In his search for his real identity, he discovers that he has extra bodies that are activated when he dies (so that, in a sense, he cannot be killed), that a galactic society of humans exists outside the Solar system, a large interstellar empire wishes to conquer both the Earth and Venus (inhabited by masters of non-Aristotelian logic), and he has extra brain matter that, when properly trained, can allow him to move matter with his mind.

The 1970 revision kept this change, added some brief new passages to chapters 10, 24, and 35, and also included a new introduction in which van Vogt defended the controversial work, but also admitted that the original serial had been flawed.

World of Null-A has been translated into nine languages, and when first published, created the French Science Fiction Market all by itself - according to Jacques Sadoul, editor of Editions OPTA.

[1] In the review, which was later expanded into "Cosmic Jerrybuilder: A. E. van Vogt",[2] Knight writes that "far from being a 'classic' by any reasonable standard, The World of Ā is one of the worst allegedly-adult science fiction stories ever published."

In 1974 Damon Knight walked back his original criticisms: Van Vogt has just revealed, for the first time as far as I know, that during this period he made a practice of dreaming about his stories and waking himself up every ninety minutes to take notes.