Kimball Kinnison the grey cat

#photo #photography #cats #caturday #lensman #scifi #sciencefiction #CatsOfMastodon #CatsOfFediverse #kimball

Picked these #books up from a local action. Both the same book, but clearly different editions/cover art.

#Triplanetary By E.E. "Doc" Smith #EEDocSmith #Lensman

E. E. “Doc” Smith’s Lensman series is classic space opera.

As a science fiction nerd, I’m actually a bit embarrassed to admit that I had never read it before. Part of the reason was only discovering it as an adult, and finding the opening of the official first book in the series, Triplanetary, to be both cartoonish and a massive infodump. It seemed like the series was one of those things I probably would have loved as a boy, but had found too late to enjoy.

Recently I stumbled across a recommendation, that new readers of the series skip the first two books, which are actually prequels. The advice was to begin with Galactic Patrol, read forward from there, and only look at the prequels afterward. This makes some sense. Often it’s best to read books in the order they were written (even when authors claim otherwise). Galactic Patrol was the first book written in the series, and begins a four book arc with the same characters. (The main story of Triplanetary was written first, but not as part of the Lensman series. It was only later retconned into it.)

So the recommended order is:

• Galactic Patrol
• Gray Lensman
• Second Stage Lensman
• Children of the Lens

And then (if desired) the prequels:

• Triplanetary
• First Lensman

A few weeks ago I discovered that many of Smith’s books are on Gutenberg, available for free.

(If you haven’t discovered it yet, Gutenberg is a pretty amazing resource. You can download public domain books in various ebook formats, including ones you can send to your Kindle or e-reader of choice. Highly recommended)

The content for most of these books is actually pulled from the original serialized versions in Astounding magazine, I imagine for copyright reasons. Reading the unvarnished originals had an appeal to me. Reportedly Smith revised the later editions in the 1950s, but at least for the opening chapters of Galactic Patrol, I didn’t notice much of a difference. And the Gutenberg ones seem transcribed far more carefully than many of the bad OCR scans available on Amazon.

But the writing is very much a product of its time and shows its pulp origins. The language is clumsy and amateurish by today’s standards. The characters, at least in Galactic Patrol and Gray Lensman, are basically just stereotype placeholders. And the dialog is stilted and banal. Except for the dialog between the hero and his love interest, which starts off just cringe inducing. It doesn’t help that Smith projects 1930s gender roles into the far future. And his portrayal of human organizations and relations is hopelessly simplistic. Things improve in the later books, particularly the last one, written several years after the others, but don’t expect high literature.

What’s the appeal then? This series is basically the Star Wars of its day. Before there were Jedi, there were Lensman, superhuman warriors equipped with an alien tool that give them telepathic powers. And before there were the Vorlons and Shadows of Babylon 5, there were the Arisians and Eddorians, two advanced civilizations using other species as proxies in their ancient war. Before there was a Death Star, there were weapons that could smash planets into each other, and even destroy stars by the end of the series. And before there was the melange of Dune, there was thionite, a fatally addictive drug only available on one planet in the galaxy, Trenco, with a hellish environment.

So Smith makes up for crude writing with sheer imagination and action. The story moves along at a lightning pace, mainly because he doesn’t concern himself with only writing in scenes. After struggling with the opening chapters, I found myself drawn in for the ride. I can see why early science fiction fans enjoyed the series. (Which honestly was my main reason for reading it.)

That said, I was periodically thrown out of the story. The hero, Kimball Kinnison, is portrayed as perfect, with no flaws. He’s part of an organization that authorizes him to be judge, jury, and executioner. The galactic patrol is also pretty much perfect. It has no resource constraints or politics in its organization. And the Arisians, the aliens providing the superpowers, have no flaws. All of this is presented without humor or irony. (Kinnison’s perfection is eventually explained as the result of eugenics, presented in a positive light.)

The saving grace is that the villains are no pushovers. They’re generally portrayed as extremely intelligent, brave, and competent, although often with a hubris that leads to their undoing. They’re so competent I often found myself wondering what their motivations were supposed to be. Smith only tangentially gets into their goals, other than just doing dastardly stuff.

A lot of the villains are whole species with a sour disposition. We meet a succession of evil species, where the only solution is to wipe out the whole lot. Which is where the planet destroying weapons come into play. But the ethics of specioside are glossed over.

So again, these stories are very much a product of their time. This extends to a lot of anachronistic technology. “Computer” refers to a man doing calculations; although the electronic variety do show up in the later books. Battles are tracked with gigantic “tanks”, 3D displays showing the movement of ships among stars and planets. Everything is recorded on tapes, even far into the future. And the word “plate” is used where “screen” or “monitor” is typically used today, while “screens” itself seems to mean shields. All reminders that much of this was written before TVs were common.

I’ve read the series through Children of the Lens. Not sure if I’ll do the prequels, at least not right away. The books are well worth checking out for anyone interested in the history of the sci-fi genre. But I’m not sure how comfortable I am recommending them for just straight entertainment. At this point they’re pretty dated, both in terms of science and social attitudes, and heavily geared toward a male audience. Still, if you can approach them understanding when and where they come from, they can be an interesting read. And while there isn’t much from Smith’s writing I’m tempted to emulate, his quick action narratives are worth examining.

Have you read the Lensman series? Or any of Smith’s other books? If so, what did you think?

https://selfawarepatterns.com/2023/11/04/the-lensman-series/

#lensman #ScienceFiction #SciFi #SpaceOpera

So, what's the consensus, is the sphere in chapter 10 of Gray Lensman the inspiration for D&D's Sphere of Annihilation?

#ttrpg #DnD #Lensman

For those who've read the Lensman series, what are your favorite weapons from these pages?

#scifi #books #Lensman #spaceopera

This week I'm rereading E.E. Smith's Lensman series. I read it once before back in 1998 so I figure after 25 years it's a good time to revisit it. I've just last night finished Triplanetary and will be starting First Lensman this evening. So far it has been fun. Granted, I think the first section of Triplanetary would have worked better as an appendix but what can you do?

#scifi #books #Lensman #spaceopera #reading