E. E. "Doc" Smith + Lensman Saga

It must be a copy based on the original Amazing Stories version, mate - there's a whole slew of backstory before then which was added in when the book was rewritten in 1948 for book publication...

Theres are E-books available - the Gutenburg edition is the same as yours, but there may be copies of the extended version available.


I wondered why you were talking about Costigan...:p
 
I think I've just caught up with where your version starts; 6 chapers in!
 
And it will be done by someone with a track record of making a long, coherent SF show for TV. Although I do hope that he allows other people to do the dialogue.
 
I wonder if Harlan Ellison will be involved! I'm actually quite excited at the prospect. SF show based on something I've actually heard of and read!
 
Well, I've finished "Triplanetary". I don't know what you thought of it AE35Unit but here's my review:

I had heard that this series had dated badly but didn't think that would be a problem for me but I think for once it was. It's not just that the science that has dated (and boy has that dated), it's the dialogue too. 1930's American slang really began to grate on me after a while and demonstrates a truism I think; steer clear of the slang (either real or imagined) because, no matter how cool it might seem at the time, it will only look silly in years to come.

But at the end of the day, it's not just that it's dated. It's quite badly written too. The story lurches from one event to the next, crisis to crisis, in an erratic fashion. Plausibility was no constraint on the story telling. Just plain terrible characterisation and dialog.

In a funny sort of way, the characterisation of this book reminded me of that in E. R. Eddison's "The Worm Ouroboros" only with less humour and less eloquence.

It wasn't all bad though, there were epic space battles with imaginative forms of weaponry. There was enough action and suspense to keep me reading and I'll probably check out the next in the series but it won't be for a while.
 
Well I'm only half way thru and yes the dialogue is dated but surely it would be dated in any book written in the 30s! Read Chrome Yellow by Huxley,they did speak like that back then. Even so I am struggling to remain interested but it may just be me going thru one of those 'I'm bored with reading phases' I don't know.
I do find reading early SF a chore tho at times.
 
Hmm..Triplanetary really is a prologue to the saga of the Lensmen - the storyline does get more focused and linear after this, I assure you both.

Try the next in the series, First Lensman, which is the story of the founding of the Galactic Patrol, and I think you might agree it gets better...:)
 
Yep, and better still with Galactic Patrol, etc. The Lensman stuff is very much a "big picture" thing - you can pick nits til the cows come home (how's that for some prose styling?) but it's not the details of word choice or even of a particular plot element but just the whole shebang.
 
AE35Unit
Well I'm only half way thru and yes the dialogue is dated but surely it would be dated in any book written in the 30s! Read Chrome Yellow by Huxley,they did speak like that back then.
I suppose it was only really the dialogue that really grated. Other stuff I've read from that era or earlier is not nearly so bad. I think that basically it was just badly written.
pyan said:
Try the next in the series, First Lensman, which is the story of the founding of the Galactic Patrol, and I think you might agree it gets better...
I was thinking on whether I would be better off just going straight for "Galactic Patrol" and skipping "First Lensman"; afterall, it was published much later and I can always go back to it if I want...
 
I was thinking on whether I would be better off just going straight for "Galactic Patrol" and skipping "First Lensman"; afterall, it was published much later and I can always go back to it if I want...
Well you could do so and still be fine approaching it that way. Order (not in terms of publication date) according to Wiki is:

  1. Triplanetary (4 parts, January-April 1934, Amazing Stories)
  2. First Lensman (1950, Fantasy Press)
  3. Galactic Patrol (6 parts, September 1937-February 1938, Astounding Stories)
  4. Gray Lensman (4 parts, October 1939-January 1940, Astounding Stories)
  5. Second Stage Lensmen (4 parts, November 1941-February 1942, Astounding Stories)
  6. Children of the Lens (4 parts, November 1947-February 1948, Astounding Stories)
 
Order (not in terms of publication date) according to Wiki is:

  1. Triplanetary (4 parts, January-April 1934, Amazing Stories)

Well, as pyan, AE, and FE were discovering, the Wikipedia misses the fact that Triplanetary, the serial, is usually only Book Three of Triplanetary, the book. He wrote "Book One: Dawn" and "Book Two: The World War" in 1948 for the 1948 Fantasy Press book publication. Though I find it, erm, astounding, that any modern publisher would produce a version of the book without those additions.

-- Well, no, the second paragraph does non-specifically refer to it, but could be clearer. The list in the article was what I was originally looking at.
 
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FE said:
I was thinking on whether I would be better off just going straight for "Galactic Patrol" and skipping "First Lensman"; afterall, it was published much later and I can always go back to it if I want...

Slinker said:
Well you could do so and still be fine approaching it that way.

Um - isn't that like reading The Lord of the Rings, and jumping straight from Weathertop to Lórien?

Galactic Patrol was written later, but First Lensman was re-written to fit with GP at the same time - there are elements in GP which are fairly important to the revised FL...
 
Nah, it's more like jumping straight to Star Wars "Episode 4" without watching "1-3". (Well, not anywhere near that extreme, of course, but formally similar.)
 
Smith's "Galactic Patrol" Lensman #3 was actually the first Lensman story written.
Followed by book 4, 5, and 6.

Then when the sf book publishers wanted to issue the magazine stories in book form, Smith reworte parts of "Triplanetary" to strengthen its connection with the Lensman series. The then wrote "First Lensman" (Lensman #2) as a linking novel between Triplanetary and Galactic Patrol. Notice--it is listed as book 2, but it was written last.

Triplanetary is acutally the weakest of the books. I am sorry to say I think at lot more people would like the series if they started with Galactic Patrol (#3) and then read the prequels later.

They are all a bit similar, so I would recommend rather than reading all six books, read Galactic Patrol. If you like it, you can continue. If you don't, you've only had to wade through one book.

I personally read these books over forty years ago and still enjoy them. Yes, they are dated in aprts but many, many ideas were first used by Smith and expanded by other authors.

I urge any who have not read any to at least try them. You might be plesantly surprised.
 
Contrary Mary said:
Triplanetary is acutally the weakest of the books. I am sorry to say I think at lot more people would like the series if they started with Galactic Patrol (#3) and then read the prequels later.
If only I'd known that before I read "Triplanetary". Oh well, I shall go straight to "Galactic Patrol" next and take it from there.
 
Alright, actually upon looking at the book, what it is is Chronicles of the Lensmen and Triplanetary is part of it, along with First Lensman and Galactic Patrol.
 

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