All the stories were fixed up into two books, The Weapon Shops of Isher and The Weapon Makers, and the SFBC gathered both those into The Empire of Isher.
Van Vogt combined this with two other stories and a little fix-up material for his 1970 publication of Quest for the Future.
Van Vogt combined this with two other stories and some fix-up material (especially for “Far Centaurus”) for his 1970 publication of Quest for the Future.
Van Vogt combined this with two other stories and a little fix-up material for his 1970 publication of Quest for the Future.
To be fair, I did enjoy this paperback when I bought it in the summer of 1970, but when I went to read van Vogt’s collected stories 42 years later, bits kept seeming familiar, which is when I discovered the truth. If I were a new reader, I’d just as soon read the individual stories and skip the conglomeration. The three stories are “Film Library,” “The Search” and “Far Centaurus” (all in van Vogt’s Transfinite collection).