J.G. Keely's Reviews> The Weapon Shops of Isher

Another dystopian outing by Van Vogt, and one which demonstrates moments of depth and subtlety surpassing his other work. Yet, at its heart, it suffers from the same ridiculous problems as most of his stories.

What may be most interesting about this book is how it feels like a prototype for the dark, socio-political sci fi of Philip K. Dick and the Cyberpunk authors. The characters try to move through complex, corrupt bureaucratic systems, and often end up beaten and weaker for it as they seek to uncover some obscure conspiracy.

In this regard, the book takes as many cues from noir as it does from dystopian sci fi. And occasionally, this noir sentiment results in moments of wry introspection, or in terse, almost existential conversation. There are some moments of dialogue which begin to uncover the sort of small, vivid pain which was so central to Chekhov's masterful exploration of the human condition.

But there is also much in the book which is overblown and rather silly. As usual, the technology is absurdly powerful, held by a privileged few, and obeys somewhat inexplicable rules. There are the guns which can only be shot in self-defense, the impermeable energy walls, and a side-plot about time travel which grows rather obscure. Yet these strange, almost magical scientific concepts are at least interesting, and begin to foreshadow the hallucinogenic technology of Dick or Vonnegut.

As usual, our 'hero' is a man of many unique talents so powerful that they elevate him above any problem, so that no single plot conflict is able to withstand him for more than a chapter. In fact we have two such characters, as we do inSlan--one the hero and the other working behind the scenes to create the plot, itself.

And in the vein of such characters, they are so morally upright that they resolve never to use these powers for any nefarious purpose, instead making it their goal to better all of mankind--which is lucky, since they could clearly take over the whole government tomorrow, if they so desired.

This irresistible force tends to undermine the story's conflict, but of the Van Vogt stories I have read, it is least problematic here, since at least the hero suffers the robberies, cheating, and kidnapping which any good noir hero must survive. There is a similar kind of personal hardship inVoyage of the Space Beagle(the prototype for 'Star Trek'), but most of that is just the result of the hero deciding not to use his full force, rather than actually ever being helpless.

In the end, his politics are not transformative, since they rely on an all-powerful beneficent organization and self-defense guns, so his dystopic message falls flat. The epilogue provides a rather amusing bit of time-travel paradox, tackling the same idea as Asimov's famous short story'The Last Question',written a few years later.

Van Vogt certainly had imagination, and several sources of inspiration to draw on, and it's undeniable that here, as elsewhere, his visions have proven very influential on later writers, but he has not aged all that well, himself. His plots and characters tended to be rather simple, particularly the conflicts that drove them, and yet his worlds and ideas were too unusual for him to write anything straightforward. His ideas have lived on, taken up by other authors, but his own flawed approach means that he tends to pale in comparison with his more polished followers.