Jommy Cross is a slan, a telepathic mutant with tendrils in his hair which function as the telepathic organ. Slans are considered a threat by ordinary humans and are exterminated wherever they are found. Jommy's late father invented a weapon which may help the slans and now it is up to Jommy to find it and help his people.

I loved A. E. Van Vogt's work as a teen, though I don't remember having read this one before. But now although I kept reading, I just wasn't much interested in any of it. ( )

Van Vogt is one of the popular 1960s SF writers that made up the "Golden Age" of SF. He had short stories in more then a dozen different SF pulp magazines and went on to write novels.

This is one of his better known juvenile Sf books. It reminds me of juvenile stories by Heinlein or Asimov. If I had read this as a teen it would be rated 4 stars. As an adult I see some flaws and I can't get above 3 stars. ( )

How do I properly describe a novel that uses (incorrectly) atomic energy, but also addressing the fact that it was published in 1940?

Well, it's been 76 years since it came out, and its and integral part of the Campbellian SF revolution that said that we can have great Science in Science Fiction, but of course our understanding of these things change as we learn more, so I'm perfectly willing to let a lot of that slide. Still. The fact that it's 1940 when it was published, and he was talking about Atomic Energy as a resource and a weapon *is* also rather mind-blowingly cool. :)

That's one of the more noteworthy things about this adventure novel that strings up a ton of cool ideas for us to enjoy, being part dystopian future, part aftermath of a huge pogrom against alien "supermen" that the "supermen" lost, and partly a mirror to ourselves of the fact of insanely stupid prejudice.

The plot proceeds very quickly, which is an amazingly cool feature and expectation for this era's SF adventure books, moving at a nice pace for an Oliver Twist beginning all the way to find a macguffin that would save the benighted alien race of Slans, to learn the slightly surprising reveals about the Slan's origins, while putting us firmly in the hands of a few Slan MCs. Telepathy, strength, speed, and intelligence is all enhanced in these individuals.

That's no big surprise, of course. Nietzsche's insanely popular across the world in every continent at this time. Superman (comic) just came out. A war has just popped up over the ocean that bears a lot of identification with it. So much of our literature, and especially SF, has truly heroic super men. It's part of our zeitgeist.

What's most interesting is how these supermen are the most downtrodden in the novel, despite all their advantages.

But wait, you say, hasn't this been done a million times?

Well, yeah, but few before this time have done something quite as intelligently as Vogt. He's trying to send a global message and doing it across so many subjects with so much world building... and the point is, he's doing it with such economy of prose. It's a really short novel.

The only other novels that I know of that could pull this off only came later.

I'm thinking of [b:The Demolished Man|76740|The Demolished Man|Alfred Bester|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1360171879s/76740.jpg|1247570] and [b:The Stars My Destination|333867|The Stars My Destination|Alfred Bester|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1433671750s/333867.jpg|1398442], both by Alfred Bester, and probably these are probably the very best Golden Age SF novels that still hold up today.

I'm not going to judge this book by today's standards of SF, although it is superior in pacing and plot, if not characterization. It was also a phenomenon for about 15 years after it came out, being considered the best of the best. Popularity doesn't always mean quality, but this does have a lot of quality.

Unfortunately, it's also been copied a million times since then, diluting the effect and the enjoyment that we might have in it now.

At least we can point to it as one of the major supermen mythos stories with pride, and hopefully it won't be utterly forgotten in time.
( )

A classic that is a little simplistic by modern standards ( )

John Thomas “Jommy” Cross is a member of the telepathic race of mutant humans called “slans,” eponymously named for Samuel Lann, believed to be their creator. The only physical distinction between the two races are the slan’s set of golden tendrils protruding from their scalps that serve as antennae for their telepathy.

On Earth, slans were overthrown by humans during an ancient war and are still considered the enemy. The police and military are ordered to destroy all slans on sight. Jommy’s father, a renown physicist, was killed when Jommy was a toddler, but not before concealing the secrets of his research in an underground cavern and bequeathing its location to his son.

At the age of nine, after his mother is murdered by the police in broad daylight, Jommy escapes and sets off on his own, but is soon captured by a penurious yet cunning old termagant who threatens to report him unless he uses his telepathic abilities for her selfish gain. While repulsed by the situation, Jommy realizes that he can use the woman’s hovel to hide from the police until he reaches adulthood, at which time, he will locate his father’s research and find a way to bring peace between slans and humans.

There is only one problem. During a shoplifting escapade at the behest of “Granny,” Jommy ventures across town to the space port and encounters a race of tendrilless slans! After reading their minds, Jommy discovers that this unfamiliar branch of the slan race has complete control of the spaceport and is building a fleet off world. At an appointed time, they will attack Earth and obliterate humans and “true” slans alike!

It’s up to Jommy to avoid capture, locate his father’s research, and find a way to stop this invasion before more atrocities are committed, but how can one man stop an armada led by a ruthless offshoot of his own race?

All told, a beautifully crafted, suspensful, and fast-paced tale. It is no wonder that SLAN is considered among the best works from one of science fiction's earliest grand masters. It's definitely among my top five all-time favorite SF novels. ( )