The World of Null-A
| Company type | Novel |
|---|---|
| Industry | Publishing |
| Founded | 1948 |
| Founder | A. E. van Vogt |
| Products | Science fiction novel |
The World of Null-A, occasionally titled The World of Ā, is a 1948 science fiction novel authored by Canadian-American writer A. E. van Vogt. Initially published in serialized form during 1945 in Astounding Stories, the work integrates ideas derived from general semantics as developed by Alfred Korzybski. The symbol Ā denotes non-Aristotelian logic.
Plot summary
Gilbert Gosseyn inhabits a utopian society governed by advanced mental discipline and undergoes evaluation by a Machine designed to assess intellectual supremacy. Upon learning that his recollections are fabricated, he discovers the existence of multiple operative bodies sustaining his life, a vast human civilization spanning beyond the Solar System, an interstellar empire with ambitions to dominate Earth and Venus (the latter inhabited by experts in non-Aristotelian logic), and dormant brain regions granting telekinetic abilities.
Publication history
The story was first serialized under the title "The World of Ā" in Astounding Science Fiction between August and October 1945, under the editorship of John W. Campbell, Jr.. Van Vogt later condensed and revised the material for its 1948 novel publication. Both the 1948 hardcover edition (published by Simon & Schuster) and the 1950 Grosset & Dunlap version preserved the original title The World of Ā. To minimize production expenses, the 1953 and 1964 paperback editions by Ace Books replaced the symbol Ā with the term "null-A," retitling it The World of Null-A. The 1970 revision retained this renaming, incorporated brief additional sections, and featured an introduction wherein van Vogt addressed earlier criticisms and conceded certain imperfections present in the initial serial.
Critical reception
This novel received the Manuscripters Club Award and was recognized as one of the top hundred novels of 1948 by a New York regional library association. It has been translated into nine different languages and played a significant role in shaping the French science fiction scene. In 1996, it secured second place in the Retro Hugo award voting for Best Novel from 1945.
Among prominent accolades, Groff Conklin praised it as "one of the most exciting, continuously complex and richly patterned science fiction novels ever written," while John Campbell termed it "one of those once-in-a-decade classics."
In 1945, writer and critic Damon Knight published an extensive critique highlighting contradictions within the plot, weak character development, insufficiently explored technological elements, and subpar prose style. Knight contended that van Vogt's narrative was confusing and erratic when judged by traditional literary criteria.
Van Vogt replied to these criticisms in his 1970 introduction, making revisions to address them. By 1974, Knight softened his viewpoint after discovering that van Vogt composed stories through dream states interrupted by frequent note-taking, implying that their surreal coherence may not align with standard literary evaluation methods.
Analysis
This novel represents one of the earliest instances in English-language literature to feature the concept and term videotelephone.
Sequels
Following The World of Null-A, van Vogt wrote a sequel titled The Pawns of Null-A (also known as The Players of Null-A, published in 1956), with a subsequent continuation named Null-A Three released in 1984.
In 2008, author John C. Wright extended Gilbert Gosseyn’s narrative with Null-A Continuum, crafted in a style reminiscent of van Vogt’s original work.
External links
- The World of Null-A serialized in Astounding Science Fiction, available at part one, part two, and part three on the Internet Archive