Slan Hunter [Paperback]

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 earlier story. This trend is unlike Van Vogt, who usually tried to introduce new ideas into each sequel within a series. Across series, however, he often reused older ideas. The best innovation in this tale is indicated by the concluding paragraph.

The Foreword describes how this book came to be published. This provides a fascinating -- and dismaying -- glimpse into the Van Vogt life story. The senior author tried to produce this book, but was overcome by Alzheimer's. Eventually, the novel was put into the hands of the junior author.

Recommended for Van Vogt & Anderson fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of viable mutations, reactionary social elements, and human relationships.

-Arthur W. Jordin

I really wanted to like this story. Slan: A Novel was a classic tale of a (mutant) superhero triumphant over incredibly competent enemies. Since said superhero's powers were mostly mental and since he won the love of a beautiful and brilliant woman, the story was very appealing to adolescent male science fiction fans. The story had a perfect "happily ever after" ending (last four paragraphs) - hero wins beautiful daughter of powerful ruler, who offers him role in ruling - that it didn't really need a sequel.
So much is changed in Slan Hunter, that I wonder if the author bothered to read the original - certainly, it fails a reading comprehension test.
Major characters are so distorted as to be barely recognizable - their competence disappears. The chief of secret police who was so capable of intrigue and so knowing of all sorts of difficult to obtain information suddenly needs simple items explained to him. The president/dictator who climbed to the top of a brutal society is easily overthrown. The superhero who escaped so many difficult and clever traps is captured again and again. The heroine whose wits kept her alive against tremendous odds is transformed into someone barely capable of living independently. "Granny", a greedy, alcoholic, barely functional, paranoid derelict, who lived in filth until the superhero cleaned up her living space, is now a practical grandmother and hostess who contributes useful ideas to the resistance.
Plot continuity almost disappears. Contradiction after contradiction with the previous novel occurs. The very nature of the conflict between true and tendrilless slan - a major feature of both books - has changed (van Vogt states it was intentionally provoked to keep the tendrilless from sinking into complacency; Anderson doesn't know how it started). The governmental structure is changed - the world president in the original is the head of a council who got their positions through intrigue, assassination and sheer viciousness; in the new book, he is a democratically elected leader. A woman whose recovery from a severe head injury in the original book was interfered with when the superhero disguised himself as her husband to escape capture and managed by means of his high level abilities to do what the husband was to do in the recovery process and avoid the very likely several mental damage an impostor would like cause, now considers him a hero who saved her, instead of the fraud who almost destroyed her. So many minor warped versions of the first book occur that it's hard to consider this book as anything other than a trashing of the first novel.
Beware - a rather cheap setup for another sequel appears in the final few lines.

From Slan Hunter, chapter 4: "...but even Jommy had not been able to decipher his father's intricate invention."

From Slan, chapter 18: :"He [Jommy speaking to Kier Gray about his father] evolved a central core of positive electrons spun out like a fine wire. At this core, but not directly at it...he discharged his negative electron 'comets' at the speed of light. The sun...flung them out... at a second positive core [which] catapults them faster than light..."

"Hunter," which begins only days after the end of Slan has many such jarring "continuity" holes.

The characters are wooden and unbelievable. The situations contrived. The ending a joke. I feel so sorry for Lydia van Vogt. In her moving forward, she explained the background of this manuscript. Given A. E. van Vogt's health when he wrote it, I can understand how he might have made these mistakes. There is no excuse for Kevin Anderson. Any competent writer, who recently read the original, could have done a better job. And shame on the editor, too, for accepting this.

I first read Slan back in the fifties and have always wished for a sequel. This one left a bad taste in my mouth.