Accueil > A. E. van Vogt > THE 14 VAN VOGT NOVELS ON THIS SITE, in chronological order > "The Weapon Shops of Isher" (1951) by A. E. van Vogt – the “fix-up” novel
"The Weapon Shops of Isher" (1951) by A. E. van Vogt – the “fix-up” novel
vendredi 7 juin 2019, par
This was one of the van Vogt’s most famous golden-age novels with its iconic slogan “The Right To Buy Weapons Is The Right To Be Free” and its theme of a secret and scientifically-advanced organisation providing superior defensive weapons to citizens of a far-off future civilization to protect them against encroachments on their liberties by a totalitarian government.
It was the last of the author’s several accounts of the conflict between the four-thousand-year old Isher dynasty and the opposition Weapon Shops organisation, some seven thousand years in the future, after the short story The Seesaw (1941), the novelette The Weapon Shop (1942), the novel The Weapon Makers (1943) and the novella The Weapon Shops of Isher (1949).
This version extensively used the texts of the previous stories in the saga (but not the text of the 1943 novel The Weapon Makers), with a number of modifications and supplementary linking material [1].
(58,000 words)
An e-book is available for downloading below.
The Weapon Shops of Isher – the novel (1951) (e-book)
[1] as follows :
– Prologue : The Seesaw (1941) ;
– Chapters 1-3 : The Weapon Shop (1942) ;
– Chapters 4-9 : The Weapon Shops of Isher (1949) ;
– Interlude : The Seesaw (1941) ;
– Chapters 10-13 : The Weapon Shops of Isher (1949) ;
– Chapter 14 : new linking material ;
– Chapters 15-19 : The Weapon Shop (1942) ;
– Chapters 20-28 : The Weapon Shops of Isher (1949) ;
– Chapter 29 : new linking material ;
– Chapter 30 : The Weapon Shop (1942) ;
– Chapter 31 : The Weapon Shops of Isher (1949) ;
– Epilogue : The Seesaw (1941).