The Silkie

Rating:
Summary: Involving, but ultimately disappointing
Review: After having gotten several recommendations on Usenet and reading the reviews here, I decided to read _The Silkie_ and see what it was all about. The book is certainly involing, but has some problems that soured the enjoyment of it.

One of these problems, for example, is that Van Vogt feels that it's unnecessary to have any sort of continuity. I can't count how many times I would be reading a chapter only to go to the next paragraph and be completely lost because some leap in logic occured in the space of few sentences. It's similar to what you experience when you're very sleepy and you're trying to stay awake, but occasionally you find yourself snapping back to reality and realize that you dozed off for a bit. That's how I felt when reading this book. Like I'm running at full speed and someone pushes me in the back.

Another problem (and this may be personal preference) is that there is very little dialog - most of it takes place in Cemp's mind and the action sequences. I bet it would make for a great screenplay, but it certainly did nothing to clarify the confusion.

And I had to cringe during a couple of passages that started with "And what happened what this:..." long after some apparently amazing event takes place. The whole book had a feel of several stories put together under one cover.

Having said that, I did enjoy the book's description of Silkies and their physical and mental abilities. That would be the ultimate manifestation of man's dream to live among the stars.

Rating:
Summary: One of van-vogt's big-time mind blowers.
Review: THE SILKIE is a clasic in the caliber of SLAN, WORLD OF NULL-A, or EMPIRE OF THE ATOM. Or maybe its even better. I cant really explain how good van vogt can be sometimes, if you dont know his works. Indeed, not all of his books are on the same level, but know this, you who did not read van vogt thus far:He is a mental giant that surpasses asimov and his likes, though i admit that their styles are tottaly different. This book is one of his best. Get it.

Rating:
Summary: A Van Vogt Classic
Review: This book is a Van Vogt classic! It has all the action adventure, plot twists, and trippy stuff that one would expect from Van Vogt. The only point that keeps this from being 'five star' is that the plot sort of skips a bit at the end. Overall though, this is classic Van Vogt, right up there with Space Beagle and 'Null-A'

Rating:
Summary: A Van Vogt Classic
Review: This book is a Van Vogt classic! It has all the action adventure, plot twists, and trippy stuff that one would expect from Van Vogt. The only point that keeps this from being 'five star' is that the plot sort of skips a bit at the end. Overall though, this is classic Van Vogt, right up there with Space Beagle and 'Null-A'

Rating:
Summary: Extremely large scale adventure
Review: This is a story about a genetically modified creature who fits in well with human beings and lives with them in peace - except for being able to travel in space unprotected, the creature - the silkie - is similar to humans, and looks like them (if not a little tall).

However, the question is posed somewhat later - is the Silkie really this way? in other words, was the first Silkie actuall y made on earth at all? The answer to that is crucial to the central portion of this three part story.

The first part tells how Cemp, the Silkie who the book focuses on, is drawn into a confrontation with a dangerous intruder into the solar system, revealing very brutal and nasty habits in the intruder in the process... In the process Cemp is introduced to a system of neural defence called the "logic of levels" which is like a chess game played in a semi-telepathic sense with opponents - and usually with the effect of not having to hurt the opponent. Very interesting descriptions of this.

The middle, and most absorbing section concerns the arrival of a large planetoid inthe solar system. Since this coincides with the appearance of large number of what appear to be Silkie type creatures, the balance of power on earth appears to be seriously at risk... Until Cemp realizes that the stakes are far, far, higher....

Thie third part is Van Vogt at his fullest stretch, bizzarre, cogent, and thoroughly psychedelic. He describes and qualifies a totally alien creature and encounters with Silkies far from the Solar system, the rending of space itself in the struggle, and the destruction of everything in which earth is but one tiny piece of cosmic debris.

The Nijans, the creatures with which Cemp deals in this final phase of the story, are so unlike anything else I have ever heard tell of anywhere else, they are worth the whole book just to see them with one's imagination. They appear to occupy space in a way that other creaures do not, whats more, interfering wih them affects the universe and indeed, Cemps defeat of them has the most serious implications possible.

The most beautiful part of the book, which I have read now so many times the page has virtually fallen apart, is the recounting of the creation of a huge sun, and its terrifying transformations of size and colour and majesty.

Congratulations Mr Vogt, I hope you get some recognition for this work. I hope it could be made into a movie at some stage...