Slan Hunter

by A.E. van Vogt and Kevin J. Anderson

Book Overview

This startling SF adventure novel is a collaboration between the classic SF Grand Master, A. E. van Vogt, and contemporary master Kevin J. Anderson. At the time of his death in 2000, van Vogt left a partial draft and an outline for the sequel to his most famous novel, Slan . van Vogt's jam-packed, one-damn-thing-after-another story technique makes his active plots compulsively readable. Now the story is completed by Anderson, and is sure to be one...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0765316757
• ISBN13: 9780765316752
• Release Date: July 2007
• Publisher: Tor Books
• Length: 270 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

As if Van Vogt came back and wrote this himself

I think the negative reviews come from people who are expecting 2008 level sci-fi from this book. IT IS NOT. What it is, is a continuation of the Slan story, almost from the instant of the ending of Slan, in EXACTLY the same style. Van Vogt has always been noted for leaving holes and gaps, this book maintains this. I was suprised at some differences from the original canon, but reading this book brought me back to the world of Slan I have missed dearly since childhood, when I first read it.

The Human Reaction

Slan Hunter (2007) is the sequel to Slan. In the previous volume, Jommy Cross learned that the tendrilless slans were preparing to invade the Earth. Returning from Mars, he attempted to warn the human government. He entered the palace by a hidden way and was met by Kier Gray, the President of Earth. Gray released him from the trap -- which Jommy had already neutralized -- and received the news of the invasion. Then Jommy learned that Kathleen -- whom he had thought dead -- was alive and cured of the terrible wound inflicted by John Petty. In this novel, Davis Stewart is driving his very pregnant wife to the hospital. Anthea is in labor and Davis is in a hurry. When he reaches the emergency room, he runs into the hospital to get help and comes out pushing a wheelchair and leading an orderly. The orderly wheels Anthea toward the delivery room while calling out to the nurses. A nurse stops Davis at the door, but Anthea is quickly moved into position. The doctor speaks calmly to Anthea and tells her to push. The baby comes quickly and the doctor holds him up for his mother to see. A nurse cries out and the doctor shows a horrified expression. The baby has golden tendrils growing out of the back of his head. He is a slan. Neither Anthea nor Davis show any sign of being slans. They certainly are not aware of any such possibility. However, the doctor fills a hypodermic syringe with a poisonous substance and reaches for the baby. Davis comes into the delivery room, responding to a feeling of danger. Nurses and orderlies try to block his passage, but he fights his way through. Anthea tells him of the doctor's intention and Davis throws aside everyone between him and the doctor. After removing Anthea and their baby from the room, Davis immediately recognized the danger of three security men and a secret policeman coming toward them. He tells Anthea to take the baby and run, then he runs toward the security men. As Anthea goes the other way, she hears the shots that signal the death of her husband. In this story, Petty had the president's quarters bugged by his secret police and learns that Gray is really a tendrilless slan. He has the president arrested and then captures Jommy and Kathleen. They are all secured in cells under the palace. Jommy and Kathleen are detained in adjacent cells and soon free themselves from their captors. Gray was imprisoned elsewhere in the underground facility. Jommy and Kathleen soon learn the location of his cell and manage to break him free. But Petty has set up an ambush nearby and recaptures all three. Meanwhile, the tendrilless slans attack the planet, including Centropolis, the capital. They are bombing the palace while Petty is securing his captives. Petty quickly agrees to join forces against the tendrilless slans. This story concludes the storyline established in Slan. Very little is new other than the plot. Most of the characters, the locales and the technology are taken from the e

As good as the original. No more.

Read through both novels in one stride and, like others reported, Anderson's sequel is a cleaner and clearer read. The themes explored, the plot, the motivations, the repsect of the overhaul way the characters were acting in Slan and now act in Slan Hunter, are all there and intact. I did not find the harsh discrepancies other reviewers have remarked upon. Thus, in my opinion, such remarks must stem from something else...perhaps in a sacred cow feeling on the reviewer's part. The only problem I could find were the last two paragraphs, about 6 lines of text, in which a character physically does some ridiculous thing (and here I use the term apporpriately) instead of thinking it. Anderson prefers to _show_ us, through that phsycial act, what happens in that scene instead of having another slan read it off the character's mind and say it outloud for us the readers. Still, those last few lines don't mare the story, albeit they're definitely clumsy. The idea they convey is sound and matches well with the story, but is badly delivered to the reader.

Campy, but adequate for what it is

Firstly, let us clarify one point: the original Slan was not a classic of the genre. It was, admittedly, a great adventure, but the technique tended overwhelmingly towards the amateur. Now, is Kevin J. Anderson's sequel, Slan Hunter, a great work of literature? No - and it never pretends to be. Yet Slan Hunter is in many regards manifestly superior to its predecessor. It's clear that the first half of the book was culled from A.E. van Vogt's notes: the prose jounces awkwardly from one paragraph to the next, an inconsistency probably indicative of heavy cropping by an editor with a completely different style from the original writer. All for the best, since Anderson's stylistic minimalism is a refreshing alternative to van Vogt's typical floridity. Also, the early dialogue retains a certain pulpy grandiosity easily identifiable with a writer who peaked during the 1950s. I'm sure the uncompleted van Vogt manuscript was very elegantly refurbished, but the result is a rather uneven, static quality - too many cooks spoil the broth, don't you know. Slan Hunter only hits its stride in the middle third, the portion obviously written entirely by Anderson. The prose suddenly becomes quick and fluid, fraught with sharp sensory details. Admittedly, this writing is more effusive than Anderson's normal polished standard. (One must feel sorry for the poor man: his most publicly visible works - Dune, Star Wars, etc. - are distinctly inferior to his more obscure classics, like Blindfold and Captain Nemo.) But the dialogue, typically an Achilles' heel to Anderson, is actually quite snappy; the comic-book repartee between Granny and John Petty is worthy of genuine chuckles. Although Anderson is frequently derided for thin characters (an accusation which I find invalid, by the way), his renderings of established players are orders of magnitude better than the two-dimensional stereotypes of the original novel. In Slan, the entire dramatis personae consisted of forthright, emotionless do-gooders pitted against monotonously sadistic villains. The schmaltzy romantic subplot practically demanded a swooning violin soundtrack. I readily confess that Anderson hasn't lent the characters tremendous depth, but their easy humanity is so much more palatable than that former pomposity. The villains are not spectacularly threatening (both of them could use a refresher course in the Evil Overlord List: "When I have my gun on the hero and he tells me to put it down and fight him like a man, I will not. Instead, I will shoot him."), but they at least possess some reasonable motivation. Unfortunately, Chief Petty is portrayed as totally incompetent, which, while amusing as fantasy vindication, robs him of whatever small antagonistic depth he had in the original. Lack of depth is an issue throughout the book: it's not bad, but it clearly doesn't take itself seriously. In fact, as a parody of pulp writing, it's quite intelligent (numerous sly offhand references are made to the fact that

An Enjoyable SCi FI Read

These bad reviews must have been written by biased old Slan fanatics who have a problem with Kevin finishing the second book. I just finished it and found it to be an enjoyable read. If you like Kevin Anderson's other books you'll enjoy this one.