(Found) Science Fiction - looking for book series

[ruff.hi]

This is a book series that I read in the middle to late 70s. It (and the Lensman Series) was suggested to me by a friend.

The major theme (well, my take away) was that everything got more power about every 10 pages. At first, we were going to the moon. Then a new invention and we were travelling between stars. Further, everything got more powerful and smaller.

Two items that stood out ...

1) The heroes of the book visited an alien planet and sat down for a meal. At one point, one of the humans pulled out some salt to spice the meal and the aliens went nuts. Apparently, salt is very rare and very useful in their science ... and they couldn't believe that the humans were just using it to spice their meal.

2) A space battle between two ships. Because of the free, unlimited power, they had invented shields that could not be breached. Slap a shield around your ship, and you were 100% safe. One downside was that you couldn't see or travel with your shields up - nothing could get through. One ship was attacked, threw up its shields and just waited. Some 10s of hours later ... thinking that the other ship had gone, dropped its shields to see what was what ... only to be vaporized as the attacking ship had free, unlimited power too ... and had just left its phasers on all that time.

 

[pogopossum]

Arcot, Morey & Wade, series by John Campbell?
The Black Star Passes, Islands in Space, and Invaders from the Infinite.

 

[MartLG]

Item number 1 occurs in EE Doc Smith's 'Skylark of Space', not sure about the second event but I think it may have occurred in one of the later books

 

[pogopossum]

You probably got it MLG. What I remember from the Campbell series was the rapid escalation of power and "technology" similar to ruff.hi's description. Read both series (except Skylark DuQuense later) about 55 years ago so, your memory makes more sense.
An odd guy down the road from my grandparents had a pretty complete collection of numbered (and many signed) Fantasy Press editions. Looking it up, I see that the first Skylark was not a Fantasy Press print. So I got it ? The others were. Got the Lensman volumes that my brother didn't own .and a lot of other stuff over the 2 year period that I lived with the grandparents. The guy was later institutionalized after a psychotic break.

 

[Pyan]

Yes, it's definitely the Skylark series.
I've the 1974 Panther edition, with the classic Chris Foss covers, and the spines are practically illegible with the re-reading they've had over the last 45 or so years.
The first two in the series, plus other EE 'Doc' Smith books are available at Project Gutenberg.

 

[ruff.hi]

Thx all ... EE Doc Smith it is. I will ping my library and see what they have!

Edit: They appear to have #1, #3 and #4. I have reserved #1 and will read it before progressing further.

Currently (re)reading the Lost Fleet by Jack Campbell

 

[psikeyhackr]

Yes, it's definitely the Skylark series.
I've the 1974 Panther edition, with the classic Chris Foss covers, and the spines are practically illegible with the re-reading they've had over the last 45 or so years.
The first two in the series, plus other EE 'Doc' Smith books are available at Project Gutenberg.

The SKYLARK of VALERON by E. E. SMITH, Ph.D.

Books by Smith, E. E. (Edward Elmer) (sorted by popularity)

Project Gutenberg offers 70,422 free eBooks for Kindle, iPad, Nook, Android, and iPhone.

gutenberg.org

Just got added to PG.