"The Universe Maker" (1953) by A. E. van Vogt

We are in 1953 and Lieutenant Morton Cargill is on leave from the Korean War when he stumbles into a young woman who is also leaving the dive he has been binge-leavng in. The next thing he knows is that he’s running away from a car crash that the young acquaintance hasn’t survived. However, when he comes back the following year he’s unexpectedly confronted with another young woman whose photos prove his incvolvement in the tragic death of the first and very fleeting acquaintance. Then he’s transported to the late 24th Century where he’s been condemned to death for his crime—but is rescued in the nick of time by another young woman who whisks him off into a future America, when the country has been divided up between three groups, each of which he gets seriously involved with.

First published in 1953, this is an extended and considerably rewritten version of the novella The Shadow Men that had appeared in the January 1950 issue of the magazine Startling Stories [1].

(49,000 words)

An e-book version is available for downloading below.

The Universe Maker (e-book)