Alfred Elton Van Vogt (April 26, 1912 – January 26, 2000) was a Canadian-born science fiction author regarded by some as one of the most popular and complex science fiction writers of the mid-twentieth century: the "Golden Age" of the genre. Born on a farm in Edenburg, a Russian Mennonite community east of Gretna, Manitoba, Canada, Van Vogt is one of the most popular and highly esteemed writers of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. After starting his writing career by writing for 'true confession' style pulp magazines like True Story, Van Vogt decided to switch to writing something he enjoyed, science fiction.

Van Vogt's first published SF story, "Black Destroyer" (Astounding Science Fiction, July 1939), was inspired by On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. The story depicted a fierce, carnivorous alien stalking the crew of an exploration spaceship. It was the cover story of this issue of Astounding, the issue often described as having ushered in the Golden Age of science fiction.

The story became an instant classic and eventually served as the inspiration for a number of science fiction movies. In 1950 it was combined with "War of Nerves" (1950), "Discord in Scarlet" (1939) and "M33 in Andromeda" (1943) to form the novel The Voyage of the Space Beagle (1950).

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