A Guerra contra o Rull

The War against the Rull (1959). Capa: Lima de Freitas '-' O que significa, ao certo, a palavra "Rull"? Eis o que ninguém pode esclarecer com certeza. A realidade por ela designada é cambiante, permanentemente mutável, em transformação constante. Não será exagerado dizer-se que A Guerra Contra o Rull se desenvolve por vezes num clima de pesadelo e suspensão, a que o leitor fica escravizado... A. E. van Vogt dá-nos com este romance uma das obras que o celebrizaram em todo o mundo. Este é mais um título que a Colecção Argonauta tem a honra e o prazer de apresentar ao público leitor português.

A.E. van Vogt was a pioneer of sci-fi's golden age, an author that the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction credits with creating--along with Heinlein and Asimov--"the first genuinely successful period of U.S. SF." A prolific contributor to such early mags as Thrilling Wonder, Startling Stories, and Astounding, van Vogt distinguished himself with his expert pacing, his mind-bending ideas, and--surprising in the starched-lab-coat 1940s--his serious access to weird. (Check out 1945's cult hit The World of Null-A as a prime example.)

The War Against the Rull, assembled from five stories written for Astounding between 1940 and 1950, is classic, keep-you-guessing van Vogt, even if it doesn't quite qualify for must-read status like Null-A and Slan. Our hero is Trevor Jamieson, chief scientist of the Interstellar Military Commission, on the front lines of humanity's war with a shape-shifting race of insectoid aliens known as the Rull. Jamieson may have found the key to victory, but first he must simply survive--marooned on a wild, hostile planet with a 6,000-pound, blue-furred, six-legged, human-hating telepathic bear, Jamieson escapes only to find himself trapped days later in a meteor-carved cave with a woman who wants him dead, armed with only a knife and his wits against a blood-thirsty giant weasel that can claw through solid rock. --Paul Hughes

[Amazon Editorial Reviews]:
“A.E. van Vogt is truly a grand master of science fiction. He is to Canadian SF what H.G. Wells is to the British variety or Jules Verne to the French. We all stand on his broad shoulders.” ―Robert J. Sawyer

“Nobody, possibly with the exception of the Bester of The Stars My Destination, ever came close to matching van Vogt for headlong, breakneck pacing, or for the electric, crackling paranoid tension with which he was capable of suffusing his work.” ―Gardner Dozois

[About the Author]: A. E. Van Vogt was a SFWA Grand Master. He was born in Canada and moved to the U.S. in 1944, by which time he was well-established as one of John W. Campbell's stable of writers for Astounding Science-Fiction. He lived in Los Angeles, California and died in 2000.

Aventura / Ficção científica / Literatura Estrangeira / Romance / Suspense e Mistério / Terror