Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > rec.arts.sf.written > #488667

Re: RI February 2018

Show all headers | View raw

Ted Nolan <tednolan> <ted@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
>
> "Vault Of The Beast"
> A. E. van Vogt
> http://www.prosperosisle.org/spip.php?article236
>
> Apparently this was van Vogt's first sale, though "Dark Destroyer" was
> published first as Campbell didn't want to follow his own "Who Goes There?"
> too closely with another shape shifting villain.
>
> The story opens as we follow a "robot" (with van Vogt, the term
> generally does not mean what we have come to expect) stowing away
> on a Mars to Earth cargo run.  The robot was created for one purpose,
> to find Earth's greatest mathematician, and coerce him back to Mars
> to open the lost "Vault of the Beast", where the long vanished
> Martians have imprisoned an extra-Universal entity of some sort and
> whose lock is keyed (somehow) to the ultimate prime number.
>
> With that man somewhat plausibly identified (very much by happenstance it
> seems), the robot, through a number of shape shifts (which come with memory)
> destroys his life to the point he feels no alternative to joining the
> space cargo fleet and accepting the flailing robot's offer.
>
> But what is in the vault, and how can there be an "ultimate" prime number?
> The answer to the first is nothing we want out, and to the second an, ahem,
> 'prime' example of van Vogtian bafflegab and handwavery.
>
> As usual with vintage van Vogt, the result is entertaining, here with a
> surprising amount of sympathy for the put upon robot.  Also interesting
> are the fairly unexamined social mores concerning the hero's wife.
>
> You can read the complete text at the link above.
>

Bafflegab? LOL. "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them
with ... bafflegab." ;)
    The "Beast" excerpts that follow remind me of a couple of scenes in
the _Terminator 2: Judgement Day_. The first excerpt reminds me of the
scene in the movie where Terminator 2 emerges from the floor. [1] The
second excerpt reminds me of movie scenes where Terminator 2 gets shot.
[2]

    ... A ripple of floor rolled after the man.
    Fighting didn\xe2\x80\x99t help. The ripple grew into a blob that
    momentarily seemed to become a human head. Gray, hellish
    nightmare of demoniac shape. The creature hissed metallically
    in terror, then collapsed palpitating, slobbering with fear
    and pain and hate as Parelli strode on rapidly\xe2\x80\x94too rapidly
    for its creeping pace. The thin, horrible sound died; the
    thing dissolved into brown floor, and lay quiescent yet
    quivering in every atom from its unquenchable ...

    ... "Brender," he bellowed, "it's the monster that Morton and
    Parelli saw on their trip from Mars. It doesn't react to heat
    or any chemicals, but we never tried bullets. Shoot, you fool!"

    IT WAS too much, there was too much metal, too much confusion.
    With a whimpering cry, the creature dissolved. The pull of the
    metal twisted it horribly into thick half metal; the struggle
    to be human left it a malignant structure of bulbous head,
    with one eye half gone, and two snakelike arms attached to the
    half metal of the body. ...

Note.

1. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/56/6b/a3/566ba3f3d9662f1c397e1ef967beff22.jpg
2. http://www.imfdb.org/images/a/a6/T2JDRem870folder-5.jpg

Thank you,

--
Don

Back to rec.arts.sf.written | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread

Thread

RI February 2018 ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) - 2018-03-06 06:18 +0000
  Re: RI February 2018 Robert Carnegie <rja.carnegie@excite.com> - 2018-03-06 12:22 -0800
    Re: RI February 2018 ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) - 2018-03-06 22:25 +0000
      Re: RI February 2018 Magewolf <Magewolf@nc.rr.com> - 2018-03-07 13:52 -0500
        Re: RI February 2018 ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) - 2018-03-07 19:27 +0000
          "Of Dubious Intent" (was Re: RI February 2018) ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) - 2018-03-12 17:50 +0000
            Re: "Of Dubious Intent" (was Re: RI February 2018) Magewolf <Magewolf@nc.rr.com> - 2018-03-12 15:46 -0400
            Re: "Of Dubious Intent" (was Re: RI February 2018) Robert Carnegie <rja.carnegie@excite.com> - 2018-03-12 20:19 -0700
              Re: "Of Dubious Intent" (was Re: RI February 2018) ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) - 2018-03-13 03:34 +0000
          Re: RI February 2018 "Michael R N Dolbear" <me@privacy.net> - 2018-03-18 00:33 +0000
            Re: RI February 2018 ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) - 2018-03-18 04:01 +0000
              Re: RI February 2018 Ahasuerus <ahasuerus@email.com> - 2018-03-18 08:32 -0700
                Re: RI February 2018 ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) - 2018-03-19 04:14 +0000
  Re: RI February 2018 nance@math.ohio-state.edu (Anthony Nance) - 2018-03-08 18:38 +0000
    Re: RI February 2018 ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) - 2018-03-08 19:46 +0000
      Re: RI February 2018 nance@math.ohio-state.edu (Anthony Nance) - 2018-03-09 13:00 +0000
  Re: RI February 2018 D B Davis <g@crcomp.net> - 2018-03-18 00:04 +0000

csiph-web