Book Review: "Mission: Interplanetary" by A.E. van Vogt

Mission: Interplanetary by A.E. van Vogt (Signet, 1952)

This paperback edition features an alternate title for van Vogt’s 1950 novel The Voyage of the Space Beagle. Sporting an excellently dark painting cover by Stanley Meltzoff, the book is a fix-up of several short stories. Rewritten as a novel, the book includes material from “Black Destroyer” (Astounding Science Fiction, July 1939), “War of Nerves” (Other Worlds Science Stories, May 1950), “Discord in Scarlet” (Astounding, December 1939), “M33 in Andromeda” (Astounding, August 1943), and some new linking material.

As a fix-up, it basically follows a series of adventures and encounters of the crew of the Space Beagle, staffed by scientists, including Elliott Grosvenor, a Nexialist. A Nexialist is someone trained in integrated science and thought, accelerated learning techniques, and hypnosis. Unlike more specialized scientists, they are able to see the connections between different disciplines that others cannot see. In the book, Grosvenor is also skilled in conflict resolution and at encouraging people to collaborate to solve complex problems.

Given the creatures and situations encountered by the crew, they need all the help they can get. Some of the newfound enemies reach out to the crew accidentally—and alarmingly. Others have decided ill intent, perhaps to take over the rest of the universe. Only by working together is the crew able to overcome their challenges. And despite disagreements among the different crew members, leaders, and scientific disciplines, in the end, Nexialism gets a fair hearing.

The writing of van Vogt is clear and compelling, and as a fix-up, the novel offers multiple places to take a breather if one needs to take a break. I found the idea of Nexialism extremely intriguing and wonder if there’s a real-world corollary among the sciences. It reminds me slightly of Ken Wilber’s integral theory, a philosophy that strives to synthesize all human knowledge and experience. You can learn more about Nexialism in Gautham Shenoy’s 2017 article “The Nexialist approach: Van Vogt and the idea that ‘specialisation is for insects.’” You can also read some select quotes from later portions of the novel.

Quotes of Note: A.E. van Vogt, "Mission: Interplanetary" II

Quotes of Note from Mission: Interplanetary by A.E. van Vogt:

"You live in a universe; and within you, you form pictures of the universe as it seems to you. And of that universe, you know nothing and can know nothing except for the pictures. But the pictures within you of the universe are not the universe... ." (p. 81)

"How could you influence another's mind? By changing his assumptions. How could you alter another's actions? By changing his basic beliefs, his emotional certainties." (p. 81)

"[T]he pictures with you do not show all about the universe, for there are many things which you cannot know directly, not having senses to know. Within the universe there is an order. And if the order of the pictures within you is not the order of the universe, then you are deceived... ." (p. 81)

"In the history of life, few thinking beings had done anything illogical—within their frame of reference. If the frame was falsely based, if the assumptions were untrue to reality, then the individual's automatic logic could lead him to disastrous conclusions." (p. 81)

"[L]iving organisms can have satisfactions that do not require machines: food and drink, association with friends and loved ones." (p. 83)

"Everything must be investigated." (p. 92)

"[M]ilitary men have not properly appreciated scientists in the past." (p. 97)

"[S]cientists can find trouble where it never existed before." (p. 97)

"There is a reason why intelligent beings make mistakes... ." (p. 98)

"[L]ife proceeds upward—whatever we mean by upward—by a series of cycles." (p. 99)

"It is expected that grown men know their own minds. The whole idea of democracy is based on that supposition." (p. 115)

"In dealing with human beings, I've noticed there is usually not only a problem to be solved but the matter of tension among those who have to solve it. ... During danger, hard work. During work, relaxation in every practicable form." (p. 115)

"[T]he will to survive was built-in in the nervous system." (p. 118)

"In a crisis, a man protected himself. He couldn't help it. Like an animal, he fought blindly for his life." (p. 120)

"Only an event would change the minds of some people." (p. 121)

"It was not enough to have information and knowledge, not enough to be right. Men had to be persuaded and convinced. Sometimes that might take more time than could safely be spared." (p. 122)

"[S]cientists are constantly on the defensive about their alleged unfeeling intellectualism. So they like to have someone fronting for them who is emotional but whose scientific qualifications cannot be questioned." (p. 144)

"It's not their devotion to the scientific method that defeats the technologists. It's their integrity. The average trained man often understands the tactics that are used against him better than the person who uses them, but he cannot bring himself to retaliate in kind without feeling tarnished." (p. 144)

"[P]eople who are wrapped up in pleasure, excitement, or ambition are easily controlled." (p. 164)

"We must make men skeptical." (p. 164)

"On every level of understanding, the skeptic partly makes up for his lack of specific knowledge by his attitude of 'Show me! I've got an open mind, but what you say cannot by itself convince me.'" (p. 164)

"You can't expect to condition the whole human race." (p. 167)

"People think a thing ethical or unethical depending on the associations that come to their minds at the moment, or while they're considering the problem in retrospect." (pp. 168-169)

"[O]ur ethical measuring rod should be that which benefits the greatest number, provided that it doesn't include extermination or torture of, or denial of rights to, individuals who do not conform." (p. 169)

"When I firmly believe ... that any actions are justified, there is no internal nervous or emotional problem." (p. 169)

"Man has divided life and matter into separate compartments of knowledge and being. And, even though he sometimes uses words which indicate his awareness of that wholeness of nature, he continues to behave as if the one, changing universe has many separately functioning parts." (p. 174-175)

Quotes of Note: A.E. van Vogt, "Mission: Interplanetary" I

 Quotes of Note from Mission: Interplanetary by A.E. van Vogt:

"There are at least two reasons why a territory becomes uninhabited. One is lack of food. The other is war." (p. 12)

"[T]he first step is a merciless questioning of all that was once held sacred." (p. 16)

"Space madness ... was a meaningless phrase... . The fact that men had gone insane in space from loneliness, fear, and tension did not make a special sickness of it." (p. 26)

"[T]he end result might well be death for people who had inflexible ways of dealing with unusual danger." (p. 37)

"[B]ehind the grosser aspects of any science there is an intricate tie-up with other sciences." (pp. 39-40)

"Nexialism is the science of joining in an orderly fashion the knowledge of one field of learning with that of other fields." (p. 46)

"I've been laboring for years under the delusion that mathematicians were scientists." (p. 48)

"[A] man who is right often enough gets a hearing in a crisis." (p. 50)

"[F]rom the beginning of time, the unthinking majority has paid the price of obeying without question the commands of leaders whose motivations they didn't trouble themselves to inquire into." (p. 59)

"[C]ivilizations ... seem to be born, grow older, and die of old age." (p. 60)

"[R]ight now we are making the mistakes that lead to decay." (p. 60)

"The outstanding common denominator of the 'winter' periods of civilization is the growing comprehension on the part of millions of individuals of how things work." (p. 60)

"For better or worse, the fight usually takes place within the framework of a legal system that tends to protect the entrenched minority." (p. 61)

"The human mind normally balanced innumerable opposing impulses so that the average individual might live his life span without letting one feeling gain important ascendance over the others." (p. 65)

"There's only one sure protection against hypnosis, and that is to be trained in it exactly the right way." (p. 70)

"Mind reading would stultify the development of any race... ." (p. 70)