"The Shadow Men" (1950) — an outstanding golden-age novella by A. E. van Vogt never before republished

This striking tale from the golden age of science-fiction was never republished in either magazine or book form after its initial appearance in the January 1950 issue of Startling Stories, where it was highlighted on the quite spectacular cover [1] by Earle Bergey

With its 36,400 words – the equivalent of some 110 pocket-book pages – it is technically a (long) novella, according to the criteria developed by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America association: short story - under 7500 words; novelette - 7,500 to 17,499 words; novella - 17,500 to 40,000 words; novel: 40,000+ words; although it was announced as a novel in the magazine.

Otherwise, with its complex structure – 18 named chapters –, its ambitious themes – crime and punishment, time-travel paradoxes, the sociological divisions of the America of the future – and its well-developed psychological and period atmosphere, this novella certainly does conform to what one can and should expect of a fully-developed novel.

The text of The Shadow Men was integrated into the 1953 "fix-up" novel The Universe Maker with very extensive changes and a great deal of additional material. For this reason the original story was no doubt never republished, much in the same spirit that the crime-thriller writer Raymond Chandler had adopted after the publication in 1939 of his celebrated opus The Big Sleep, that had been composed almost entirely of previously-published magazine stories that Chandler refused to have published in book form during his lifetime.

An overview of The Shadow Men can be consulted here.

An e-book version is available for downloading below.

The Shadow Men (e-book)