E.E. Smith

[Nick B]

I am thinking of getting hold of his Lensman novels, what are people's opinions?

 

[tinkerdan]

If you have read his skylark series they are just as good as. As with all classics there are some elements that are dated and it's been a while since I last read the series but I recall enjoying the stories as well as skylark, but I'm a character motivated reader and thought the characters in the skylark series were easier to relate to.

Also to me the skylark represented more free enterprise and egg head science where lensmen are more military style or mercenary.

 

[chrispenycate]

They are dated. The science is not very convincing (= generally nonsense). Reproduction is generally oral (they might get as far as a kiss) and female characters? Don't even hope.

But they are great fun to read, cosmic billiards zooming planets across the sky, the good guys putting troops to defend polling booths (but doing it morally, 'cause they're good guys), the baddies frigid aliens that everybody cheers for the destruction of.

Subtlety? I've heard that word somewhere. But not for Doc Smith

 

[Nick B]

I have not actually read anything by him yet. I was attracted to someone saying they involved the largest space battles ever written where planets were destroyed casually. Sounds good to me

 

[psikeyhackr]

http://www.gutenberg.org/authors/Smith,_E._E._(Edward_Elmer)

• The Galaxy Primes
  
  (English)
• Masters of Space
  
  (English) with Edward Everett Evans
• Spacehounds of IPC
  
  (English)
• The Skylark of Space
  
  (English)
• Skylark Three
  
  (English)
• Subspace Survivors
  
  (English)
• Triplanetary
  
  (English) 1934 magazine edition
• Triplanetary
  
  (English) book edition
• The Vortex Blaster
  
  (English)

It can be entertaining if you can keep in mind when it was written and it doesn't bother you. I reread Triplanetary not too long ago without too much trouble. It was better than reading Star Wars.

This is better:

http://www.gutenberg.org/authors/Piper,_H._Beam

psik

 

[Pyan]

..and female characters? Don't even hope...

I think you're being a little unkind to Dorothy Seaton and (especially) Clarissa Kinnison there, Chrispy...

 

[Vince W]

I've downloaded Triplanetary, Skylark Three and Skylark of Space to read in the near future.

 

[Pyan]

Don't be put off if Triplanetary isn't quite what you expected, Vince - there's a reason for it having no Lensmen in it:

Originally, the series consisted of the four novels Galactic Patrol, Gray Lensman, Second Stage Lensmen, and Children of the Lens published between 1937 and 1948 in the magazine Astounding Stories. In 1948, at the suggestion of Lloyd Arthur Eshbach (publisher of the original editions of the Lensman books as part of the Fantasy Press imprint), Smith rewrote his 1934 story Triplanetary to fit in with the Lensman series. First Lensman was written in 1950 to act as a link between Triplanetary and Galactic Patrol and finally, in the years up to 1954, Smith revised the rest of the series to remove inconsistencies between the original Lensman chronology and Triplanetary.

And The Vortex Blasters is a stand-alone novel, with different characters, set within the time-frame of the main sequence.

Lensman series - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia--- Warning - contains spoilers (under Plot)

 

[Vince W]

Thanks for the info, I'll keep that in mind when I'm reading it.

 

[Nick B]

Would it be better to go straight to First Lensman then?

 

[psikeyhackr]

Would it be better to go straight to First Lensman then?

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32706/32706-h/32706-h.htm

The cover says that is the first of the Lensman series.

His stuff is just too old fashioned for me. It was cool when I was a kid.

psik

 

[tinkerdan]

It would be best to start with First Lensman as that is really where the intoduction of the Kinnisons starts.

I found Triplanetary to be a huge disappointment.

 

[Nick B]

Okies, I'll try that.

How do I get the doc from that page (gutenburg) to my kindle device? I downloaded Triplanetary to my phone but it seems to have disappeared into the ether...

 

[chrispenycate]

I do it through my computer, no problems. I suspect that you need a computer with USB to do the transfer, but surely, if you don't have one you have a friend who does? It's perfectly legal what you're doing, after all; you're not putting them at any risk.

 

[Mirannan]

I think you're being a little unkind to Dorothy Seaton and (especially) Clarissa Kinnison there, Chrispy...

Not to mention Constance, Camilla, Kathryn and Karen Kinnison, the four female Children of the Lens. Or the entire population of the planet Lyrane II. Or Dessa Desplaines. Or...

Actually, I think the Children are a very good case in point. There were five of them, with only one of them male, and each of them essentially a demigod.

 

[j d worthington]

Dated, with frequently cardboard characters, and stilted prose.

But his ideas, and the tableaus he plays with, are definitely staggering to the imagination, and the books can be wonderful fun in a (largely) naïve and innocent fashion... though, given certain aspects, this last adjective may be just a tad misleading (see Phil Farmer on the subject).....

 

[Pyan]

But his ideas, and the tableaus he plays with, are definitely staggering to the imagination...

You can say that again - in fact the Lensman Arms Race is actually a Trope Namer in my favourite, while-away-an-hour-or-twenty site, tvtropes...

 

[j d worthington]

Nice one, grandson....


Yep. For all his faults (which were many), Smith penned some of the most enduring sf adventure tales ever to come out of the field. Crude literarily (most of the time, at least), these things are perhaps the very epitome of what old-time sf fans meant when they talked about that "sense of wonder"....

 

[BAYLOR]

Dated, with frequently cardboard characters, and stilted prose.

But his ideas, and the tableaus he plays with, are definitely staggering to the imagination, and the books can be wonderful fun in a (largely) naïve and innocent fashion... though, given certain aspects, this last adjective may be just a tad misleading (see Phil Farmer on the subject).....

The founder of Space Opera? If you can tolerate all his limations and suspend a certain level of disbelief, He can be alot of fun to read.

 

[Zendexor]

They are dated. The science is not very convincing (= generally nonsense). Reproduction is generally oral (they might get as far as a kiss) and female characters? Don't even hope.

But they are great fun to read, cosmic billiards zooming planets across the sky, the good guys putting troops to defend polling booths (but doing it morally, 'cause they're good guys), the baddies frigid aliens that everybody cheers for the destruction of.

Subtlety? I've heard that word somewhere. But not for Doc Smith

Not quite! Nadreck of Palain Seven is a frigid alien but on the side of good, though his mentality is as alien as his metabolism. Doc Smith is actually surprisingly good at aliens.