Maybe it's the fever, but I found myself thinking about A. E. Van Vogt today. Does anybody even remember him any longer?

I didn't know much about him. So did a deep dive. Apparently he was from Manitoba. Had no idea!

I got hooked after reading "Slan", it was mysterious. Captivating.

The concepts probably seem very dated today and nobody probably would be interested in something like that any more?

But I can't help but hanker for something like that right now. Maybe I'll try re-reading "Slan" and see if it holds up.

#Reading

@f
“Does anybody even remember [A.E. van Vogt] any longer?”

I do. And a quick search of YouTube shows a number of booktubers do as well. Granted, most of them are older white men (though a couple look under 40).

The odd fact I remember from some preface was that he took a writing course by mail that advocated keeping the reader's interest by having something exciting happen every 500 words or so.

But I've read over thirty of his books, says my shelf, so I clearly don't hate him.

@bok I think I read Van Vogt first around mid 80s possibly? I remeber "Slan" distinctly and I know that the "Weapon Shops" books also left an impression. I think I tried to find as many books of his in the library as I could but in those days, it was hit or miss to get the full list of books for an author in Sri Lanka 🙂 You got what you got and that was it ...

I don't remember now if I read anything further by him back then, but he and Gordon R. Dickson tackle certain themes that have really appealed to me.

I just learnt about the "something should happen every x words or so" thing from his Wikipedia entry yesterday. I didn't know about it before. I found this really interesting and was trying to see if I can emulate this in my own writing — not sure if I could be that organized/detailed.

I hadn't thought of Van Vogt in years. I do need to re-read them again and this time, I want to pay attention to how things are crafted instead of just getting lost in the story 🙂