The Silkie
The Silkie by A.E Van Vogt
The Silkie is a fix-up novel by A.E Van Vogt about a race of superhuman who are part human, part fish, and part spaceship… yes, you read that right. It’s a fantastical sci-fi novel with insane ideas, and a bravery to go through with them. It’s quite frankly a little nuts, and that’s what I liked about it.
The Silkie follows the story of Cemp. A Silkie who works closely with a group on Earth called The Silkie Authority. They manage and maintain relationships with the Silkie, and work together to keep the peace. While the Silkie are Superhuman, they are few in numbers, and there’s always dangers lurking out there, including other disgruntle off shoots of the Silkies, giant Planetoids, and the race who originally culled their numbers.
The book is split into three distinct stories, with a separate prologue at the beginning. It’s similar in fashion to The Voyage of the Space Beagle, the last A.E Van Vogt book I read. Each story raises the stakes, with the second being my favourite as an unknown threat proposes to expose the Silkie, only for things to escalate to events I don’t even want to spoil even with a spoiler warning. Lets just say that story could have been its own long series of books.
Cemp himself feels a little like Goku in nature. He’s always up for the fight, while trying to be diplomatic and maintain peace. He’s constantly powering up and finding ways to defeat enemies greater than him. And, he’s got a somewhat normal life back on Earth, when he chooses to partake in it. As a massive Dragonball fan, I always like these sort of elements in games and books.
There’s some spectacular scenes (chapters) like Cemp at the beginning entering a spaceship that’s flooded with water and being attacked by a Shark. Giant cities hidden in asteroids. An ancient evil. And a whole sequence that again I won’t get into because it’s far to cool to spoil.
Like Space Beagle, it’s pure pulp. Insane ideas, over the top characters, heroes and villains, ludicrous space adventures, all the good stuff. The Fix-up nature again means the chapters don’t quite flow as it’s actually three separate stories, but I like the format so that didn’t bother me. I think by the third story there wasn’t really much more you could do so the short length plays to its strength, and again, adds to that pulp nature.
The Silkie is a decent read in my opinion. Not as interesting as Voyage of the Space Beagle, but somehow bigger in scope. It’s enjoyable, quick paced, and Cemp is a pretty interesting character. It gets a little stuck in some of its repetitive descriptions of the transformations, and is a little back and forth at times as Cemp flies around, but there’s too much imagination and creativity to get bogged down in any slight annoyances. It’s a fun, quick, crazy read, and that’s all I ever ask for from these type of books.
