Alfred Elton van Vogt was born on April 26th, 1912 on a small farm in
Canada, near
Winnipeg. His family moved to Winnipeg itself when he was ten, where his great love of reading began to grow. As a young man, he made his living with farming and clerical work while trying to start a career in writing. His first published
science fiction story was
Black Destroyer in 1939. The story was later included in
Voyage of the Space Beagle and is the inspiration for the movie
Alien.
Van Vogt married Edna Mayne Hull on May 9, 1939. In 1979, four years after her death, he married Lydia Brayman. During the last decade of his life, van Vogt struggled against
Alzheimer's disease, finally succumbing to
pneumonia on January 26, 2000.
Van Vogt's greatest works are widely considered to have been written during his early years of writing. In the 1950s, his focus shifted from writing to working with
L. Ron Hubbard on
Dianetics. After this time, the quality and quantity of his writing declined, as did his health conditions. By 1996, when he was recognized as a
Grand Master by the
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, he reportedly remembered only that he was a writer, nothing of what he had written.
Despite his decline and death, van Vogt will be remembered. Tattered old paperbacks of
Slan and
The Pawns of Null-A will be treasured by
fans for years to come. While van Vogt may not have been the greatest or more popular writer, his contributions to
science fiction during its
Golden Age helped shape and define the genre. His influence on modern authors and fans has been great.
A. E. van Vogt also recieved an
Aurora Award for
Lifetime Achievement in 1980, a Special Award from the
Science Fiction Convention in 1996, and in that same year became a member of the
Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
A. E. van Vogt's published novels and collections:
sources:
http://www.mmedia.is/vanvogt/
http://www.locusmag.com/2000/News/News01e.html
http://members.tripod.com/~gwillick/vanvogt.html