num_pages: 203
description: The last survivor of a spaceship that crash lands on Mars finds a deserted Martian village. Natives of the Andes Mountains are able to survive in the thin atmosphere of Mars, without pressure suits, to the great resentment of those born at sea level. A human and an ezwal, a large, blue, three-eyed being with the power of telepathic communication, crash land on a jungle planet and are forced to cooperate with each other in order to stay alive. This is despite the fact that the ezwal hates humans, and would just as soon tear the human into little pieces. A creature, actually the galaxy's greatest mathematician, is held in a huge vault on Mars, made of ultimate metal, and whose time-lock is keyed to the ultimate prime number. At the forefront of the Golden Age of science fiction, A.E. van Vogt shaped the direction of modern science fiction. At a time when writers such as Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Theodore Sturgeon, Eric Frank Russell, and Lester Del Rey began to hit their stride, van Vogt was the genre's most popular author. The raw emotive power of these stories defy their pulp origins and remain classics of the SF field.ContentsIntroduction: "Van is Here, But Van is Gone" by Harlan Ellison"The Enchanted Village""The Last Martian""The Reflected Men""Cooperate Or Else!""The Second Solution""Fulfillment""The Replicators""Vault of the Beast"
language: English
title: Futures Past: The Best Short Fiction of A.E. Van Vogt
titlecomplete: Futures Past: The Best Short Fiction of A.E. Van Vogt
genres: Science Fiction
ratings_count: 28
series: LOSF
publisher: Tachyon Pubns