SLAN
"Fans are Slans," became the catchphrase of early science fiction fandom in the wake of this novel.  Like the Slans - telepathic mutants hiding out in a hostile population - science fiction fans considered themselves a haunted special minority, imbued with transcendent and visionary insight, sure to prevail in the fullness of time.  Communes were called "Slan shacks" and fans occupied them.  In the wake of the atomic bomb and theories of atomic mutation, the premise of SLAN seemed ever more credible.There are two kinds of Slans - those whose tendrils publicize their power to read the minds of ordinary humans and so-called tendrilless Slans whose strange power is concealed (allowing these Slans to hide).  The tendrilled Slans were exterminated in a pogrom a while ago; now human society is ruled by the dictator Kier Gray who promises to locate and eliminate the tendrilless Slans.  Johnny Cross, a young adolescent, is a secret Slan who in the novel's opening scene is fleeing with his mother, pursued by a human mob.  The mob assaults and kills his mother, who dies charging Johnny with the responsibility to confront Kier Gray in his palace and destroy him so that the Slans may live.The novel is the narrative of Johnny's odyssey through the Slan sub-societies and toward his final confrontation with Kier Gray.  In Gray's palace lives the young, beautiful Slan, Kathleen Layton,who Gray spared from a mob so that a Slan and her powers could be investigated at close quarters.  How Johnny finds his way past Gray's defenses toward that confrontation and what he shockingly learns from that meeting embody the point of the novel and the heart of Van Vogt's novelistic technique.
Fiction, Science Fiction, Fiction, science fiction, general, award:retro_hugo, American Science fiction
A. E. van Vogt, Oliver Wyman, Kevin J. Anderson
Alfred Elton van Vogt was born on a farm in Edenburg, a Russian Mennonite community east of Gretna, Manitoba. Early in his career he wrote for true confession pulp magazines like True Story, but in the late 1930s he began writing science fiction, which he was more interested in. His first published SF story, "Black Destroyer" was published in 1939, and is considered to be one of the first works of the Golden Age of science fiction. In 1941 he left his job at the Department of National Defence to become a full-time writer, and he went on to write a large number of short stories. In 1944 he moved to Hollywood, California. In the 1950s he briefly became involved in L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics projects. Although he left Dianetics, he claimed that Hubbard's followers continued to harass him, and he stopped writing for a few years. In the 1960s Frederik Pohl convinced him to start writing again, and he wrote novels (as opposed to short stories that were later developed into novels) until his death in 2000. || American voice actor || Kevin J. Anderson has published more than 170 books, 58 of which have been national or international bestsellers.  He has written numerous novels in the Star Wars, X-Files, and Dune universes, as well as unique steampunk fantasy novels Clockwork Angels andClockwork Lives, written with legendary rock drummer Neil Peart. His original works include the Saga of Seven Suns series, the Wake the Dragon and Terra Incognita fantasy trilogies, the Saga of Shadows trilogy, and his humorous horror series featuring Dan Shamble, Zombie PI. He has edited numerous anthologies, written comics and games, and the lyrics to two rock CDs. Anderson is the director of the graduate program oin Publishing at Western Colorado University. Anderson and his wife Rebecca Moesta are the publishers of WordFire Press. His most recent novels are Vengewar, Dune: The Duke of Caladan (with Brian Herbert), Stake, Kill Zone (with Doug Beason), and Spine of the Dragon.