In the 1940s, the Golden Age of science fiction flowered in the magazine Astounding. Editor John W. Campbell, Jr., discovered and promoted great new writers such as A.E. van Vogt, whose novel Slan was one of the works of the era.
Slan is the story of Jommy Cross, the orphan mutant outcast from a future society prejudiced against mutants, or slans. Throughout the forties and into the fifties, Slan was considered the single most important SF novel, the one great book that everyone had to read. Today it remains a monument to pulp SF adventure, filled with constant action and a cornucopia of ideas.
This edition has a new introduction by Kevin J. Anderson.

A. E. Van Vogt was a SFWA Grand Master. He was born in Canada and moved to the U.S. in 1944, by which time he was well established as one of John W. Campbell's stable of writers for Astounding Science-Fiction. His books include Slan and The World of Null-A. He lived in Los Angeles, California and died in 2000.