rogers
   for Vic Phillips' "Salvage"

Contains Slan, Part Three
   illustrated by Charles Schneeman







Astounding Science Fiction
1940, December

Cover art © by Hubert Rogers
   for P. Schuyler Miller's "Old Man Mulligan"

Contains Slan, Part Four
   illustrated by Charles Schneeman







Astounding Science Fiction
1942, April

Cover art © by Hubert Rogers, for Part 1 of
   Robert A. Heinlein's Beyond This Horizon

Contains "Co-operate — or Else!"
   illustrated by Charles Schneeman













Astounding Science Fiction
1942, October

Cover art © by A. von Munchausen (yes, as in "Baron"),
   for Lester del Rey's "Lunar Landing"

Contains "The Second Solution"
   illustrated by Kolliker












Astounding Science Fiction
1943, August

Cover art © by William Timmins
   for C. L. Moore's Judgment Night

Contains "M33 in Andromeda"
   illustrated by A. Williams







Astounding Science Fiction
1944, September

Cover art © by William Timmins
   for Clifford D. Simak's "Census"

Contains "A Can of Paint"
   illustrated by Paul Orban






Astounding Science Fiction
1945, August

Cover art © by William Timmins

Contains World of A, Part One
   illustrated by Paul Orban








Astounding Science Fiction
1945, September

Cover art © by William Timmins

Contains World of A, Part Two
   illustrated by Paul Orban








Astounding Science Fiction
1945, October

Cover art © by William Timmins,
   for A. Bertram Chandler's "Giant Killer"

Contains World of A, Part Three
   illustrated by Paul Orban







Astounding Science Fiction
1946, November

Cover art © by William Timmins,
   for Theodore Sturgeon's "Mewhu's Jet"

Contains The Chronicler








Astounding Science Fiction
1948, May

Cover art © by "Alejandro"   (working name of Alejandro Canedo)

Contains "The Rull"
   illustrated by Paul Orban

Alejandro's covers for Astounding could be depended on to convey the same theme over and over again. Here we see variation #228 of "Unclothed Man As Atomic God."

Astounding Science Fiction
1948, October

Cover art © by Hubert Rogers

Contains The Players of A, Part One
   illustrated by Hubert Rogers

Funnily enough, this painting was recently used on the cover of Tor's 1999 reprint of The War Against the Rull.

Astounding Science Fiction
1948, November

Cover art © by Hubert Rogers

Contains The Players of A, Part Two
   illustrated by Hubert Rogers.

Rather like it's counterpart for the October 1948 issue, this painting was later used by Tor to adorn a book that is also not the second Null-A novel. This time it decorated their 2002 reprint of the first in the series, The World of Null-A, in the process erroneously crediting it to "Mark Rogers." They presumably didn't use a cover from the serial of World because Rogers' artwork is far more interesting than Timmins'.   ;-)

Astounding Science Fiction
1948, December

Cover art © by Paul Orban,
   for Poul Anderson's "Genius"

Contains The Players of A, Part Three
   illustrated by Hubert Rogers







Astounding Science Fiction
1949, January

Cover art © by Hubert Rogers,
   for Lewis Padgett's "Private Eye"

Contains The Players of A, Part Four
   illustrated by Hubert Rogers







Astounding Science Fiction
1949, June

Cover art © by Chesley Bonestell,
   for Philip Latham's article "The Aphrodite Project"

Contains "The Green Forest"
   illustrated by Brush







Astounding Science Fiction
1950, February

Cover art © by Hubert Rogers,
   for L. Ron Hubbard's novel To the Stars

Contains "The Sound"
   illustrated by Brush







Authentic Science Fiction Monthly
1953, April

Cover art © by "Davis"   (pseudonym of John Richards)

Contains "Haunted Atoms"    (Reprint)
   illustrated by Fischer








Fantastic Stories of Imagination
1961, September

Cover art © by Alex Schomburg, for van Vogt's story

Contains "Ship of Darkness"    (Reprint)
   illustrated by Dan Adkins

Sam Moscowitz's informative introduction to this unusual tale can be read here and here.

Fantastic Story
1952, Summer

Cover art © by Alex Schomburg

Contains Slan     (Abridged 1940 text)
   illustrated by Virgil Finlay











Fantasy Book #1
1947, July

  — Front cover
  — Back cover (full)
  — Back cover close-up (top)
  — Back cover close-up (bottom)
  — Table of contents

Cover art © by Milo

Contains "The Cataaaaa"
   illustrated by Charles McNutt

This, the first issue of the rare Fantasy Book magazine, is so tall and wide that scanning it in proved quite challenging. After several unsatisfactory attempts I finally had to resort to doing the front and back covers in a piecemeal fashion and then stitching the images together. Owing to this difficulty, I've included the interesting back cover in two forms — as a smaller stitched-together image, and as the two original high-resolution images where the text is easier to read. After reading those tantalizing descriptions of books for sale, I found myself adding a few titles to my shopping list!

This issue is especially famous for containing Andre Norton's first published science fiction story, "People of the Crater," under the name Andrew North.

Incidentally, according to the seller I purchased this from, this copy of Fantasy Book #1 was once part of Forrest J. Ackerman's collection. Of course, this was probably just one of a few dozen copies he had in his attic, but still I think that's pretty neat.

Fantasy Book #2
1948, March


Pulp paper edition
Cover art © by Roy Hunt


Book paper edition
Cover art © by Lora Crozetti


Contains "Ship of Darkness"
   illustrated by Charles McNutt

William Crawford was the editor and publisher of Fantasy Book along with his wife Margaret, but for some reason they worked here under the pseudonym of Garret Ford. Due to financial and technical problems, it was rare for any two issues of FB to be the exact same size — issue #1 is somewhat larger than the bedsheet format, while issue #2 is somewhat smaller than the bedsheet format, while issues #3 on up were more or less digest size. And to further confuse things, some individual issues were released in two formats, with different covers and different prices. Such is the case here with issue #2. The larger edition, with blue-and-black cover art by Roy Hunt, was printed on extremely low-quality pulp paper, while the slightly smaller edition, with black-and-yellow cover art by Lora Crozetti, was printed on much higher quality book paper. The contents of the magazine, however, are identical, so Crozetti is (rather confusingly) given cover art credit on the contents page in both editions. Fortunately, Hunt has put a clearly legible signature to his artwork:


Nonetheless, for all its faults and eccentricities FB vividly conveyed Crawford's endless enthusiasm for SF and fantasy. He helmed numerous short-lived publishing ventures over the years — including Marvel Tales in the '30s, Fantasy Book in the late '40s, Spaceway in the early '50s (and again in the late '60s!), and Witchcraft & Sorcery in the early '70s — each of which exhibited the same endearing shoddiness. I find his to be a inspiring example of plunging ahead to do something you love, with exuberant spontaneity and a refreshing lack of cringing apologetics.

Fantasy Book #3
1948, July

  — Front cover
  — Back cover

Cover art © by Lora Crozetti
   for "The Gifts of Asti" by Andrew North [Andre Norton]

Contains "The Great Judge"
   (not illustrated)

The back cover of this issue has some interesting adverts for books being released that month from the Fantasy Publishing Company, which was also the publisher of Fantasy Book.

Fantasy Book
1981, December

  — Front cover
  — Table of contents

Cover art © by Charles Vess

Contains "Death Talk"    (Reprint)
   illustrated by Walter Lee

This rare story has only ever appeared twice in English (and once in French), with the first being in the British anthology Pulsar 1 edited by George Hay.

This semiprozine ran for 23 quarterly issues from October 1981 to March 1987. Although it bears the title of Fantasy Book, it was unrelated to William Crawford's magazine of the same name (which ran from 1947 to 1951). In his first editorial, Dennis Mallonee acknolwedged his indebtedness to Crawford for partial inspiration, but this later Fantasy Book in truth has more in common with Campbell's Unknown Worlds, featuring stories from the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres, as well as humorous and unclassifiable tales.

Unlike its namesake, Mallonee's is a very professional and breathtakingly beautiful magazine, meticulously layed out and printed on marvellous quality paper. Along with its fine selection of fiction, it also showcased the work of numerous talented artists.

Fantasy Crossroads #14
1978, September

  — Front cover
  — Back cover
  — Table of Contents

Front cover art © by Stephen E. Fabian & Hannes Bok
Back cover art © by Stephen Riley

Contains "The Gods Defied"
   (Not illustrated. Although Stephen Riley is credited on the contents page with illustrating this story, all that actually appeared is a fancy title block.)






Galaxy
1969, September

  — Front cover
  — Back cover

Cover art © by Donald H. Menzel

Contains "Humans, Go Home!"
   illustrated by Jack Gaughan

Gaughan's illustrations include a very interesting two-page spread that features some important background details — this very helpful information was not included in subsequent appearances of "Humans, Go Home!" and does a great deal to explain some of the more cryptic aspects of the story, particularly humanity's use of special "Symbols."

Donald Menzel's wraparound cover for this issue of Galaxy (entitled "Menzel's Martians") was done in honor of Mariner VI & VII and is accompanied by his delightful little article "Martians and Venusians" which describes these fanciful creatures. This three-page section is available as two JPG scans: Pages 1 & 2 and Page 3.

Galaxy
1971, February

Cover art © by Jack Gaughan
   inspired by Stephen Tall's "This is My Country"

Contains "The Reflected Men"
   illustrated by Jack Gaughan








Galaxy
1979, June/July

Cover art © by Kenneth Smith
   for Jesse Peel's Star Warriors

Contains "Femworld: Before the Revolution"
   (an excerpt of Chapters 1-5 from Renaissance)
   illustrator unknown

Though it has nothing to do with van Vogt's story, this is a rather interesting cover. I especially like that weird blue-crab jelly-headed monster in the background.

If
1965, February

Cover art © by Richard McKenna
   for E. Clayton McCarty's "Small One"

Contains "The Replicators"
   illustrated by Gray Morrow







The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
1950, December

Cover art © by Chesley Bonestell

Contains "Process"
   (not illustrated)