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> Summary of Changes Made
> Nov 27 | "To Be His Keeper" posted
> Nov 16 | Orban illustrations (part 2), & Fred Scott illustration
> Nov 12 | News
> Oct 18 | News
> Sep 25 | Illustration Page posted: Orban illustrations, part 1
> Sep 22 | Family Tree, Thiessen Interview
> Sep 14 | 6 coverscans
> Sep 10 | Compendium 1.6
> Sep 3 | Miscellany Page (now the Photos Page, as of April 30th, 2003)
> Jul 20 | Database 3.3, Compendium 1.5, site restructured
> Apr 26 | Database 3.2, Compendium 1.4
> Mar 30 | Additions to Links page
> Mar 21 | Database 3.1.1, Compendium 1.3
> Mar 18 | Various tinkerings
> Feb 26 | All existing summaries tinkered with, a few new ones added
> Feb 6 | Database 3.1, Compendium 1.2, Drake book review
> Jan 16 | Database 3.0, Compendium 1.1
> Jan 1 | Database 2.3, Compendium 1.0 posted

> November 27th, 2002
> Lydia van Vogt and Dan Hooker of the Ashley Grayson Literary Agency have given me exclusive permission to post the story "To Be His Keeper" on my website. I would like to extend my deep appreciation to Lydia and Mr. Hooker for their kindness, and to George Gilbert for finding the story and providing the transcription.

> November 16th, 2002
> Updated the Magazine & Book Illustration page: Posted Paul Orban's illustrations for Part 2 of World of Â, and the illustration to the recently discovered story "To Be His Keeper" (thanks to George Gilbert).

> November 12th, 2002
> Updated the News and Announcements page to include information about a newly discovered van Vogt story from 1937.

> October 18th, 2002
> Updated the News and Announcements page, tinkered with the Links page.

> September 25th, 2002
> Despite the increase of space used on the server, I've finally decided to post Paul Orban's illustrations to World of Â on the new Magazine Illustrations page. So far only the drawings for Part One are up - the ones for Part Two will follow in a couple of months. Looks like I'll have to buy more space on the server. Grrrr... Still, it's for a good cause I suppose.

> September 22nd, 2002
> Did a little bit of restructuring and tinkering, such as splitting the Favorite Covers section off onto a page of its own. Added Grant Thiessen's 1979 interview with Van, and a diagram of Van's family tree based on documents supplied to me by Mr. Thiessen. Both items are reproduced with his permission. From these documents I've also gained some additional information on Edna Mayne Hull and Lydia. I'm busy with several projects at the moment, and when time permits I will add more detailed information to the family tree page.

> September 14th, 2002
> Added six more pages to the "Favorite Covers" section, including my top choice and three spectacular covers by the inimitable Gerry Daly. I also added a scan of Barlowe's rendition of Clane's arms to compare it with another artist's version. Although I do not like the Barlowe cover, I've included it for those of you who would like to see both artists' interpretations. I also added a scan of the title page from my autographed copy of The Universe Maker. I picked the one book from the autographed ones whose front cover was already creased badly from being opened flat - I didn't want to ruin one just to make a scan. Also corrected a few typos in existing pages and added a link to Aaron Hughes' book review of The Weapon Shops of Isher.

> September 10th, 2002
> Discovered Hull's birth year (1905), added a short bibliography to the E. Mayne Hull page, added info for the new Rosetta Books e-books on the New and Upcoming Publications page, and updated the Compendium to 1.6 to include lots of new information. This is part one of a two-phase revision I'm doing; phase two will update the Compendium to 2.0, to include all magazine and anthology publications, as well as a few select non-fiction books about Van. 2.0 should be up by Christmas. Alterations made in 1.6 Compendium: All Science Fiction Book Club editions now say just "SFBC" rather than crediting the publisher on the spine; like "Pocket/SFBC" or "Simon & Schuster / SFBC." Many thanks to Grant Thiessen who explained that SFBC, owned by Doubleday, used the first edition's publisher's plates and name on jacket and spine. They are all however considered just SFBC. Almost all of the information below was sent to me by Grant Thiessen: Away and Beyond - added: 4th Panther printing (#10) The Battle of Forever - added 2nd DAW printing (#10) The Beast - added 1979 Manor edition; added Canadian printing of DAW 1984 (#9) The Best of AEVV (US) - #2 is Canadian printing The Book of Ptath - added the Carroll & Graf, 1992 edition -- I've had a copy of this edition for years and years, and each time I update the Compendium I notice this entry is missing. Each time I add it to the file, and yet it seems to disappear each time. This is not only perplexing, but very very aggravating. Added: The Book of Ptath DAW 1984 (#11) Canadian Moved 1971 Paperback Library printing from the Book of Ptath list to the Two Hundred Million A.D. list. (There is something fundamentally irritating about Paperback Library -- they print it twice as Two Hundred Million A.D. then print it as The Book of Ptath and then two years later go back to the Two Hundred Million A.D. title. And in 1976, as if to pay homage to the longstanding tradition of confusing unsuspecting readers, Zebra published it as Ptath and then two years later as Two Hundred Million A.D.. I'm just thankful that when Carroll & Graf reissued it in 92 that they gave it the soothingly simple title of The Book of Ptath.) The Book of Van Vogt - added printings #2 and #3 Changeling - #5 cover artist: Bruce Pennington, 1978 Children of Tomorrow - S&J January 1972 has cover design by Simon Stern Darkness on Diamondia - S&J February 1974 has cover by Jerzy Osmolski; added 2nd DAW printing Destination: Universe! - added 2nd, 3rd, and 5th Berkley printings; 1977 Jove is September, not November Earth Factor X - added: 2nd DAW printing (Canadian) Earth's Last Fortress (omnibus) - corrected Sphere printings Empire of the Atom - Timescape edition is $2.95 not $2.50; some 1970s editions in wrong order, now fixed The Enchanted Village - Misfit Press edition is trade paperback The Far-Out Worlds of A.E. van Vogt - S&J April 1973 has cover design by Jerzy Osmolski The House That Stood Still - added 2nd Greenberg printing (1950); added 2nd Digit printing (1962) Man With A Thousand Names - 2nd DAW printing (1974) added, and 4th DAW printing added Mission: Interplanetary - is January, not February, 1952 Mission to the Stars - Pocket Oct 77 edition, has SF Book Club add between pages 64 & 65, and a cigarette add between pages 88 & 89; Digit 1960 edition's serial number corrected; added 1st Sphere printing The Money Personality - Parker edition has no cover art, only "faint design of vertical stripes" More Than Superhuman - 2nd NEL hardcover printing in November 1978 added Null-A Three - added 2nd (Canadian) DAw printing Pawns of Null-A - corrected serial number for 1960 Digit edition Pendulum - added 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th DAW printings Planets for Sale - Frederick Fell edition, price added; for BCA edition, cover artist's name corrected from "Netzell" to "Nuetzell" (typo) and serial number corrected The Players of Null-A Dobson edition, cover designer added; number of pages for Ariel edition corrected (from 213 to 231); added 3rd and 5th Berkley printings Reflections of A.E. van Vogt - corrected serial number (there is none; what I listed before was the Library of Congress card number, my mistake) A Report on the Violent Male - added Borgo editions, and added approximate date for first printing Rogue Ship - corrected various serial numbers The Sea Thing - no cover art, ergo no artist The Silkie - added 2nd DAW printing, corrected date for 3rd DAW Slan - added 3rd, 4th, 5th, 7th, 9th, and 12th Berkley printings, and info on cigarette ad in 6th; corrected various serial numbers; various other tinkering; Easton edition has cover by Richard Powers Supermind - add 2nd and 4th DAW printings; S&J edition, cover art uncredited The Three Eyes of Evil - S&J edition has cover by Mike Cook (credited on the jacket to "Mike Cook/Hundred Percent" - My guess would be that Hundred Percent is the design firm he works for, much like how the recent Doctor Who novels issued by the BBC have the covers credited to "Black Sheep," a graphics-design firm); #2 found to have been titled Earth's Last Fortress (the 1977 Sphere omnibus also including Siege of the Unseen aka The Three Eyes of Evil) Tomorrow on the March - added; I don't know how I overlooked this in previous versions of the Compendium Two Hundred Million A.D. - added 1971 PL edition (moved from under the Book of Ptath list), and ISBN for Zebra edition The Universe Maker - added 4th Ace printing The Violent Man - FSC edition, cover by Patricia de Groot; added 2nd and 4th Avon printings (years unknown) War Against the Rull - S&S / SFBC editions have cover by Ronald Clyne; corrected 1962 Pocket and Permabook editions (were reversed); removed 1973 Ace edition (found to be erroneous) The Weapon Makers - W&N edition's serial number removed (found to be erroneous; there is no serial number); more info on 1990s facsimile reprint (First Edition Library) The Weapon Shops of Isher - W&N edition; in fact has no serial number, 231 pages, and uncredited cover artist; added 3rd Pocket printing; fixed various mis-numbered editions The Wizard of Linn - additional information on Aeonian edition: limited to 100 copies, artist uncredited (no dust jacket, art is actually on cover of book), 190 pages; added 1977 Manor printing The World of Null-A - Ariel edition found to be a softcover, not hardback; fixed serial numbers, months for Sphere editions; deleted Berkley c.1975 edition (erroneous)

> September 3rd, 2002
> I added two new sections under the new page "Miscellany" (now called "Photos," as of April 30th, 2003): 1. A section devoted to photographs of Van, E. Mayne Hull, and Lydia van Vogt. Each picture has information on when it was taken, what source I used for the picture, and general comments. In addition, I've written a biographical sketch for Hull and Lydia to go along with each's picture, and will soon add one for Van. 2. A section devoted to some of my favorite covers from my collection of van Vogt books. Each picture's page gives information on the edition, the artist, and some comments by myself as to what makes that particular cover special. I also plan to add a section for illustrations that accompanied the magazine publication of many of his stories and serials. The first of these will be Paul Orban's work for the serialization of The World of Â. These will probably be stored on Magnus' site (thanks to his kind permission), and I will link to them. Why so many pictures all of a sudden, you ask? Why the break with tradition? Well, the answer consists of four words: I got a scanner. My main reason for procuring such a device is that I have a rather sizable collection of books and magazines, and I wished to make scans of most of them to send to Magnus Axelsson in Iceland to use in the excellent Cover Gallery section of his website, The Weird Worlds of A.E. van Vogt. I also wish to preserve the illustrations to magazine serials, as well as the ability to make picture files for other projects. It should be noted that although these scans currently on my site will shortly appear with many others (which I cannot host for space reasons) on Magnus' site, they will remain here for reasons that should be obvious: it gives me some satisfaction to be able to personally play host to coverscans from my own collection, and my comments on each coverscan will not be found on Magnus' site. I would like to thank him, though, for having no problem with me putting these pictures on my site. I have no desire to compete with his Gallery section, and that should be apparent from the selection and nature of my coverscan pages. The "Favorite Covers" section will be added to steadily, as server space permits. My website is limited to 5 MB, most of which I will keep empty for future additions to the Synopsis Center. I will therefore display only my favorite covers from my collection; the rest will appear on Magnus' site.

> July 20th, 2002
> In addition to the routine updates on the Database and Compendium, on Tuesday afternoon of last week I suddenly decided to restructure my website. Rather a strange whim, but it's now better-organized than before - for one thing I've learned a bit more about HTML code, so I was able to go through all my pages and eliminate some of the redundant crud that the Appleworks filter insisted on sprinkling into the code. From now on I'm just starting from scratch, I don't need an advanced word-processing program to translate what I write if it's going to clutter things up. I also added some publication news, and a few new links. My apologies for the delays in writing summaries. Database 3.3 Mostly just altered information about the various editions of The World of Â, after a bit more intensive comparison between the 1945, 1948, and 1970 editions. The 1970 version is identical to the 1948, so there are only two, not three, versions of the text. I'm currently writing a comparative summary of the two versions, which will be a while in coming. Compendium 1.5 I went through again and checked all the information with the editions I already knew of, in addition to adding a few newly discovered ones: Dates for various editions of Battle of Forever, previously mixed up, now corrected 1971 Paperback Library edition of Book of Ptath found to be entitled 200 Million A.D. Book of Ptath edition #9 should be April 1985 Added Carroll & Graf edition of Book of Ptath. I don't know how I overlooked it before. Added cover artist for Sphere '74 and '76 editions of Pawns of Null-A Added Two Hundred Million A.D. $1.75 Zebra printing. This is a bit of an anomaly - Zebra had printed The Book of Ptath as just Ptath in order to fit in with their other odd single-word titled Van books printed around the same time (i.e., The Gryb and The Blal). Apparently shortly afterwards, they then switched to the Paperback Library title.

> April 26th, 2002
> Revised the Database and the Compendium to include new information and eliminate errors. Database 3.2 As promised, I added more non-fiction articles, namely Van's obituary for E. Mayne Hull as printed in Locus in 1975, 1976's "My Trip to Rhodania," 1978's speech "La Carrière d'un Homme de Métier," and 1981's "Making It." Also added information on the television adaptation of Van and Ellison's "The Human Operators" and additional information on The Money Personality. And discovered that all Berkley editions of Away and Beyond are abridged to disinclude "Vault of the Beast" and "Heir Apparent" rather than just the 1963 edition as I had previously thought. Compendium 1.4 Added a few more snippets of information and corrected some of those pesky errors that seem to be there despite my relentless hunting them down each time I revise it. A few changes I can remember off-hand: All Berkley editions of Away and Beyond exclude "Heir Apparent" and "Vault of the Beast" Corrected ISBN number of the November 1982 Timescape/Pocket edition of The Universe Maker Added month and price for the 1972 Manor edition of The Beast Corrected ISBN for Slan by Berkley Medallion July 1975

> March 30th, 2002
> Added a few links to my Favorite Websites section. I will be away for a couple of weeks, so if anyone emails me within that time, please excuse me for not immediately replying.

> March 21st, 2002
> Updated the Database and Compendium. Database 3.1.1 Minor corrections and additions, hardly worth mentioning. I did find out, though, that his first story was published in June 1932. (I had thought it was in early 1933.) In my next update I intend to include entries for lesser-known non-fiction articles by Van. I have Michael Gouck to thank for leading me to re-think my original decision to disinclude such articles. On a tangental topic, I've received quite a few nice emails from people who've stumbled upon my humble crevice in cyberspace, and I'd just like to sincerely thank you all for the encouragement. Thank you for visiting! Compendium 1.3 Added entries for hardback editions of The Empire of Isher and Futures Past, and cover artist for the upcoming collection Approximately Infinity. I did a few other additions and changes to the Compendium, but at the present moment I'm hard-pressed to recall exactly what they might have been.

> March 18th, 2002
> Rearranged a few things on the front page, and even added another picture! (I'm getting to be quite extravagant here!) The picture of Van I selected has special significance for me, as it was the first picture of Van I ever came across, and it's a very good one. He's not posing, giving a false smile at the camera - rather he is in action, clearly discussing something very interesting. I also updated the Update page, har har.

> February 26th, 2002
> Added plot summaries for "Chevrolet, I Love You" (aka "Carthing"), Ghor, Kin-Slayer (which includes Van's "The Gods Defied"), and "Identity", and corrected errors in existing plot summaries.

> February 6th, 2002
> Added a review for H.L. Drake's new book, updated the Database and the Compendium. Database Version 3.1 Compendium Version 1.3 Added information found in Drake's new book (namely The Invalid's Wife and a few other notes). Also, I finally received my copy of Ghor, Kin-Slayer, and the entry for that book now includes chapter titles, and the cover artist in the Compendium. From what I've read so far, it's quite a good book; sort of a cross between Egil's Saga, The Book of Ptath and The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. It's very interesting and well-written. The ever-present formatting errors have been corrected in both files. I think they propagate while they sit in my hard-drive... And just as I thought I finally had the publishing history of Out of the Unknown all nice and cleared up, my Powell 1969 edition arrived in the mail and I found out that it was not a British book at all, but rather was published in my very own home-state of California! Needless to say, I've corrected all references to this edition in the Database and Compendium. I also added Hull's "Wish" stories to Appendix A.

> January 16th, 2002
> Updated the Database to 3.0 and revised some glaring errors in the Compendium and added a few editions. Database Version 3.0 In addition to correcting errors and adding new information, I have entirely reformatted the Database to have the entries easier to read by color-coding the different types of information for each entry. I'm quite pleased with it, you really must see it for yourself! I had noticed that when I tried to use my own bibliography, I found it difficult to read. If anything, that is not a good sign. So I thought on how I could improve it, and I think I have. And, of course, there are the every-present errors I found and corrected, and added a few new entries, namely: The 1952 cut version of Slan printed in the Summer issue of Fantastic Story Magazine. Added the 1979 book Earth's Last Fortress an omnibus retitlement of the earlier Sidgwick & Jackson book The Three Eyes of Evil. Thanks to Endre Zsoldos for providing information on this book. (Some days I feel like I'm never going to see the end of updating some entries; every time I find more about it, and think that's it, more information comes around. It was that way for a while with the UK editions of Out of the Unknown...) Added the chapter titles for The Shadow Men. Compendium Version 1.1 Corrected the appalling errors relating to the various editions of The Book of Ptath, and I've corrected many other book listings when I finally got around to comparing a hard-copy of the Compendium against the 35 new van Vogt books I got for Christmas. Thanks again to Endre Zsoldos for providing plenty of new information on books already on the list and editions I was unaware of; namely: Away and Beyond (Panther editions), Moonbeast (Panther editions), corrections on The Book of Ptath, The Changeling (cover artist of #5), Destination: Universe! (Panther editions), Earth's Last Fortress (above-mentioned Sphere omnibus), Empire of the Atom (Manor 1976 cover artist; that's one I got for Christmas!), Lost: Fifty Suns (NEL cover artist), The Pawns of Null-A (Digit 1960 cover artist), Slan (Berkley Medallion; I also found another printing), UK edition of Tales from the Vulgar Unicorn, The Voyage of the Space Beagle (1979 Panther edition), and The Wizard of Linn (Manor 1976 price). I hope more of you out there can give me information about your own editions! I much prefer having people actually owning the books telling me about them, rather than having to rely on third- and fourth- hand information in reference books.

> January 1st, 2002
> Quite a big update this time. I streamlined the appearance of the homepage, created the Compendium, and revised the Database (see details below). Compendium Version 1.0 But the biggest update is the posting of the Van Vogt Compendium, a list I collated that gives the publishers, editions, and reprints of all known English-language books of his and Hull's. (See the file's Preface for more information.) Most of the work I've done for this site over the past month and a half was on the Compendium, so I didn't have time to write any more synopses... Besides, I was busy re-reading Children of Dune and God Emperor of Dune, and playing a bit of Starcraft and Age of Empires II in between ;-) Database Version 2.3 Exact word counts for "The Barbarian," "The Rat and the Snake," and "Ersatz Eternal" added Added a new appendix (Book & Short Story Series), called it Appendix A and scooted down the existing A to B and so on. Learned that the titles for the two split volumes of The Best of A.E. van Vogt (UK) are not The Best of A.E. van Vogt: 1940-48 and The Best of A.E. van Vogt: 1949-68 (as listed in Stephensen-Payne) but rather just The Best of A.E. van Vogt: Volume 1 and The Best of A.E. van Vogt: Volume 2. Discovered Two Science Fiction Novels to be an erroneous original title for The Three Eyes of Evil. Added at the end of the list a new temporary category for the "No-Time" language-learning audio-tape courses Van was involved in making. Numerous other minor alterations and corrections. And last but not least, a very special thank you to Carolyn Kent for selling me such a great batch of UK paperbacks in such great condition for such a great price, and for being such a wonderful person to do business with. I have her to thank for the information I gained on early '80s NEL editions, as well as making possible such an irreplaceable addition to my book collection.