When A.E. van Vogt wove several of his classic stories of The Rull into a novel, he created a work of enduring popularity in the science fiction field. Now back in print for the first time in the 1990s, this Tor edition includes "The First Rull," a story that postdates the novel and makes this book the first complete edition of the saga of the war between humanity and the alien shapechangers.

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.