Null-A Continuum Review

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(More customer reviews)Null-A Continuum (2008) is a SF novel within the Null-A series. It is a sequel to the original sequence by A.E. Van Vogt. In the previous volumes, non-Aristotelian logic is a system that provides a sane view of life. Null-A has developed various means of stripping the emotional interpretations from thoughts, including the cortical-thalamic pause.
The Games Machine was built on Earth to select the rulers. The Machine tested the minds of applicants and rejected those who had not mastered and internalized Null-A principles. Some were given posts in the Earth government, but those who scored the highest were allowed to live on Venus among a same population.
But the Games Machine was subverted through the action of a distorter, a device for shifting matter and energy through space. The device had been supplied by Thorson, the commander of an invasion force from the Greatest Empire. President Hardy and his gang ruled the Earth under the Empire.
Gosseyn came to the city of the Games Machine to test his knowledge of Null-A. Yet he was exposed as an impostor by someone from his own village and was thrown out of his hotel. Then he met a girl who also lacked a place to stay.
Gosseyn was later killed and returned in a new body. Gosseyn Two met Thorson and then discovered that he had a second brain. After killing the Imperial commander, Gosseyn Two discovered that Lavoisseur was another copy of himself.
Gosseyn Two discovered more about the Greatest Empire and foiled the invasion with a little help from Crang. He met Leej -- a Predictor -- on Yalerta. Then another version of himself was awakened accidentally. Eventually, Gosseyn Three captured and imprisoned Eron.
In this novel, Gilbert Gosseyn is a man with a double brain and serial immortality. If he dies, his memories are transferred to a younger body. His second brain provides the ability to shift himself and other things through space like a distorter. But his earliest memories are lies. Who has created him and why?
Lavoisseur was the head of the Semantic Institute, the organization that built the Games Machine. He was an older copy of Gosseyn, but has additional memories. Gosseyn suspects that he is the Chessplayer, the man who is manipulating him.
X was a member of President Hardy's gang. He was also another Gosseyn body who was damaged and had a higher metabolism. This allowed his thoughts to be received by Lavoisseur. Apparently he was planted on Hardy as a source of information.
Eldred Crang is a Venusian detective who discovered the invasion forces and infiltrated the Imperial organization. Later, Crang returned to the Greatest Empire as Patricia's husband.
Erno the Red is the Emperor of the Greatest Empire, the largest principality in the galaxy. He has the ability to see through walls.
Patricia Hardy is the woman who Gosseyn remembers as his wife. But she was also the daughter of President Hardy and the sister of Eron. So who is she?
In this story, Gosseyn Two is visiting Nirene. As the space liner is making its last distorter jump to the planet, Gosseyn is separated from the liner and diverted to an apartment. There Gosseyn finds the charred body of Crang and indications that Patricia has been there.
Gosseyn decides that he is on Nirene. Then he uses a device in the apartment to view the murder. He sees Eron appear as a Shadow and kill Crang.
Then the police appear and Gosseyn is arrested. At the secret police headquarters, Gosseyn learns that agents of the defeated Greatest Empire are active within the Interplanetary League. They have also held back some Imperial warships.
Gosseyn visits various planets within the League and discovers that Imperial agents have infiltrated many of them. Solar systems start disappearing into Shadow. Then he gains the memories of Gosseyn Three from the Shadow Galaxy.
Later Gosseyn meets X in a younger body. X is still insane and is now working for Eron. He commits multiple murders and leaves Gosseyn to take the blame. He also destroys a lie detector before he shifts out of the area.
Gosseyn contacts the Venusian Null-As and reports his findings. They analyze the lie detector and start working on countermeasures. Then Gosseyn finds himself within false realities or alternate timelines. In some, he meets future versions of himself, but in others he meets the Ydd, a corporate entity that exists outside the physical universe.
This tale takes Gosseyn and his avatars further into the conspiracy to change the future. He discovers that he knows much more than expected. And he keeps encountering Patricia.
The author displays an amazing familiarity with Van Vogt's works. This story is based on Van Vogt's fourth SF novel -- World of Null-A -- and its sequels. But it also contains scenarios and themes from his first three novels -- Voyage of the Space Beagle, Slan, and The Book of Ptath -- as well as elements from The Universe Maker and probably other works.
Highly recommended for Van Vogt fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of mind training, superpowers, and puzzling plots.
-Arthur W. Jordin

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