Contains the most popular and important stories from van Vogt's wide and varied career.

One of sf's grandest old men, van Vogt (1912-2000) made history with the first story he sold. Editor John W. Campbell featured it on the cover of the genre-changing Astounding Science Fiction in July 1939, attracting future sf titans and mavens including, according to his introduction here, young collegian Harlan Ellison. That story was "Black Destroyer." It opens from the perspective of Coeurl, the single inhabitant of his world, to which humans arrive in a huge starship. The nonhuman insinuates its way into the ship, and a scenario unfolds that eventually played out--with modifications, to be sure--on the silver screen as Alien. Van Vogt created genuinely different aliens, endowed with extraordinary physical and mental powers as well as appetites, and the genre, including other stories here, has thrived on them since. An "idea" sf writer and a bit of a libertarian, van Vogt's nifty concepts also include distinctive futurist satire ("Future Perfect"), enduring World War II propaganda ("Secret Unattainable"), and entrepreneurial swashbucklers ("A Can of Paint"). Ray Olson