Like many of the other stories I mention in this book. I first read Slan in the magazine version. In those far-off and ancient days, science fiction was a genre rarely found between book covers, either hard or soft. If you wanted to read science fiction, you went to the magazines. or you did without. And in 1940. the best of them all was John Campbell’s Astounding Science Fiction. And towards the end of that year, in the last three issues, Slan exploded like fifty kilos of lithium hydride. Nothing even remotely like it had ever been written before.
Much of my magazine collection was lost during the war, and the Arkham House edition. which came out in 1946, somehow got lost, too. For years, all I had was the paperback edition of Slan, which was slightly different from the original.
But I remembered the original. and it is from the magazine version that I wrote the verse.
Two days ago, as I write this, I received in the mail a present from A. E. Van Vogt. It was a personally autographed copy of the Nelson Doubleday edition of Slan. from the original magazine version.
Lord love you. Van. I know I do.
Our tale begins with Jommy Cross,
A Slan lad who’s pursued
By Petty, Secret Service boss,
A fellow mean and shrewd.
It seems, you see, that any Slan
Is somewhat of a superman,
So humans have pronounced a ban,
Which starts an awful feud.
Young Jommy, who’s a telepath,
Escapes and meets old Gran,
Who feeds him, makes him take a bath,
And then begins to plan.
She hates to live in filth and grime;
She don’t like starving all the time;
And so she plans a life of crime,
For which she needs a Slan.
The scene now shifts some miles away,
Where, in a palace grand,
A plot is laid to murder Gray,
The ruler of the land.
The plot is foiled by sweet Kathleen,
A female Slan, the heroine,
Whose telepathic mind has seen
How Gray’s demise was planned.
With Katy’s aid, the entire gang
Is mopped up neat and clean.
Says Gray: “You done that with a bang,
So bend an ear, Kathleen,
The law says all Slans must be shot
And that puts you upon the spot.
But since you helped me foil that plot,
I could not be so mean.”
Meanwhile, young Cross, against his will,
Has started stealing, which
Has helped Gran fill the coffers, till
The two of them are rich.
Unknown to Granny, Jommy’s found,
In someplace hidden underground,
A gun his father left around,
Concealed there in a niche.
One day, while thinking of his woes,
He bumps into a pair
Of older Slans, to whom he shows
The tendrils in his hair.
There are two types of Slans, we find
The tendrilless and tendrilled kind.
(The former cannot read your mind.)
Well, these two don’t play fair.
They chase him! Jommy runs like hell!
He hears them call him “snake.”
He says, “They don’t like tendrils.
Well, That’s more than I can take.
Although I’m in an awful mess,
Since them two Slans is tendrilless,
If I escape, they’ll see, I guess,
They made a bad mistake!”
Without delay, he gets away
And starts in making plans
To search until he finds, some day,
The true or tendrilled Slans.
For this he needs a space ship, so,
Since he knows just the place to go,
He quickly packs up all his dough,
And also most of Gran’s.
The Slans (sans tendrils) have a lair,
And Jommy knows they’ve got
A hot-rod space ship hidden there;
He sneaks off to the spot.
And giving all the guards the slip,
He climbs into the rocket ship,
Sits down and gives the switch a flip,
And takes off like a shot.
The Slans’ gigantic super ships
Are cruising all around.
Says Cross: “I’ll hide from all these drips
Where I cannot be found.
They think they got me on the run;
Well, brother, watch me have some fun!”
He turns on Pappy’s atom gun
And dives into the ground.
The space ship’s now well-hidden, so
He says, “I’ll never rest.
Until I find true Slans,
I’ll go And do my very best.”
He knows, no matter where they are,
They can’t have gone so very far,
And so he builds a super car
And starts out on his quest.
Now let’s get back to sweet Kathleen.
She’s double-crossed by Gray.
She’s told, in manner quite serene,
That on that very day
She must become the mistress of
A gentleman she doesn’t love.
“Oh, hell,” says Kate, “I guess I’ll shove.”
And quickly runs away.
She’s chased by Petty. (You know him,
The Secret Service Boss. )
She flees into a cavern dim,
All full of dust and moss.
Now to an author, nothing beats
All these coincidental feats,
So whom do you suppose she meets?
You guessed it! Tommy Cross!
So down the cavern halls they walk.
“Gee, this is great!” says he.
(Of course, instead of normal talk,
They use telepathy. )
She says, “I ran from Petty, but
He’ll never find me here, the mutt.”
And Tommy Cross, the stupid nut,
Says, “Yes, dear, I agree.”
He really pulls a boner then,
A stunt I can’t condone.
He leaves her. Petty and his men
Find Katy all alone.
So Petty shoots her through the head;
He fills her noggin full of lead;
And sweet Kathleen falls over dead;
She doesn’t even groan.
Poor Jommy slams his auto door
And drives away in tears.
Of course, he gets away once more.
We now skip seven years.
The Slans are up to their old tricks.
They raid his hideout in the sticks.
Poor Tommy’s in an awful fix,
In trouble to his ears.
With rays they blast his hideout, and
He runs out into space.
Although they have the upper hand;
They’re led a merry chase.
I hardly think I need to say
That once again he gets away.
He does it twenty times a day;
By now it’s commonplace.
He goes to Mars because he thinks
True Slans are hidden there.
He soon finds that idea stinks;
They aren’t there anywhere.
“A most disgusting state,” says he,
“The only place that they can be
Is highly dangerous to me;
I wonder if I dare?”
So, back on Earth, he sneaks into
The offices of Gray.
He’s caught, and Gray says,
“This won’t do. I fear you’ll have to pay.”
For Gray, it seems, is not a man;
Instead we find that he’s a Slan.
Says Gray: “I do not think you can
Expect to get away.”
Then Jommy shrugs and says,
“Pooh-pooh,” And gives his head a toss.
Gray grins and shouts, “Hurray for you!
You must be Jommy Cross!
My daughter Kathleen Layton Gray
Is somehow still alive today!”
Poor Jommy nearly faints away,
He’s thrown for such a loss.
The story’s ended at this spot;
I trust you get the gist.
This is a Dickens of a plot;
The point cannot be missed.
The story of a little boy
Pursued by all the hoi polloi—
And so Van Vogt, we note with joy,
Gives us a brand new Twist.