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Null-A Continium by John C. Wright
01/07/2008 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
pub: TOR/Sci-Fi Channel. 317 page hardback. Price: $25.95 (US), $28.95 (CAN). ISBN: 978-0-7653-1629-5. Buy Null-A Continium in the USA - or Buy Null-A Continium in the UK  check out website: www.tor-forge.com
After last year's 'Slan Hunter', I did wonder if any other of A.E. Van Vogt's books would be considered for a continuation. To discover it was being done with his Null-A books was a mixture of trapedation and wonder if it could be pulled off. More so, if you're an early reader at SFCrowsnest to have seen my article on the subject of my favourite books, 'World Of Null-A' and 'Pawns Of Null-A', which also got harvested for a website about the book series.
After all, back in 1947, the words we are familiar with for teleportation and cloning were either not known or widely used. Hence, Van Vogt described teleportation as similarization, with the mechanical device called a distorter, and clones were spare bodies. Just because the more familiar labels weren't known didn't stop Van Vogt using the ideas in innovative ways that no one else dared imitate unless they drew comparison. Similarization could transport anything up to the size of two mile long starships. Spare bodies were seen as a means to transfer memories between bodies. If you're not sure if someone is telling the truth, there were lie detectors in an abundance which were as near damnit artificial intelligence computers. In many respects, Van Vogt was way ahead of his time.
A third book, 'Null-A Three', written when Van Vogt was facing Alzheimer's, was a little more cloying and some elements and cast from the original books brought in were a little superfluous but wasn't really set in our own galaxy. Author John C. Wright acknowledges this in his introduction in as much as large amounts of it are more or less ignored. If you haven't read the first two books before starting this one, then it really is recommended so ensure you get into the swing of events here. They are rarely out of print and wouldn't surprise me if TOR have already got re-issues planned.
Assuming you aren't in the know, Null-A comes from the term 'Non-Aristolean' to distinguish a multi-orientated system from a two-way or yes/no Aristolean system. The Null-A way looks at many facets to make the right decision. It was this basis that Alfred Korzybski came up with General Semantics back in the mid-1930s in our reality. If it sounds like Lateral Thinking then think again. De Bono came much later and I ended knowing I'd been there before when I tackled his book. General Semantics is a technique that can be applied to most systems and I find it rather useful myself. Its more a way of thinking than some cults that are around.
There's a lot more to it than what I've described here, especially when it allows you to look at a situation at a more abstract level. One of the key phrases, 'The map is not the territory, just a representation or reality', is also somewhat of a basis for this story. Likewise the levels of abstraction where the picture gets bigger and bigger the more you step back from it to look at what it really means.
The plot is complex and intelligent but will make you think as you unravel the clues as to who is who let alone whose side they are on. If you're familiar with the original books, your own thoughts will run rampant as to the possibilities suggested, more so when you're looking for the galactic chess player. The worlds are now all familiar with Gilbert Gosseyn, the man from Venus with an organic distorter in his head.
This distorter by the way is more like an extra brain in his head. Its only one of his abilities as he can also disperse electrical and other forms of energy that he has been given access to. Eldred Crang has been killed and Gosseyn appears to be the likely culprit. If it wasn't Gossyen, then it was someone with the same abilities which leads the thinking to 'X', another spin-off but totally insane from the Lavoisseur original, has continued life in another series of bodies.
When it's also discovered that the forrmer dictator, prisoner and distance viewer, Enro the Red, has escaped and re-gathering his forces of his Greatest Empite, Gosseyn has to consider that there is someone beyond him. The discovery of a creature that transcends time and space and was responsible for the destruction of the galaxy where the first humans originally escaped from and is preparing to reek havoc in the Milky Way, Gosseyn needs to find them both. When Gosseyns from alternative realities and even the future appear to offer advice, he also has to determine from which version and if the advice is any good. Throw into this realities not being as real as they should be but people being self-determined to their own fate and the story becomes a delightful puzzle to unraffle.
John Wright has done a nice job of building from the original books, exploring a lot of the original threads and taking them much further with many of the original players back. I got a bit concerned where he referred to nexalism and Ptath but these were not done to link into Van Vogt's other stories. He even turned some red herrings into something of use rather than just a distraction.
This book isn't written as someone masquerading as Van Vogt. There's a lot more wordage here than in the original two books combined but that's as much to do with modern style. Van Vogt could create from few words and was a vivid storyteller which would be hard to copy. Wright succeeded in combining what he knows with Van Vogt's ideas and made it a compelling read. You can't get bigger than this when playing with realities. A must read.
GF Willmetts
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