The War Against the Rull: Amazon.co.uk: A. E. Van Vogt: Books

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AS THE SPACESHIP vanished into the steamy mists of Eristan II, Trevor Jamieson drew his gun. Read the first page

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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover

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3.7 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A sweet candy to golden-era sci-fi lovers, 17 Jun 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: War against the Rull (Paperback)

Earth is at war with a hive-mind, chameleon skinned, human-sized race of insects, the Rull.

That's pretty much it as far as the story is concerned... but on a space opera/adventure point of view, there's just a little bit of everything for everyone.

Space faring, giant six-legged telepathic blue crocodiles (the Ezwals) that may hold the key to victory, amazonia-like planets expeditions, and the ever-present threat of the invisible enemy, the Rull...

This was my first sci-fi read over 15 years ago, and the wonder of it still lingers around from time to time. That's the main reason for those 4 stars up there. I guess many people wouldn't be so generous with it, though. Don't expect a masterpiece, but be ready for something like a cross between Doc Savage and Forbidden Planet (I know, *EEEW* what a terrible mix, but that's the most accurate I can think of)

Sometimes it even feels like reading E. R. Burrough's Tarzan: you get a course on how to get rid of a giant vampire-like creature that has trapped you inside a cave. (I won't spoil this one, but now I think I'd survive such an encounter - sci-fi pulp can be very educating)

The opening set of chapters summarizes it all: a rescue anti-grav platform is slowly going down towards the deadly surface of a swamp planet. The hero is strapped to the underside of it. An Ezwal that has been captured and taken off his homeworld sits on top of it. The Ezwal, who caused the ship they both were in to explode, promises his human hunter that he'll become the prey once the platform touches down. And anyway the predators down there will take care of him when night falls...

Now THAT is adventure !!!

Overall a very enjoyable summer read. Go for it.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice old-fashioned scifi, 8 May 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: War against the Rull (Paperback)

I have a ancient, eternally dusty edition of this book, and even if it's really, as I said, old-fashioned, it's a nice way to have a good time. And it has at least one really interesting creature, the ezwal.

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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Gem from the Golden Age, 5 Mar 2006

By	Rod Williams "hairybloke@aol.com" (London) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: War against the Rull (Paperback)

This is one of Van Vogt’s more successful fix-up novels. Earlier published stories – Repetition (1940), Cooperate or Else (1942), The Second Solution (1942), The Rull (1948) and The Sound (1950) – have been re-edited and combined with fresh material into a novel-length narrative.
Van Vogt has his flaws. The innate sexism in this novel in particular jars somewhat. The hero, Trevor Jamieson, when trapped (with a woman intent on killing him) on a moon teeming with predators, manages to overpower her. The woman accedes to his male superiority and Jamieson who ‘knows women’, is sure that she won’t try to kill him again, and indeed she doesn’t.
Of course, this is not a flaw exclusive to Van Vogt. Such misrepresentation of women was more or less the norm and in many cases was presumably endorsed or policed by editors with such views.
Jamieson of course, is the hero, and despite the aforesaid flaws in the writing he is an unusual hero in that the solutions to his problems come from logic and reason, which convinces him that the monstrous three eyed six-thousand pound six-limbed Ezwals of Carson’s Planet are not just dangerous beast, but are highly intelligent and telepathic.
The human race is at war with The Rull, a shape-shifting insectoid race from another galaxy, and Carson’s Planet plays a key defensive role.
Jamieson moves from one adventure to another from the outset where he is stranded on a hostile planet with a hostile Ezwal – wanting to kill Jamieson to preserve the secret of Ezwal intelligence, but forced into an alliance with him in order to survive.
Despite the flaws, this isn’t a bad novel. The disparate stories have been conflated cleverly into a single narrative, one of the bonuses of which is that we are given glimpses of various parts of Van Vogt’s huge Universe. They are tantalisingly brief and – particularly in the case of ‘The Sound’ – add an unexpected touch of realism to events.
Looking at this book from another perspective it does also show once more a view of diplomacy which is intrinsically American.
The Ezwals want the humans off their planet and so launch guerrilla attacks, killing many humans. Jamieson, after eventually befriending an orphaned Ezwal child, tells him that that if the Ezwals (who have a purely pastoral civilisation) develop a machine civilisation and can defend themselves from the Rull, then the humans will leave. No negotiation. No leeway. Essentially, the ‘American’ view is that if you develop your culture to be just like us, we’ll go away.

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