Van Vogt seems to constantly search for answers to complex questions about society and individual people. While not alluding to the women's movement of the 1950s and 1960s, one of its principal concerns, what makes some men exploitive of others, is central to Quest for the Future. Nothing if not imaginative in his answers to the important questions he asks, van Vogt suggests that men have suffered from a mass insanity — they are paranoid. Their paranoid fear drives them not only to be competitive but to abuse and manipulate others, especially women. He does not let women off the hook: They too often regard the worst of men as strong men rather than the crazies they actually are, thus encouraging the paranoia afflicting men by rewarding bad behavior. Van Vogt's attempt to create a broad psychological answer for the problem of abusive men would be...