"The Weapon Shop" by A. E. van Vogt (1942)

One of van Vogt’s iconic stories, this theme of a mysterious "Weapon Shop" organization, subtly fighting to oppose by advanced technological, ideological and organisational means the overreaching tyranny of a populist-style family dictatorship, provided the central theme to a number of works by van Vogt during the forties and early fifties.

This series of stories and novels, all placed 7,000 years in the future and all featuring a vast network of technologically-advanced semi-underground Weapon Shops, the young and very dynamic but ultra-autocratic Empress Innelda Isher, and an average-citizen hero initially devoted to the powers that be, includes:

– the 1941 short story The Seesaw;
– this 1942 novelette;
– the 1943 novel The Weapon Makers;
– the 1949 novella The Weapon Shops of Isher;
and
– the 1951 novel The Weapon Shops of Isher.

This quite elaborate and well-developed version of the saga was first published as the cover story in the December 1942 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, with the fine illustrations by Kolliker and the remarkable cover artwork by William Timmins that can be admired here.

(15,100 words)

An ebook is available for downloading below.

The Weapon Shop (e-book)