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One of the great original classics of modern SF returns! An all-time classic space saga, The Voyage of the Space Beagle is one of the pinnacles of Golden Age SF, an influence on generations of stories. An episodic novel filled with surprises and provocative ideas, this is the story of a great exploration ship sent out into the unknown reaches of space on a long mission of discovery. They encounter several terrifying alien species, including the Ix, who lay their eggs in human bodies, which then devour the humans from within when they hatch. This is one of the most entertaining and gripping stories in all of classic SF. The first third of this novel, “Black Destroyer,” appeared in the July 1939 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION as Van Vogt’s first science fiction story. It was the basis of the Sigourney Weaver film, Alien . Alfred Elton van Vogt (1912–2000) was a Canadian-born science fiction author who was one of the most prolific, yet complex, writers of the mid-twentieth century “Golden Age” of the genre. Many fans of that era would have named van Vogt, Robert Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov as the three greatest science fiction writers. * * * The Voyage of the Space Beagle, as the immense rocket leaps from galaxy to galaxy, vertiginously hurtling ever deeper into space, is one of the most enthralling ‘outward bound’ stories ever written. On some planets they find traces of long vanished alien civilisations. On other worlds the aliens have by no means vanished!And one terrifying race they come upon needs no planet: it exists and lives after its fashion in space itself.But the final aliens that van Vogt brilliantly and disturbingly conjures up are discovered in the rocket — Man himself. The Voyage of the Space Beagle is an SF classic. Back cover: INTERGALACTIC QUEST Into the awesome depths of intergalactic space hurtled the Space Beagle, travelling on Man’s most ambitious expedition to the far reaches of the universe. From galaxy to galaxy, the crew explored the remains of past races and civilizations on desolate planets and found weird life forms floating in space itself. But the explorers not only had to contend with danger from the outside: within their own ship they carried one of the deadliest menaces in all creation… A. E. van Vogt is one of the foremost masters of adventurous science fiction. The Voyage of the Space Beagle is one of his all-time classic space sagas, an action-packed narrative that carries the reader out among far stars into new dimensions of SF excitement.Pages of The Voyage of the Space Beagle :
