Extensively Cross-Indexed Using Internal Hyperlinks TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Preface Important Notes Sources Format Key What Are ISBNs? Main Entries Supplements Books — Fiction The E. Mayne Hull Stories Short Fiction E. Mayne Hull: Another View Books — Non-Fiction Statistics Short Non-Fiction Production Chart Other Works Series List Rare Works Working Titles Collaborative Works Indices Media Adaptations List of Fix-Up Novels Alternate Title Index Book Revisions Magazine Index Alphabetical Index Chronological Index Version 5 ©2001 - 2008 Isaac Wilcott April 9th, 2008 Icshi: The A.E. van Vogt Information Site (Version History) Preface This new document, the Storysource, replaces both the Database and Compendium by combining the two. (I suppose you could call this a "fix-up" bibliography since it is the melding of previously "published" material into a new unified whole. And, in the true van Vogtian tradition, I've not only revised it but I've given it a new title as well.) The last versions of both are still available for download as a single ZIP file for those who would like them for whatever reason. The format of the Compendium has been retained with only a few alterations while adding the bibliographic information of the Database. A section for short stories has accordingly been added. The ugly and outdated Database is eliminated, while retaining all of its positive traits, and the usefulness of the Compendium is drastically improved. No longer will you have to jump between the two while looking something up — all information has been pooled into just one document. This new format's interface is more intuitive, alphabetically arranged rather than chronological, and with all items thoroughly cross- indexed with internal hyperlinks. Just click on green text and it will take you to an item's main entry, or to one of the supplements or an index depending on what the text says. Underlined gray text in italics is used in the same way, but exclusively for links to the Magazine Index — I picked gray to make it easy to differentiate from other kinds of links. Blue underlined text (except for section headings) indicates an external link to related items of interest and require an active internet connection. And although the presence of all these special links makes the PDF larger in size and a little sluggish to use, this text can be copied and pasted into another document just like any other selection of text. I won't bother to enumerate the failings of the Database, as you are no doubt already aware of them. (Indeed, I found email exchanges with many of you to be an encouraging sign that something better needed to be created. Conversations with Phil Stephensen-Payne, Ian Covell, and Michael McKinney proved to be especially profitable.) Suffice to say that as things now stand I'm both embarrassed by the Database's mere existence and mortified that I let it sit and stagnate for three years without a single update. And why was the Database so shoddy, you ask? Simply because, when I created the first version, it was my first attempt to design such a thing for others to use and I didn't have enough experience to really know what I was doing. I feel that now, after five years of practice, I'm finally getting the hang of it. With the Storysource I've decided to err on the side of simplicity rather than complexity. I already have plans for things to include in future versions of the Storysource, including the listing of all anthology appearances for short stories. Hopefully, considering how easy this new document is to edit, I will feel more confident to expand and correct it far better than I was able to with the Database. The Storysource is far from perfect and I'm sure it still needs improvement and minor corrections. But it's a good foundation for a new beginning. Important Notes The layout of this document is fairly straightforward. However, there are a few things which should be noted before you plunge onward: (1) Foreign Translations By reason of necessity this document only covers his works as they appeared in English. I make exceptions for literary works that never appeared in English (such as To Conquer Kiber) and items whose first appearance was in a foreign language (such as Null-A Three). Foreign collections with a combination of material that never appeared thusly in English are not included here as it is only the selection of stories that differs and not the individual works themselves. However, there are a great many other websites that deal superbly with foreign editions. Please refer to the Links Page for list of such sites. Also, I encourage all serious van Vogt fans to buy a copy of the bibliography written by Phil Stepehensen-Payne and Ian Covell, A.E. van Vogt: Master of Null-A. It contains extensive information on foreign translations as well as other areas I am not qualified to cover. (2) Non-Fiction Items My knowledge of his fiction has always been my paramount interest and specialty. To better focus on this area I've cut back my coverage of his short non-fiction and now exclude some items which previously appeared in the Database. I now include only items that shine special light on his fiction, and non-fiction items that appeared in collections. (3) Revisions It's well known that van Vogt at one time or another revised much of his work. The two main types are Fix-Up Novels and Book Revisions — the former deal with the rewriting of stories into a novel, and the latter with the alteration of an existing novel or short story collection. What's not as well known is that just about everything that appeared first in a magazine was revised to some extent for book publication, usually just changes to punctuation, paragraph length, and section breaks. In some instances inconsequential sentences were removed, or phrases reworked. None of these revisions had any impact on the story itself. However, in a few cases a story by itself was revised — most notably his short story "The Rull" which has an inordinately complex publishing history. I've done my best to thoroughly cover each revision, but I'm simply not aware of them all. I've recently begun a major effort to collect all his magazine appearances and will add new information from them as time permits. The efforts of other SF and van Vogt fans are always welcome; just drop me an email and I'll be sure to include it. (4) Retitlements The number of alternate titles that exist for van Vogt's novels, short stories, and collections is truly staggering. It's utterly insane — there is no other way to describe it. A retitlement is an instance where a previously published work has been given a new title for a subsequent appearance. Sometimes a book would be issued with a new title on the front cover, but retain the original on the title page. In such cases I list that book under the cover title. To keep things orderly, each title entry contains only the appearances of a work under that title. For example The Mixed Men was also published as Mission to theStars. Each entry contains only printings that appeared with that title on the cover. To make things easier for you, all alternate titles for that work have links under each entry for that work. Use this document for a while and you'll grow accustomed to it. (5) Formating Conventions The book sections list detailed information on every known edition and printing of each item. The short story section on the other hand has a different format — I list the original magazine publication (where applicable) along with each collection and fix-up novel each story appeared in. Some of his stories have only appeared in an anthology, and obviously for such entries I include the anthology in question. I have tentative plans to add all anthology appearances to all short story entries in a future version of this bibliography. (5) Word Counts All rounded-off word counts should be taken as estimates of the story's bulk rather than being an exact enumeration of words. Precise counts (such as "23,423") are taken from digital texts of the works in question. Most of the rounded counts for pre-1975 works are taken from van Vogt's autobiography — for all other works, the rough word counts represents the best guess of either myself, another bibliography's, or someone who wrote in with an estimate. (6) Finding Specific Information If you're searching this list for specific information — such as how many covers Paul Lehr did — the word-search function of your PDF reader is very handy. Simply select "Find..." from the edit menu and type in "Paul Lehr". Adobe Acrobat Reader is very handy for this, as it creates a list in a separate window of all such occurences. (7) Note to Mac OS X Users The PDF-viewing application Preview seems to have trouble with internal links. (This bug was fixed in the version of Preview included with OS X 10.4, "Tiger.") When you click on a link Preview will go to the top of the page holding the destination rather than going to the actual anchor within that page. I prefer using Preview myself, since its interface is far simpler and less cluttered, but if you'd like to navigate more precisely within this document I reluctantly recommend using Adobe Acrobat Reader instead. Sources I have depended primarily on Phil Stephensen-Payne & Ian Covell's bibliography A.E.