"Centaurus II" by A. E. van Vogt (1947) - a golden-age novelette never before republished

This novelette, which was the cover story in the June 1947 issue of the celebrated science-fiction magazine Astounding Science Fiction, covers some of the same ground as van Vogt’s magnificent 1950 novel The Voyage of the Space Beagle: exploration of far-off star systems, discovery of highly-developed not to say superior alien civilisations and, especially, the grave dangers that internal social/sociological conflicts can and probably always will pose to the very survival of such long-term exploratory excursions outside of man’s own little solar system.

Never republished in spite of the stature and commercial success of its author, no doubt because of its length (14,400 words, rather unsuitable to the anthology format of later years), this interesting tale is now available here for the first time in, well, a long time indeed, with the striking original Astounding artwork by Schneeman.

(14,400 words)

An e-book is available for downloading below.

Centaurus II (e-book)