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Lensman #1
Triplanetary
From the atomic age in Atlantis to a world remote in space and time, two incredible ancient races, the Arisians and the Eddorians, are in the midst of an interstellar war with Earth as the prize. The Arisians, using advanced mental technology, have foreseen the invasion of their galaxy by the corrupt and evil Eddorians, so they begin a breeding program on every planet in their universe. Their goal...to produce super warriors who can hold off the invading Eddorians.
287 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1934
About the author
E.E. "Doc" Smith
224 books313 followersEdward Elmer Smith (also E.E. Smith, E.E. Smith, Ph.D., E.E. “Doc” Smith, Doc Smith, “Skylark” Smith, or—to his family—Ted), was an American food engineer (specializing in doughnut and pastry mixes) and an early science fiction author, best known for the Lensman and Skylark series. He is sometimes called the father of space opera.
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August 9, 2023
I've heard people rave about how Doc Smith's work was one of the early space operas and that it influenced many later science fiction masterpieces. This may be true, but I'm thinking that just because it was influential, doesn't mean I have to like it. And I don't much.
It's been pointed out by others that this book hasn't aged well, and maybe that's my problem with it. Then again, the Hardy Boys haven't aged well, and I still (guilty pleasure alert) like some of the series. But I read those as a child, so there's a bit of nostalgia that goes with my reading of the Hardy Boys. Not so with Smith's novel, Triplanetary. I wasn't a child when Doc Smith's first works came out, so I don't have that glittering/blinding cloud of nostalgia around his work, like the one that engulfs me when I read Hardy Boys.
Maybe seeing Flash Gordon reruns at about the same time that Star Wars came out back in the '70s caused a rift in my mind, a gaping gulf between "then" and "now" (or what was "now" at the time). Pan Star Wars all you want, but the original movie is both derived from the old Flash Gordon serials and a reworking of the trappings in a beautiful and brilliant "new" (again, speaking relatively of time) packaging. I loved it, and still do. Flash Gordon is laughable, and was laughable even when I was a child. And because it's laughable, I kind of enjoy the campiness of it all. But I don't take it as seriously as it takes itself.
And maybe that's my problem. Perhaps I went into this book ready to take it seriously, hence I was seriously disappointed. I can't look back on it and glory in the unintentional silliness of it all - the chauvinism, the absolutely terrible dialogue, and the deus ex machina (and here, I mean literally "machine") that jerks the plot in unlikely directions and destroys pacing. All of this makes for an agitating read full of overstimulus, like overdosing on cocaine or deciding, against all better judgement, that you should take the plunge off the 3 story tall water slide only to find that it wasn't such a good idea just as your butt clears the drop. Smith's attempts in this vein seem like a way to buy off, rather than reward the reader for patience. And I know not everyone wrote like that back in that day and age, so don't feed me the "His writing was a product of the time" line.
The one aspect of the book that I did enjoy didn't involve the human characters at all. I actually quite liked the alien race, the Nevians. But the whole mess between Triplanetary (the human alliance) and these amphibian aliens could have been avoided, had someone just stopped for a moment and talked about the abundance of iron resources available in the asteroid belt. Why didn't anyone think of that? Can't we all just get along?!?
So I finished the book. I can honestly say that. I won't be reading any more of E.E. "Doc" Smith's work, however. I've had enough. Too much, in fact. I can only be force-fed so many unlikely twists and perfect saves before declaring: "Doc Smith is to hyperbole in science fiction what Monty Hall was to giveaways."
Still, I liked the aliens. At least they made sense. In fact, rather than destroying the galaxy, the aliens are saving a bit of the galaxy by keeping my rating of this book at two stars, rather than one.
It's been pointed out by others that this book hasn't aged well, and maybe that's my problem with it. Then again, the Hardy Boys haven't aged well, and I still (guilty pleasure alert) like some of the series. But I read those as a child, so there's a bit of nostalgia that goes with my reading of the Hardy Boys. Not so with Smith's novel, Triplanetary. I wasn't a child when Doc Smith's first works came out, so I don't have that glittering/blinding cloud of nostalgia around his work, like the one that engulfs me when I read Hardy Boys.
Maybe seeing Flash Gordon reruns at about the same time that Star Wars came out back in the '70s caused a rift in my mind, a gaping gulf between "then" and "now" (or what was "now" at the time). Pan Star Wars all you want, but the original movie is both derived from the old Flash Gordon serials and a reworking of the trappings in a beautiful and brilliant "new" (again, speaking relatively of time) packaging. I loved it, and still do. Flash Gordon is laughable, and was laughable even when I was a child. And because it's laughable, I kind of enjoy the campiness of it all. But I don't take it as seriously as it takes itself.
And maybe that's my problem. Perhaps I went into this book ready to take it seriously, hence I was seriously disappointed. I can't look back on it and glory in the unintentional silliness of it all - the chauvinism, the absolutely terrible dialogue, and the deus ex machina (and here, I mean literally "machine") that jerks the plot in unlikely directions and destroys pacing. All of this makes for an agitating read full of overstimulus, like overdosing on cocaine or deciding, against all better judgement, that you should take the plunge off the 3 story tall water slide only to find that it wasn't such a good idea just as your butt clears the drop. Smith's attempts in this vein seem like a way to buy off, rather than reward the reader for patience. And I know not everyone wrote like that back in that day and age, so don't feed me the "His writing was a product of the time" line.
The one aspect of the book that I did enjoy didn't involve the human characters at all. I actually quite liked the alien race, the Nevians. But the whole mess between Triplanetary (the human alliance) and these amphibian aliens could have been avoided, had someone just stopped for a moment and talked about the abundance of iron resources available in the asteroid belt. Why didn't anyone think of that? Can't we all just get along?!?
So I finished the book. I can honestly say that. I won't be reading any more of E.E. "Doc" Smith's work, however. I've had enough. Too much, in fact. I can only be force-fed so many unlikely twists and perfect saves before declaring: "Doc Smith is to hyperbole in science fiction what Monty Hall was to giveaways."
Still, I liked the aliens. At least they made sense. In fact, rather than destroying the galaxy, the aliens are saving a bit of the galaxy by keeping my rating of this book at two stars, rather than one.
February 12, 2017
Don't trust my rating of this book; it's part of my childhood, when I read it over and over again, and I have no way of objectively rating it.
For reasons I no longer recall, I got rid of these books at some point, probably during a house move when I was trying to de-clutter. I found all seven in the series in a second hand book shop a few years ago and, struck by nostalgia, I bought them all. Reading them again, I found that the clunky writing, the cardboard characters, the outdated social mores, the bad science - everything that should make me drop this book like a venomous snake - was just charming. I was a kid again, thrilling to the adventures of Kim Kinninson and his spaceship crew.
The golden glow of summer afternoons in the garden and dimly-lit late nights in bed (I had a thing then for dozing off while reading by candlelight - luckily no fires!) so I could get to the end of a chapter (and just one more... maybe another one), illuminates this book with fond memories. It's just not possible for me, the adult, to betray me, the child, by giving this (and the rest of the Lensman series) anything less than 5 stars. Forgive me, you more discerning readers.
For reasons I no longer recall, I got rid of these books at some point, probably during a house move when I was trying to de-clutter. I found all seven in the series in a second hand book shop a few years ago and, struck by nostalgia, I bought them all. Reading them again, I found that the clunky writing, the cardboard characters, the outdated social mores, the bad science - everything that should make me drop this book like a venomous snake - was just charming. I was a kid again, thrilling to the adventures of Kim Kinninson and his spaceship crew.
The golden glow of summer afternoons in the garden and dimly-lit late nights in bed (I had a thing then for dozing off while reading by candlelight - luckily no fires!) so I could get to the end of a chapter (and just one more... maybe another one), illuminates this book with fond memories. It's just not possible for me, the adult, to betray me, the child, by giving this (and the rest of the Lensman series) anything less than 5 stars. Forgive me, you more discerning readers.
October 4, 2023
Group Read September 2023
I have to say that it is now almost 50 years ( how can it be that long ? ) since I first read this and I have to agree with my review below. It's dated but still good fun of you like golden age space opera.
Solo Series Read 2015
I first read this book probably 40 years ago now, as a young lad. I enjoyed it then and enjoyed it again this time. Whilst it has dated a little even from the 70s if you bear that in mind it is still a far reaching and enjoyable book.
Looking forward to the rest of the series I got for my birthday. Woo hoo.
I have to say that it is now almost 50 years ( how can it be that long ? ) since I first read this and I have to agree with my review below. It's dated but still good fun of you like golden age space opera.
Solo Series Read 2015
I first read this book probably 40 years ago now, as a young lad. I enjoyed it then and enjoyed it again this time. Whilst it has dated a little even from the 70s if you bear that in mind it is still a far reaching and enjoyable book.
Looking forward to the rest of the series I got for my birthday. Woo hoo.
November 11, 2023
Super Spy Scandal! 19 yo Socialite Sparks Interstellar War! "Miss Marsden will have a lot of explaining to do when she gets back home." - Triplanetary Tattler.
Supreme Council Shocker! We Are Not Alone! "These so-called 'Arisians,' fancy themselves our equals. Of course, we will soon demonstrate our superiority." - Eddorian Bugle.
Watchman Howler! N-Dimensional Chess Game Abandoned! "Well, we were kinda left considering an infinite number of moves..." - Arisian Post
Re-reading this classic from my youth. It's been a real trip down memory lane.
Smith is great with his hooks. The first third of this book is more or less a series of snapshots to provide backstory and world building. But each chapter is its own story and often begins with an analogue of 'The siren wailed!' and then the action starts.
The danger with such a strategy is, of course, the risk of shallow characterization and I've seen some other writers draw very 2-dimensional characters surrounded by explosions and cannon fire. (... not looking in the mirror here ...) Fortunately Smith has an antidote to poorly drawn characters, and that is commitment unto death, and high purpose, every one of his Main Characters (on the Good side) have these traits.
The heroes are uniformly very brave, and driven by high ideals. For my somewhat cynical/stoic disposition this could easily be seen as naïve, however there are people in our real world that match the characterizations (e.g. Exemplars) provided by Smith. He draws these traits well enough and against such villainy that they come across as authentic and hence draw you in.
I'd forgotten just how visceral Smith's writing is. He doesn't shy away from robust descriptions of violence and horrific scenes. There are Christians burning on crosses as torture candles. There are naked dismembered human torsos hanging from trees, and battlefields composed of churned up mud and shredded human flesh and bone.
Authenticity is a key word for Smith's story telling, and for me he hits the mark with his villains. The Eddorians are the ultimate high-functioning psychopaths. Utterly selfish, ruthless, intelligent, determined, callous, and efficient. They are not evil because they are mad, sick, or have suffered a past trauma that was never resolved. They are simply the epitome of evil. Something a lot of modern writers seem to shy away from in favor of portraying evil as something else... (like madness for example ...)
I'm so pleased to see a story where the villains have not had their villainy excused with a white wash of authorial cowardice. If we are as a culture ever going to come to grips with the nature of evil we have to draw evil as it is - not as we would like it to be.
Speaking of evil, eugenics and transhumans are a key feature of the series, as humanity is being deliberately cultivated in a war against an explicitly evil foe. Compare with https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph... for notes. This is quite a deep topic that I will revisit over the course of the series.*
On a pop-culture note. The Galactic Patrol and the Lens are precursors to the whole Green Lantern concept.
The only quibble I have is the way that new generations of science and technology are mastered in hours or days struck as a tad 'inconceivable,' but the enthusiastic joy of the writing is undeniable, and does sweep you along.
Recommended. 4, 'Gosh, Go Get 'Em,' stars.
*And the time has come. Given this series was written during the 1930s-1950s we have in the last volume a set of characters (Children of the Lens) who have become living gods that transcend humanity in the same way that each of us transcend Australopithecus. For Smith, these children were an essential weapon of the Arisians vs the Eddorians, and the manipulation of humanity's evolution to produce them is simply a necessary element of the war between 'Good,' vs 'Evil.'
On a personal note, I view the idea of eugenics and 'superior stock,' with a great degree of trepidation. Such views can easily lead to the most vile of outcomes, as we have seen in the 20th century, and frankly, we may see again in the 21st.
While I valorise the story (Lensman series), I retain a large grain of salt for some of the underpinning ideas. Those are my thoughts on this topic.
Enuf said.
Supreme Council Shocker! We Are Not Alone! "These so-called 'Arisians,' fancy themselves our equals. Of course, we will soon demonstrate our superiority." - Eddorian Bugle.
Watchman Howler! N-Dimensional Chess Game Abandoned! "Well, we were kinda left considering an infinite number of moves..." - Arisian Post
Re-reading this classic from my youth. It's been a real trip down memory lane.
Smith is great with his hooks. The first third of this book is more or less a series of snapshots to provide backstory and world building. But each chapter is its own story and often begins with an analogue of 'The siren wailed!' and then the action starts.
The danger with such a strategy is, of course, the risk of shallow characterization and I've seen some other writers draw very 2-dimensional characters surrounded by explosions and cannon fire. (... not looking in the mirror here ...) Fortunately Smith has an antidote to poorly drawn characters, and that is commitment unto death, and high purpose, every one of his Main Characters (on the Good side) have these traits.
The heroes are uniformly very brave, and driven by high ideals. For my somewhat cynical/stoic disposition this could easily be seen as naïve, however there are people in our real world that match the characterizations (e.g. Exemplars) provided by Smith. He draws these traits well enough and against such villainy that they come across as authentic and hence draw you in.
I'd forgotten just how visceral Smith's writing is. He doesn't shy away from robust descriptions of violence and horrific scenes. There are Christians burning on crosses as torture candles. There are naked dismembered human torsos hanging from trees, and battlefields composed of churned up mud and shredded human flesh and bone.
Authenticity is a key word for Smith's story telling, and for me he hits the mark with his villains. The Eddorians are the ultimate high-functioning psychopaths. Utterly selfish, ruthless, intelligent, determined, callous, and efficient. They are not evil because they are mad, sick, or have suffered a past trauma that was never resolved. They are simply the epitome of evil. Something a lot of modern writers seem to shy away from in favor of portraying evil as something else... (like madness for example ...)
I'm so pleased to see a story where the villains have not had their villainy excused with a white wash of authorial cowardice. If we are as a culture ever going to come to grips with the nature of evil we have to draw evil as it is - not as we would like it to be.
Speaking of evil, eugenics and transhumans are a key feature of the series, as humanity is being deliberately cultivated in a war against an explicitly evil foe. Compare with https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph... for notes. This is quite a deep topic that I will revisit over the course of the series.*
On a pop-culture note. The Galactic Patrol and the Lens are precursors to the whole Green Lantern concept.
The only quibble I have is the way that new generations of science and technology are mastered in hours or days struck as a tad 'inconceivable,' but the enthusiastic joy of the writing is undeniable, and does sweep you along.
Recommended. 4, 'Gosh, Go Get 'Em,' stars.
*And the time has come. Given this series was written during the 1930s-1950s we have in the last volume a set of characters (Children of the Lens) who have become living gods that transcend humanity in the same way that each of us transcend Australopithecus. For Smith, these children were an essential weapon of the Arisians vs the Eddorians, and the manipulation of humanity's evolution to produce them is simply a necessary element of the war between 'Good,' vs 'Evil.'
On a personal note, I view the idea of eugenics and 'superior stock,' with a great degree of trepidation. Such views can easily lead to the most vile of outcomes, as we have seen in the 20th century, and frankly, we may see again in the 21st.
While I valorise the story (Lensman series), I retain a large grain of salt for some of the underpinning ideas. Those are my thoughts on this topic.
Enuf said.
March 4, 2024
The grand-daddy of all galactic royal rumbles!
Two civilizations, the Arisians and the Eddorians, old beyond imagining and evolved to the point where their mental skills alone command energy and forces that are unthinkable for lesser species such as humans from our beloved Earth or even the reptilian Nevians, battle for dominance of the universe. In TRIPLANETARY, Doc Smith has left no room for doubt concerning the identity of the "good guys" versus the "bad guys". The Eddorians, quintessentially and unabashedly evil, have set themselves a modest but extraordinarily clear mission - "to tear down and destroy every bulwark of what the weak and spineless adherents of Civilization consider the finest things in life - love, truth, honor, loyalty, purity, altruism, decency and so on." The Arisians, of course, represent all of those virtues which the Eddorians are so bent on removing from the Universe.
TRIPLANETARY is the grand-daddy of all space opera adventure novels - a non-stop, red hot action-oriented, plot driven space battle that is a positively orgasmic geekfest of techno-babble on steroids. One need only read a single chapter to envision the origins of the special effects in modern movie and television versions of Star Trek, Babylon 5, Andromeda or Battlestar Galactica. If you like your battles hot, your villains ugly and nasty, and your heroes manly (how could a hunk named "Conway Costigan" be anything but a two-fisted, steely-eyed man's man?), then you'll probably enjoy TRIPLANETARY!
On this basis alone, TRIPLANETARY is probably worth reading as the acknowledged progenitor of every space war novel that was ever written. One could even make a very strong case that Steven Spielberg, Gene Roddenberry and the entire world of special effects in visual media owe much to Smith's fertile imagination!
But does TRIPLANETARY deserve membership in a library of what we now call science fiction classics? I think not. There is so much wrong with TRIPLANETARY on the literary side, it's really quite difficult to know where to start.
Other than cartoonish heroic stereotypes, character development is negligible. Dialogue is stilted and the romantic interludes, in particular, are so trite as to be laughable. The raging purple prose is so positively brimful of superlatives and absolutes that one wonders how any progress was made at all, any goal achieved or any enemy defeated - barriers were impassable, obstacles were insurmountable, chances of success were only one in numberless millions, beams of destruction were relentless, forces were cataclysmic, objects were immovable, tractor beams were irresistible - well, it just got tiresome because this was the nature of the entire novel. Science, even as it was known at the time, was effectively ignored and technology in the novel crossed the line from imaginative into purely fantasy.
Recommended as a fast, enjoyable read from the standpoint of understanding the roots and growth of science fiction as a genre. But the novel has not stood the test of time and is weak gruel indeed compared to many of its contemporaries.
Paul Weiss
Two civilizations, the Arisians and the Eddorians, old beyond imagining and evolved to the point where their mental skills alone command energy and forces that are unthinkable for lesser species such as humans from our beloved Earth or even the reptilian Nevians, battle for dominance of the universe. In TRIPLANETARY, Doc Smith has left no room for doubt concerning the identity of the "good guys" versus the "bad guys". The Eddorians, quintessentially and unabashedly evil, have set themselves a modest but extraordinarily clear mission - "to tear down and destroy every bulwark of what the weak and spineless adherents of Civilization consider the finest things in life - love, truth, honor, loyalty, purity, altruism, decency and so on." The Arisians, of course, represent all of those virtues which the Eddorians are so bent on removing from the Universe.
TRIPLANETARY is the grand-daddy of all space opera adventure novels - a non-stop, red hot action-oriented, plot driven space battle that is a positively orgasmic geekfest of techno-babble on steroids. One need only read a single chapter to envision the origins of the special effects in modern movie and television versions of Star Trek, Babylon 5, Andromeda or Battlestar Galactica. If you like your battles hot, your villains ugly and nasty, and your heroes manly (how could a hunk named "Conway Costigan" be anything but a two-fisted, steely-eyed man's man?), then you'll probably enjoy TRIPLANETARY!
On this basis alone, TRIPLANETARY is probably worth reading as the acknowledged progenitor of every space war novel that was ever written. One could even make a very strong case that Steven Spielberg, Gene Roddenberry and the entire world of special effects in visual media owe much to Smith's fertile imagination!
But does TRIPLANETARY deserve membership in a library of what we now call science fiction classics? I think not. There is so much wrong with TRIPLANETARY on the literary side, it's really quite difficult to know where to start.
Other than cartoonish heroic stereotypes, character development is negligible. Dialogue is stilted and the romantic interludes, in particular, are so trite as to be laughable. The raging purple prose is so positively brimful of superlatives and absolutes that one wonders how any progress was made at all, any goal achieved or any enemy defeated - barriers were impassable, obstacles were insurmountable, chances of success were only one in numberless millions, beams of destruction were relentless, forces were cataclysmic, objects were immovable, tractor beams were irresistible - well, it just got tiresome because this was the nature of the entire novel. Science, even as it was known at the time, was effectively ignored and technology in the novel crossed the line from imaginative into purely fantasy.
Recommended as a fast, enjoyable read from the standpoint of understanding the roots and growth of science fiction as a genre. But the novel has not stood the test of time and is weak gruel indeed compared to many of its contemporaries.
Paul Weiss
February 18, 2013
Reading Bishop Barnes's rather interesting Scientific Theory and Religion earlier this evening, I was reminded of E.E. Doc Smith's dreadful space opera series. Both authors, writing in the early 30s, are extremely concerned about current theories of planetary formation; this was the period when most scientists believed that the Solar System started when another star had a near miss with our own sun, dragging matter out of it by tidal forces. I am kind of surprised that so many people took this theory seriously, since Laplace had given good reasons for doubting it over a century earlier; but there were technical problems with Laplace's theory, which meant that it was temporarily out of favor.
The "near-miss" theory turned out to be wrong in a variety of ways, but the one which most upset both Barnes and Smith was that stellar encounters would be extremely rare, so hardly any suns would end up with planets. Barnes does a mathematical analysis and concludes that a new solar system would be formed in our galaxy only about once every five hundred million years. This offends his complex religious sensibilities, and (arguably for the wrong reason), he concludes that the "near-miss" theory is incorrect.
But Smith has no time to think about the niceties of astrophysics; he's got an SF epic to write, and he needs lots of planets for his cool aliens to live on! He comes up with the ingenious idea of letting two galaxies collide with each other. If this happens, he says, you'll get plenty of near misses and an adequate supply of solar systems.
The things SF writers feel they need to explain! Later on, we get faster-than-light travel by means of the "inertialess drive", and Smith hardly even bothers to whitewash it. But somehow he was unhappy about a lack of planets. I wonder why.
The "near-miss" theory turned out to be wrong in a variety of ways, but the one which most upset both Barnes and Smith was that stellar encounters would be extremely rare, so hardly any suns would end up with planets. Barnes does a mathematical analysis and concludes that a new solar system would be formed in our galaxy only about once every five hundred million years. This offends his complex religious sensibilities, and (arguably for the wrong reason), he concludes that the "near-miss" theory is incorrect.
But Smith has no time to think about the niceties of astrophysics; he's got an SF epic to write, and he needs lots of planets for his cool aliens to live on! He comes up with the ingenious idea of letting two galaxies collide with each other. If this happens, he says, you'll get plenty of near misses and an adequate supply of solar systems.
The things SF writers feel they need to explain! Later on, we get faster-than-light travel by means of the "inertialess drive", and Smith hardly even bothers to whitewash it. But somehow he was unhappy about a lack of planets. I wonder why.
June 22, 2014
This review is of the shorter, original version, because I somehow grabbed that one instead of the other one from Project Gutenberg.
Whether or not Triplanetary is a good book depends on one’s expectations, I guess. I was expecting, due to it’s age, a pulpy adventure. That’s exactly what I got. If you are wanting something more cerebral or otherwise more suited to modern tastes, I suggest reading something else.
The characters are pretty much archetypes, but such wonderful examples of them that I found it hard to be annoyed. And Clio . . . I’ve read lots of much later sf where the female characters were more purely ornamental than her. She wasn’t quite an action hero on her own yet, but in her you see the elements that began the path to females who didn’t need a man to rescue them.
And I think I’ve got a crush on Costigan. He was so utterly heroic and devoted to Clio. I miss heroes who were just heroes. Why must they all be so tormented these days?
The plot was a little too coincidence driven, but, as I said, I was expecting pulp and that’s what I got. That said, it did stress my suspension of disbelief that everything was so quickly reverse engineered all the time. And a lot of violence could’ve been avoided had the Nevians or humans gone “Hey, can we talk?” much, much earlier, but that is acknowledged, at least.
Now, for my favorite thing about this book: The descriptions! Why, oh why, did descriptions like this go out of style?! “Above her, ruddy Mars and silvery Jupiter blazed in splendor ineffable against a background of utterly indescribable blackness--a background thickly besprinkled with dimensionless points of dazzling brilliance which were the stars.” The descriptions alone have sold me on Doc Smith’s writing style, and I’ll certainly be reading more by him just to get to experience more of it.
Personally, since I like my fiction on the pulpy side, I think this is one of the best books I’ve ever read. If you like your fiction a bit more serious, more carefully constructed and all that . . . you probably won’t like it, I’m sorry to say.
Whether or not Triplanetary is a good book depends on one’s expectations, I guess. I was expecting, due to it’s age, a pulpy adventure. That’s exactly what I got. If you are wanting something more cerebral or otherwise more suited to modern tastes, I suggest reading something else.
The characters are pretty much archetypes, but such wonderful examples of them that I found it hard to be annoyed. And Clio . . . I’ve read lots of much later sf where the female characters were more purely ornamental than her. She wasn’t quite an action hero on her own yet, but in her you see the elements that began the path to females who didn’t need a man to rescue them.
And I think I’ve got a crush on Costigan. He was so utterly heroic and devoted to Clio. I miss heroes who were just heroes. Why must they all be so tormented these days?
The plot was a little too coincidence driven, but, as I said, I was expecting pulp and that’s what I got. That said, it did stress my suspension of disbelief that everything was so quickly reverse engineered all the time. And a lot of violence could’ve been avoided had the Nevians or humans gone “Hey, can we talk?” much, much earlier, but that is acknowledged, at least.
Now, for my favorite thing about this book: The descriptions! Why, oh why, did descriptions like this go out of style?! “Above her, ruddy Mars and silvery Jupiter blazed in splendor ineffable against a background of utterly indescribable blackness--a background thickly besprinkled with dimensionless points of dazzling brilliance which were the stars.” The descriptions alone have sold me on Doc Smith’s writing style, and I’ll certainly be reading more by him just to get to experience more of it.
Personally, since I like my fiction on the pulpy side, I think this is one of the best books I’ve ever read. If you like your fiction a bit more serious, more carefully constructed and all that . . . you probably won’t like it, I’m sorry to say.
December 24, 2023
The book has a lot of action and a mythology that goes back millions of years, but it doesn't have much for characters. The characters are just names on a page instead of people to get invested in, which is how a lot of science fiction was written at the time.
It's one of those books that made me think a streamer could come along to pepper in a bunch of profanity, sprinkle in some sex and nudity, and smack out a dash of good character actors to create a really good genre cocktail from which to sip.
If the book was longer, or the mythology was more casually mentioned I might have enjoyed it more, but it was just okay. Now that the complex backstory is out of the way, though, maybe the next book will be better? Might take me a while to circle back around.
It's one of those books that made me think a streamer could come along to pepper in a bunch of profanity, sprinkle in some sex and nudity, and smack out a dash of good character actors to create a really good genre cocktail from which to sip.
If the book was longer, or the mythology was more casually mentioned I might have enjoyed it more, but it was just okay. Now that the complex backstory is out of the way, though, maybe the next book will be better? Might take me a while to circle back around.
Read
March 22, 2007I'm not terribly ashamed to admit I like Doc Smith, since I'm in good company (see Robert Heinlein's "Larger than Life"). Heinlein's apology for Smith covers most of the usual criticisms: the hackneyed dialogue, the Mauve Decade values, the liberal use of space opera stereotypes such as bug-eyed monsters (although note, please, that these hadn't been overused yet during Smith's time).
But I secretly hope that, in a different life, I too might wear the Lens....and in any case, to be a credit to the Patrol.
But I secretly hope that, in a different life, I too might wear the Lens....and in any case, to be a credit to the Patrol.
November 1, 2023
“Absolute authority will be delegated. Full responsibility will be assumed. Those who succeed will receive advancement and satisfaction of desire. Those who fail will die.”
Space Pirates! Lizard-Men! Colliding Galaxies! Faster-Than-Light Travel! Iron Pirates! Space Battles! Ray Weapons! Alien Eugenics Programs! A Guy Named Roger! And Lots and LOTS of Exclamation Points!!!!!
Welcome to the Lensman Series, a Runner-Up to Asimov's Foundation series for the Best All Time Series by Hugo voters in 1966, the inspiration for DC Comics "Green Lantern" and perhaps the birthplace of all Space Opera. Triplanetary, serialized in 1934, was not originally part of the Lensman series but was later expanded and re-written in 1948 to act as one of two prequels to the original Lensman story Galactic Patrol. Triplanetary's Book One and Book Two (the first 90 pages of the 240 page novel) are devoted to deep background on how the secretive and advanced Arisian species develop humans (called "Tellurians" in this book) as a eugenics project in preparation to fight the warlike Eddorian species. Unfortunately, these first two books are largely expository and somewhat irrelevant to this story except as deep background material that could have been more skillfully added elsewhere.
The action starts with Book Three, where space pirates led by a guy named Roger (I swear I am not making this up) attack and destroy a space ship taking our heroesHan, Luke, and Leia Conway, Bradley and Clio prisoner. This sets off a big space battle between the pirates and the Triplanetary space force (uniting Earth, Mars and Venus) but suddenly a spaceship of Iron Pirate Lizard People appears! Further discussion of the plot is pointless; just grab some popcorn and enjoy the action and space battles, including ray weapons (not called "lasers" since the term wouldn't be coined until 1959), defensive shields, faster-than-light travel, and tractor beams (an idea developed by Smith and first used in Spacehounds of IPC in 1931, believe it or not). Our heroine Clio usually only shrieks and bumbles around in her gear - par for the course with female Science-Fiction characters in the 1930s-40s - but she does jump into the action occasionally.
Sounds like fun, right? Why only two stars? Well, the pacing isn't very good; even once you get past the first two books there are lengthy boring stretches that have to be endured to get to the next action scene. Smith's turgid prose is clunky and purple-ish with corny dialogue and lengthy exposition. Too many meaningless characters clog up the works and it's not always clear which ones need to be paid attention to and which ones are just taking up space - even remembering who is who can be a challenge at times. Modern readers will likely be frustrated with this mess although those who enjoy the classics of the genre will find shining moments in the larger awkward morass.
'Of course,' she said again, as steadily, thrilled this time to the depths of her being by the sheer manhood of him who had thus simply voiced his Code; a man of such fiber that neither love of life nor his infinitely greater love for her could make him lower its high standard.
NOTE: a good reading soundtrack that would capture the overall vibe of the material would include "Feel Your Pulse (Mind Vortex Remix) by Camo & Krooked, "When Worlds Collide" by Powerman 5000, and "More Human Than Human" by White Zombie.
Space Pirates! Lizard-Men! Colliding Galaxies! Faster-Than-Light Travel! Iron Pirates! Space Battles! Ray Weapons! Alien Eugenics Programs! A Guy Named Roger! And Lots and LOTS of Exclamation Points!!!!!
Welcome to the Lensman Series, a Runner-Up to Asimov's Foundation series for the Best All Time Series by Hugo voters in 1966, the inspiration for DC Comics "Green Lantern" and perhaps the birthplace of all Space Opera. Triplanetary, serialized in 1934, was not originally part of the Lensman series but was later expanded and re-written in 1948 to act as one of two prequels to the original Lensman story Galactic Patrol. Triplanetary's Book One and Book Two (the first 90 pages of the 240 page novel) are devoted to deep background on how the secretive and advanced Arisian species develop humans (called "Tellurians" in this book) as a eugenics project in preparation to fight the warlike Eddorian species. Unfortunately, these first two books are largely expository and somewhat irrelevant to this story except as deep background material that could have been more skillfully added elsewhere.
The action starts with Book Three, where space pirates led by a guy named Roger (I swear I am not making this up) attack and destroy a space ship taking our heroes
Sounds like fun, right? Why only two stars? Well, the pacing isn't very good; even once you get past the first two books there are lengthy boring stretches that have to be endured to get to the next action scene. Smith's turgid prose is clunky and purple-ish with corny dialogue and lengthy exposition. Too many meaningless characters clog up the works and it's not always clear which ones need to be paid attention to and which ones are just taking up space - even remembering who is who can be a challenge at times. Modern readers will likely be frustrated with this mess although those who enjoy the classics of the genre will find shining moments in the larger awkward morass.
'Of course,' she said again, as steadily, thrilled this time to the depths of her being by the sheer manhood of him who had thus simply voiced his Code; a man of such fiber that neither love of life nor his infinitely greater love for her could make him lower its high standard.
NOTE: a good reading soundtrack that would capture the overall vibe of the material would include "Feel Your Pulse (Mind Vortex Remix) by Camo & Krooked, "When Worlds Collide" by Powerman 5000, and "More Human Than Human" by White Zombie.
September 12, 2020
I really started something when I picked up this book. We were in NYC. It was 3 weeks after our wedding. I found The Lensmen series at one of those New York bookstores you go to just so you can say you have been there and I bought the first three books in the series.
I read a lot of these old pulp science fiction series back in high school, Doc Savage being my favorite. My new husband was a fantasy fan, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Zelazny's Amber books. I had no idea he was going to latch onto these books and the next TWENTY-EIGHT years of my life were going to be a Kim Kinnison festival.
Yes, we both were hooked, launched into Doc Smith's larger than life struggle between good and evil on a galactic level.
For years no family trip was complete without hunting for a second hand bookstore in hopes of snagging a copy of one of the books we hadn't read yet.
Eventually, my interest flagged. My beloved's didn't. I paid him back by adding the search for the elusive yarn store in the woods that turns out to have closed three years ago to the eternal vacation waste of time.
Then the internet happened.
We had kids. We made them watch the animated Lensmen series. It was horrible, btw. But, hey, it made up for all those trips tracking down "Dragonball Z" voice actors for autographs.
So, a warning: I'm not sure "Triplanitary" will affect your life as strongly as it did mine, but I would think carefully before attempting reading it.
I read a lot of these old pulp science fiction series back in high school, Doc Savage being my favorite. My new husband was a fantasy fan, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Zelazny's Amber books. I had no idea he was going to latch onto these books and the next TWENTY-EIGHT years of my life were going to be a Kim Kinnison festival.
Yes, we both were hooked, launched into Doc Smith's larger than life struggle between good and evil on a galactic level.
For years no family trip was complete without hunting for a second hand bookstore in hopes of snagging a copy of one of the books we hadn't read yet.
Eventually, my interest flagged. My beloved's didn't. I paid him back by adding the search for the elusive yarn store in the woods that turns out to have closed three years ago to the eternal vacation waste of time.
Then the internet happened.
We had kids. We made them watch the animated Lensmen series. It was horrible, btw. But, hey, it made up for all those trips tracking down "Dragonball Z" voice actors for autographs.
So, a warning: I'm not sure "Triplanitary" will affect your life as strongly as it did mine, but I would think carefully before attempting reading it.
July 2, 2019
I'm giving this 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 stars... will write my review in a bit once it has all sunk in. Right now I am of two minds on this book.
February 4, 2019
In its article on the subject of "Space Opera," my beloved "Science Fiction Encyclopedia" describes the genre thus: "…loosely applicable to any space adventure story, but particularly to those in which the scale of the action is extravagant...." It is as good a working definition as any, but had the authors of this scholarly tome wished to do so, they might just as easily have explained the term by showing pictures of the six book covers of E.E. "Doc" Smith's famed Lensman series. Written over the 16-year period 1934 – 1950, it is the crowning creation of the man who has been called "The Father of Space Opera," and a series that has been embraced by generations of readers. The six books that comprise the Lensman series have been sitting unread on my bookshelf for many years now, intimidating me by dint of their supposed epic scope and monumentally detailed story line. But seeing as I have been on something of a sci-fi Golden Age kick as of late, I figured that it was high time to pull up my space boots and plunge manfully into this crown jewel of the era, and you know what? I just loved the series' opening salvo, "Triplanetary," to bits!
This first entry of the legendary series has a somewhat complicated publishing history. By the time it first appeared in book form in 1948, Books 3 through 6 of the series had already appeared serially in the pages of John W. Campbell's "Astounding" magazine. The book's second section, itself entitled "Triplanetary," had appeared as early as 1934 in Hugo Gernsback's "Amazing Stories" (the first magazine dedicated solely to science fiction), and had nothing to do with the future Lensman series whatsoever. Feeling that his four-part series needed a backstory of sorts, Smith rewrote "Triplanetary" to fit it into the grand scheme, prefacing and expanding it with around 100 pages of even more explanatory material. Thus, "Triplanetary" the novel and its sequel, "First Lensman" (1950), would eventually comprise what is, in essence, a 500-page backstory transpiring before the main events in Book 3 even begin. And yes, it is a sign of the grandioseness of Smith's vision that his saga requires so many pages of detailed prequel action before the central story actually commences. And yet, it is a prologue containing so much in the way of story, spectacle, action and adventure that even standing on it own, it would, I feel, be quite a feather in "Doc" Smith's cap. This series, of course, was not the first far-flung space opera that the Sheboygan-born, one-time food chemist (a specialist in pastry and doughnut mixes!) had delivered to the world--that would be his famed Skylark series of 1928 – 1935--but it is the one that supposedly proved so very mind-blowing to readers back when, each succeeding book (as I've heard) expanding the scope of what had preceded it.
As I mentioned, the story line here is a bit intimidating, but I will endeavor to synopsize it for you. Two billion years ago, it seems, our galaxy and another had interpenetrated, each one only containing one form of sentient life. From our galaxy had sprung the Arisians, whose Earth-like world gave birth to a people of farseeing intellect and a philanthropic bent. From the other galaxy had sprung the creatures of Eddore, sexless, amoebalike, form-shifting monstrosities of equally great intellect, but "intolerant, domineering, rapacious, insatiable, cold, callous, and brutal." The Arisians predict that the creatures of Eddore will one day manage to conquer the nascent worlds of both galaxies unless something drastic is done, and so prepare a long-range plan, one requiring many millions of years. Their plan entails subtly steering the histories of several key worlds, while at the same time permitting the Eddorians (who are unaware of the Arisians' existence) many victories, all in an effort to strengthen Civilization, allow for the formation of a "Galactic Patrol," and lead to bloodlines that will result in a chosen few who will be able to wield a weapon only referred to here as the Lens.
Thus, in the book's first section, we see how the plan of the nearly immortal Arisians begins to play out, while Gharlane, one of the highest-ranking of the equally long-lived Eddorians, does everything it can to destroy and tear down. We are privy to the fall of Atlantis, a nuclear power that was annihilated by a war secretly provoked by Eddore. We witness a failed gladiator revolt against the Emperor Nero, who, we later learn, was actually Gharlane itself! We then jump to furious action in the fields of WW1, where Captain Ralph Kinnison (a forefather of the Kinnison clan that will figure so largely in all the later books) is sorely injured during a heroic mission. Then, it's on to WW2, where Ralph encounters major obstacles while working as an inspector in a munitions plant. (Smith himself had run into the same exact difficulties during his own WW2 service.) And finally, it's on to WW3, in which another Kinnison, Ted, is killed in his fighter rocket while attempting to knock down incoming, transpolar A bombs. It is to be inferred that every setback, in every age, has been the result of the machinations of Eddore, while the omniscient Watchmen of Arisia give up these pawns for the good of the larger game.
But it is only in the book's second, "Triplanetary" section that things really start to take off. "Triplanetary" is somewhat tripartite in nature, offering up three distinct story lines that come together wondrously. In the first, which takes place long after the atomic destruction of WW3, Conway Costigan, an agent of the Triplanetary Patrol, is kidnapped, along with the beautiful, 19-year-old Clio Marsden and Captain Bradley, from their interplanetary space liner, the Hyperion, by a gang of pirates. These pirates are led by a man with the wholly imposing name of, uh, Roger, and brought to the pirates' lair, an artificial planetoid in deep space. Oh...did I fail to mention that Roger is actually Gharlane itself, still up to its dastardly business, now many thousands of years after Atlantis' fall? In a second story line, the amphibianlike denizens of the planet Nevia, searching the galaxy for the iron that is so scarce on their home world, attack the pirates' stronghold and later take Costigan, Clio and Bradley back to Nevia as prisoners. And in the third and parallel story line, Virgil Samms, the Nick Fury-like head of the Triplanetary Patrol, from his base protected by force screens deep in the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho/Montana, pushes to have his organization build the Earth's first faster-than-light starship. He is aided in this task by Lyman Cleveland, an ace at ultrawave communication, radar and the like, and Fred Rodebush, a nuclear physicist. Their new supership, the Boise, will not only feature an "inertialess" drive system, but will be able to withstand the crimson rays that the Nevians use to instantly convert iron to an "allotropic," liquid state, and enough firepower--"torpedoes...canisters of penetrating gas...atomic bombs...armor-piercing projectiles...shattering flasks containing 'the quintessence of corrosion'"--to take on the fish/lizard people. And this task cannot be finished quickly enough, as another Nevian ship soon appears in the sky over Pittsburgh, and commences to turn that most ferrous of metropolises into an allotropic mess, ready for storage in the Nevian starship's hold....
Into his first Lensman novel, which again is in essence 250 of 500 pages of prequel backstory, Smith pours enough action and spectacle to fill a half dozen regular sci-fi tales. Highlights include the travails of a male-and-female secret agent team engaging in breakneck danger to avert a nuclear disaster in Atlantis (unsuccessfully, of course); extremely violent WW1 warfare; Costigan & Co.'s escape from Roger's planetoid and, later, the Nevian home world; and any number of battles, both in outer space and over the skies of Earth and Nevia, employing colossal ships and the technologies of superscience. Thus, a three-way battle between Roger's planetoid, the Nevians and the Triplanetary forces; a battle between the amphibian Nevians and the deeper-sea fish folk; the battle between the Boise and the Nevians over Pittsburgh; and the final battles royale between the Boise and Roger's second planetoid and the Boise and the Nevian planet itself, culminating in a destructive climax perhaps partly inspired by the atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki a few years earlier. It is all thrilling, awe-inspiring stuff, finely depicted by Smith, who easily engenders that elusive "sense of wonder" so highly prized by pulp readers back when.
And the author also peppers his story with any number of pleasing grace notes and imaginative tidbits. I just love when Roger and his pirates touch down on an uncharted planet to effect some repairs, and encounter ravening flora and the bloblike residents of that world. The romance between Costigan and Clio is a touching one, too, their love scenes being written in swooning language to make the ladies sigh; and yet, the author is still capable of delivering a romance line guaranteed to make the reader snicker, such as Costigan's "If we ever get out of this jam I'm going to kiss you, but this is no time to be taking off your helmet...." Curiously enough, most of the starships depicted in Smith's story, whether Terran or those built by Gharlane the Eddorian, are globular in shape; apparently, Smith could not conceive of a spacefaring vessel that looks anything like "Star Trek"'s Enterprise. (The Nevian ships, oddly enough, ARE fish shaped.) But speaking of "Star Trek," "Triplanetary" also gives us ships that are protected by defensive force shields, and that are capable of holding on to other ships using their "tractor beams." I'm not sure if these were the first ships in science fiction to be so equipped, but they still predated the Enterprise by many decades.
By the conclusion of "Triplanetary," the Eddorians have finally, after 2 billion years, become aware of the Arisians' existence, and have decided to intensify their efforts to destroy "what the weak and spineless adherents of Civilization consider the finest things in life -- love, truth, honor, loyalty, purity, altruism, decency, and so on,” using as their weapons "vice...drugs...greed...gambling...extortion...blackmail...lust...abduction...assassination...ah-h-h!" The ages-old rivalry between the two superraces has finally become an open one, leaving the reader breathlessly wondering what could possibly happen next. I guess that I'm just going to have to proceed on to Book 2 now, "First Lensman," to find out....
(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at http://www.fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most ideal destination for all fans of E. E. "Doc" Smith....)
This first entry of the legendary series has a somewhat complicated publishing history. By the time it first appeared in book form in 1948, Books 3 through 6 of the series had already appeared serially in the pages of John W. Campbell's "Astounding" magazine. The book's second section, itself entitled "Triplanetary," had appeared as early as 1934 in Hugo Gernsback's "Amazing Stories" (the first magazine dedicated solely to science fiction), and had nothing to do with the future Lensman series whatsoever. Feeling that his four-part series needed a backstory of sorts, Smith rewrote "Triplanetary" to fit it into the grand scheme, prefacing and expanding it with around 100 pages of even more explanatory material. Thus, "Triplanetary" the novel and its sequel, "First Lensman" (1950), would eventually comprise what is, in essence, a 500-page backstory transpiring before the main events in Book 3 even begin. And yes, it is a sign of the grandioseness of Smith's vision that his saga requires so many pages of detailed prequel action before the central story actually commences. And yet, it is a prologue containing so much in the way of story, spectacle, action and adventure that even standing on it own, it would, I feel, be quite a feather in "Doc" Smith's cap. This series, of course, was not the first far-flung space opera that the Sheboygan-born, one-time food chemist (a specialist in pastry and doughnut mixes!) had delivered to the world--that would be his famed Skylark series of 1928 – 1935--but it is the one that supposedly proved so very mind-blowing to readers back when, each succeeding book (as I've heard) expanding the scope of what had preceded it.
As I mentioned, the story line here is a bit intimidating, but I will endeavor to synopsize it for you. Two billion years ago, it seems, our galaxy and another had interpenetrated, each one only containing one form of sentient life. From our galaxy had sprung the Arisians, whose Earth-like world gave birth to a people of farseeing intellect and a philanthropic bent. From the other galaxy had sprung the creatures of Eddore, sexless, amoebalike, form-shifting monstrosities of equally great intellect, but "intolerant, domineering, rapacious, insatiable, cold, callous, and brutal." The Arisians predict that the creatures of Eddore will one day manage to conquer the nascent worlds of both galaxies unless something drastic is done, and so prepare a long-range plan, one requiring many millions of years. Their plan entails subtly steering the histories of several key worlds, while at the same time permitting the Eddorians (who are unaware of the Arisians' existence) many victories, all in an effort to strengthen Civilization, allow for the formation of a "Galactic Patrol," and lead to bloodlines that will result in a chosen few who will be able to wield a weapon only referred to here as the Lens.
Thus, in the book's first section, we see how the plan of the nearly immortal Arisians begins to play out, while Gharlane, one of the highest-ranking of the equally long-lived Eddorians, does everything it can to destroy and tear down. We are privy to the fall of Atlantis, a nuclear power that was annihilated by a war secretly provoked by Eddore. We witness a failed gladiator revolt against the Emperor Nero, who, we later learn, was actually Gharlane itself! We then jump to furious action in the fields of WW1, where Captain Ralph Kinnison (a forefather of the Kinnison clan that will figure so largely in all the later books) is sorely injured during a heroic mission. Then, it's on to WW2, where Ralph encounters major obstacles while working as an inspector in a munitions plant. (Smith himself had run into the same exact difficulties during his own WW2 service.) And finally, it's on to WW3, in which another Kinnison, Ted, is killed in his fighter rocket while attempting to knock down incoming, transpolar A bombs. It is to be inferred that every setback, in every age, has been the result of the machinations of Eddore, while the omniscient Watchmen of Arisia give up these pawns for the good of the larger game.
But it is only in the book's second, "Triplanetary" section that things really start to take off. "Triplanetary" is somewhat tripartite in nature, offering up three distinct story lines that come together wondrously. In the first, which takes place long after the atomic destruction of WW3, Conway Costigan, an agent of the Triplanetary Patrol, is kidnapped, along with the beautiful, 19-year-old Clio Marsden and Captain Bradley, from their interplanetary space liner, the Hyperion, by a gang of pirates. These pirates are led by a man with the wholly imposing name of, uh, Roger, and brought to the pirates' lair, an artificial planetoid in deep space. Oh...did I fail to mention that Roger is actually Gharlane itself, still up to its dastardly business, now many thousands of years after Atlantis' fall? In a second story line, the amphibianlike denizens of the planet Nevia, searching the galaxy for the iron that is so scarce on their home world, attack the pirates' stronghold and later take Costigan, Clio and Bradley back to Nevia as prisoners. And in the third and parallel story line, Virgil Samms, the Nick Fury-like head of the Triplanetary Patrol, from his base protected by force screens deep in the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho/Montana, pushes to have his organization build the Earth's first faster-than-light starship. He is aided in this task by Lyman Cleveland, an ace at ultrawave communication, radar and the like, and Fred Rodebush, a nuclear physicist. Their new supership, the Boise, will not only feature an "inertialess" drive system, but will be able to withstand the crimson rays that the Nevians use to instantly convert iron to an "allotropic," liquid state, and enough firepower--"torpedoes...canisters of penetrating gas...atomic bombs...armor-piercing projectiles...shattering flasks containing 'the quintessence of corrosion'"--to take on the fish/lizard people. And this task cannot be finished quickly enough, as another Nevian ship soon appears in the sky over Pittsburgh, and commences to turn that most ferrous of metropolises into an allotropic mess, ready for storage in the Nevian starship's hold....
Into his first Lensman novel, which again is in essence 250 of 500 pages of prequel backstory, Smith pours enough action and spectacle to fill a half dozen regular sci-fi tales. Highlights include the travails of a male-and-female secret agent team engaging in breakneck danger to avert a nuclear disaster in Atlantis (unsuccessfully, of course); extremely violent WW1 warfare; Costigan & Co.'s escape from Roger's planetoid and, later, the Nevian home world; and any number of battles, both in outer space and over the skies of Earth and Nevia, employing colossal ships and the technologies of superscience. Thus, a three-way battle between Roger's planetoid, the Nevians and the Triplanetary forces; a battle between the amphibian Nevians and the deeper-sea fish folk; the battle between the Boise and the Nevians over Pittsburgh; and the final battles royale between the Boise and Roger's second planetoid and the Boise and the Nevian planet itself, culminating in a destructive climax perhaps partly inspired by the atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki a few years earlier. It is all thrilling, awe-inspiring stuff, finely depicted by Smith, who easily engenders that elusive "sense of wonder" so highly prized by pulp readers back when.
And the author also peppers his story with any number of pleasing grace notes and imaginative tidbits. I just love when Roger and his pirates touch down on an uncharted planet to effect some repairs, and encounter ravening flora and the bloblike residents of that world. The romance between Costigan and Clio is a touching one, too, their love scenes being written in swooning language to make the ladies sigh; and yet, the author is still capable of delivering a romance line guaranteed to make the reader snicker, such as Costigan's "If we ever get out of this jam I'm going to kiss you, but this is no time to be taking off your helmet...." Curiously enough, most of the starships depicted in Smith's story, whether Terran or those built by Gharlane the Eddorian, are globular in shape; apparently, Smith could not conceive of a spacefaring vessel that looks anything like "Star Trek"'s Enterprise. (The Nevian ships, oddly enough, ARE fish shaped.) But speaking of "Star Trek," "Triplanetary" also gives us ships that are protected by defensive force shields, and that are capable of holding on to other ships using their "tractor beams." I'm not sure if these were the first ships in science fiction to be so equipped, but they still predated the Enterprise by many decades.
By the conclusion of "Triplanetary," the Eddorians have finally, after 2 billion years, become aware of the Arisians' existence, and have decided to intensify their efforts to destroy "what the weak and spineless adherents of Civilization consider the finest things in life -- love, truth, honor, loyalty, purity, altruism, decency, and so on,” using as their weapons "vice...drugs...greed...gambling...extortion...blackmail...lust...abduction...assassination...ah-h-h!" The ages-old rivalry between the two superraces has finally become an open one, leaving the reader breathlessly wondering what could possibly happen next. I guess that I'm just going to have to proceed on to Book 2 now, "First Lensman," to find out....
(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at http://www.fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most ideal destination for all fans of E. E. "Doc" Smith....)
February 7, 2011
I only heard of the Lensman series recently. In his introduction to the copy of Foundation that I just read, Isaac Asimov said he was surprised when his series won the Hugo Award for best series of all time in 1966, because he was sure J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings would win. (This didn't make sense to me, since Tolkien's work isn't sci-fi, it's fantasy, but whatever.) The other series that were up for consideration were Robert A. Heinlein's "future history" series, Edgar Rice Burroughs's "Barsoom" series, and E.E. "Doc" Smith's "Lensman" series.
So when I found a pile of the Lensman books sitting on top of someone's trash while I was out walking the dog, it made sense to grab them.
I felt adrift in this narrative for the first 90 pages. I'm not sure how this novel was constructed, but it feels piecemeal. Triplanetary was published in 1948, with revisions by Smith to make it a prequel to the Lensman series, but was originally serialized in Amazing Stories magazine in 1934.
The first section of the book gives an overview of the Arisians and Eddorians, two alien super races who are good and evil, respectively. The Wikipedia entry for this book currently says that the Arisians resemble giant human brains, but Smith clearly writes that they are "distinctly humanoid," so maybe that changed over time. The Eddorians are nebulous, shifting creatures, and can assume a variety of human forms.
Gharlane of Eddore occupies several nasty humans, including Nero (Wikipedia claims he is Hitler during the section of the narrative that takes place during World War II, but Hitler is never mentioned in Triplanetary).
The reason I felt adrift is because the short sections that take place during the fall of Atlantis, the fall of Rome, the Great War, the Second World War, and World War III aren't really connected in any way. Most confusingly, the Atlanteans possess futuristic technology, such as planes and jeeps. The next bit, in Rome, however, is a straightforward story of gladiatorial combat and a slave revolt.
It wasn't until the meat of the narrative -- the long story called "Triplanetary" -- that I settled in and enjoyed this book in any way.
Smith's prose is clunky, but it's vigorous and exciting enough once the reader finds its rhythm. It's also fun to read such an old science fiction book that contains so many elements that would become standard in space opera; tractor beams, view screens (here called "plates"), force fields (here called "screens"), faster-than-light space travel (here called "inertialess flight"), beam weapons (here called "projectors"), and even a metal planetoid filled with automatons led by a single evil figure (sound familiar, Star Wars fans?).
The science and technology are pretty interesting, too, since they're products of their time. For instance, spaceships in Doc Smith's world run on allotropic iron.
All the elements of Triplanetary that related to the larger series, such as Arisia and Eddore, felt tacked-on, and left me confused. After finishing this book, I still don't know what a "lens" is in Doc Smith's world, or how one might wield it.
I plan to read more of the series, not least because I have the whole stack sitting on my shelf at home, but I didn't feel as if this was a great introduction. Many "prequels" aren't. But if the next couple of books in the series are this slapdash and vague about the big picture, I can't see making it through the entire thing.
So when I found a pile of the Lensman books sitting on top of someone's trash while I was out walking the dog, it made sense to grab them.
I felt adrift in this narrative for the first 90 pages. I'm not sure how this novel was constructed, but it feels piecemeal. Triplanetary was published in 1948, with revisions by Smith to make it a prequel to the Lensman series, but was originally serialized in Amazing Stories magazine in 1934.
The first section of the book gives an overview of the Arisians and Eddorians, two alien super races who are good and evil, respectively. The Wikipedia entry for this book currently says that the Arisians resemble giant human brains, but Smith clearly writes that they are "distinctly humanoid," so maybe that changed over time. The Eddorians are nebulous, shifting creatures, and can assume a variety of human forms.
Gharlane of Eddore occupies several nasty humans, including Nero (Wikipedia claims he is Hitler during the section of the narrative that takes place during World War II, but Hitler is never mentioned in Triplanetary).
The reason I felt adrift is because the short sections that take place during the fall of Atlantis, the fall of Rome, the Great War, the Second World War, and World War III aren't really connected in any way. Most confusingly, the Atlanteans possess futuristic technology, such as planes and jeeps. The next bit, in Rome, however, is a straightforward story of gladiatorial combat and a slave revolt.
It wasn't until the meat of the narrative -- the long story called "Triplanetary" -- that I settled in and enjoyed this book in any way.
Smith's prose is clunky, but it's vigorous and exciting enough once the reader finds its rhythm. It's also fun to read such an old science fiction book that contains so many elements that would become standard in space opera; tractor beams, view screens (here called "plates"), force fields (here called "screens"), faster-than-light space travel (here called "inertialess flight"), beam weapons (here called "projectors"), and even a metal planetoid filled with automatons led by a single evil figure (sound familiar, Star Wars fans?).
The science and technology are pretty interesting, too, since they're products of their time. For instance, spaceships in Doc Smith's world run on allotropic iron.
All the elements of Triplanetary that related to the larger series, such as Arisia and Eddore, felt tacked-on, and left me confused. After finishing this book, I still don't know what a "lens" is in Doc Smith's world, or how one might wield it.
I plan to read more of the series, not least because I have the whole stack sitting on my shelf at home, but I didn't feel as if this was a great introduction. Many "prequels" aren't. But if the next couple of books in the series are this slapdash and vague about the big picture, I can't see making it through the entire thing.
October 21, 2023
This is a classic space opera from the 1930s, which clearly shows why ‘true literature’ was assumed way above SF, this pulp for teenage boys and engineers. I read it as a part of the monthly reading for October 2023 at The Evolution of Science Fiction group.
Before starting the review, I should note that there are two versions of this book. The one I’ve read contains two short parts – one about two great forces that fight on how the galaxy should evolve and another gives several short stories throughout history (both ‘real’ as Imperial Rome under Nero and fictional – from Atlantis to WW3). Then, there is the third ‘main’ part, which in some editions is the only one.
The main part starts with interplanetary commerce between Earth, Mars and Jupiter facing piracy led by Gray Roger, who is actually one of the mysterious bad buys, Eddorians. He is a classic villain, even with a monologue that opens his plans, variants of which as a parody I met in a lot of modern SFF, but here it is in its original seriousness. He captures our brave heroes (two guys and a gal), but of course not for long. As if this wasn’t enough, during a massive battle between the pirate fleet and the Triplanetary Patrol, the Nevians, an amphibious alien race, arrive. They use a ray to extract iron, killing nearly everyone. Overall, killing in this book is so easy, that no one ever stops to question it.
Reading this book was an interesting experience – its prose style is wooden, the characters are two-dimensional, and great discoveries are made on the fly… but it has some redeeming factors like aliens, who aren’t just green men, and a lot of action I’d probably enjoyed as a teen.
Before starting the review, I should note that there are two versions of this book. The one I’ve read contains two short parts – one about two great forces that fight on how the galaxy should evolve and another gives several short stories throughout history (both ‘real’ as Imperial Rome under Nero and fictional – from Atlantis to WW3). Then, there is the third ‘main’ part, which in some editions is the only one.
The main part starts with interplanetary commerce between Earth, Mars and Jupiter facing piracy led by Gray Roger, who is actually one of the mysterious bad buys, Eddorians. He is a classic villain, even with a monologue that opens his plans, variants of which as a parody I met in a lot of modern SFF, but here it is in its original seriousness. He captures our brave heroes (two guys and a gal), but of course not for long. As if this wasn’t enough, during a massive battle between the pirate fleet and the Triplanetary Patrol, the Nevians, an amphibious alien race, arrive. They use a ray to extract iron, killing nearly everyone. Overall, killing in this book is so easy, that no one ever stops to question it.
Reading this book was an interesting experience – its prose style is wooden, the characters are two-dimensional, and great discoveries are made on the fly… but it has some redeeming factors like aliens, who aren’t just green men, and a lot of action I’d probably enjoyed as a teen.
January 18, 2011
I have to give the Lensman books at least four stars for their nostalgia value, and that they began me on a life of love for science fiction. I'll have read them first in my very early teens, probably around the time of the original Star Wars trilogy, on which they are no doubt a huge influence. I think these are probably the finest of 'Doc' Smith's ripping space adventures - powered by derring do and the fight for justice, with square jawed heroes and their beautiful women, a World's Fair-type optimism of technology and a complete lack of regard for the laws of physics.
The good guys practically wear white hats, perfect physical and mental specimens that could adorn a recruitment poster for the US Army or the Wehrmacht. The women are strong and intelligent, too - strong enough to tell the men off for being overly macho (with a glint in their eyes that says how much they love it really) and smart enough to know that they should let the menfolk go off to do their duty while they stay behind to make sure the home is looked after.
Smith told the stories with a vibrancy that left the reader breathless at the adventure and heroism, with enough scientific gobbledygook to instill a sense of wonder - silvery teardrop shaped spacecraft powered by and 'intertia-less' drive that could fling them out of the solar system in a matter of seconds, ray guns that dealt death to the bad guys (but only after refusing the chance to change their ways, of course) and the mighty Lenses - weapon, communication device and symbol of the Galactic Patrol's righteous power, handed to humanity by the ancient peace-loving alien civilisation the Arisians to fight the evil Eddorians.
I've been meaning to re-read them all for some time, but perhaps they should be left in the past, infused with the fond glow of childhood discovery, remnant of a mythical time without cynicism and postmodernism, when we could ignore the complexities of the real world and pretend that all problems could be solved if people would just accept that granite jawed white men were always right. So I'll just remember watching a couple of episodes of Flash Gordon on Saturday morning TV (with Larry 'Buster' Crabbe, of course), maybe see Errol Flynn best the Sheriff of Nottingham, then ride my bike to the top of the hill and sit reading about the noble Lensmen.
The good guys practically wear white hats, perfect physical and mental specimens that could adorn a recruitment poster for the US Army or the Wehrmacht. The women are strong and intelligent, too - strong enough to tell the men off for being overly macho (with a glint in their eyes that says how much they love it really) and smart enough to know that they should let the menfolk go off to do their duty while they stay behind to make sure the home is looked after.
Smith told the stories with a vibrancy that left the reader breathless at the adventure and heroism, with enough scientific gobbledygook to instill a sense of wonder - silvery teardrop shaped spacecraft powered by and 'intertia-less' drive that could fling them out of the solar system in a matter of seconds, ray guns that dealt death to the bad guys (but only after refusing the chance to change their ways, of course) and the mighty Lenses - weapon, communication device and symbol of the Galactic Patrol's righteous power, handed to humanity by the ancient peace-loving alien civilisation the Arisians to fight the evil Eddorians.
I've been meaning to re-read them all for some time, but perhaps they should be left in the past, infused with the fond glow of childhood discovery, remnant of a mythical time without cynicism and postmodernism, when we could ignore the complexities of the real world and pretend that all problems could be solved if people would just accept that granite jawed white men were always right. So I'll just remember watching a couple of episodes of Flash Gordon on Saturday morning TV (with Larry 'Buster' Crabbe, of course), maybe see Errol Flynn best the Sheriff of Nottingham, then ride my bike to the top of the hill and sit reading about the noble Lensmen.
August 2, 2009
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.
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.
March 5, 2017
3.5 stars - Metaphorosis Reviews
In a collision of galaxies, two powerful races begin eons-long opposition, played out through manipulation of lesser races, including humans. Much later, the Triplanetary government of Earth, Mars, and Venus, deploys its immense fleet against pirates, but is devastated by a number of mysterious and unexpected opponents.
E. E. Smith's Lensman series, which begins here, is a classic of pulp science fiction. It's one I grew up with, several decades after its first appearance. It's a great, fun series, but only if taken in the context of its time - the leadup to World War II, and a time with very different values than we enjoy today. The women are smart, plucky, and essentially decorative. The men are strong, brilliant, and brave. Most moral decisions are clearcut, and when they aren't, the way forward is nonetheless obvious. Government is good and always acting for the best.
The two powerful races that start the story (in epically dense prose), the Eddoreans and the Arisians, encapsulate the ethos perfectly. The Eddoreans are selfish, arrogant, greedy - the epitome of everything cruel and evil. The Arisians are wise, generous, kind - they can do no wrong, even as they see their own shortcomings and plan for a stronger successor. That's pretty much the style of the series, and certainly of this first book (retrofitted to the series when novelized) - you'll never be in much doubt as to whom to root for. There's an attractive simplicity to that. In a time when we are blessed with SFF characters who travel in shades of grey, it can be relaxing to return to a series where good is good, and that's all there is to it.
The sexism in the series is a pervasive product of its time. It's not as easy to settle into that aspect of the book, but give Smith the benefit of his time, and focus more on the plot action, and you'll get past it. The characters here aren't deep - they're staunch and loyal, and they always do the right thing. It's the tractor beams and blaster fire that are important.
I'd forgotten just how rapidly the technology develops here. I could have sworn that shears and pressors and the inertialess drive took much longer to emerge, but they all come in right in this first book, seemingly developed over a matter of weeks by geniuses who need only one look at an enemy's polycyclic shield to immediately understand both its foundational principles, and the technology needed to go it one better.
Again, though, the Lensman series is not about credibility. It's about good beating evil. That was something people needed to hear in the middle of the last century. It's something we can stand to dream about again now. If you haven't read this series, you should. It's Science Fiction 101, and if you read it as a creature of its time, it's a lot of fun.
In a collision of galaxies, two powerful races begin eons-long opposition, played out through manipulation of lesser races, including humans. Much later, the Triplanetary government of Earth, Mars, and Venus, deploys its immense fleet against pirates, but is devastated by a number of mysterious and unexpected opponents.
E. E. Smith's Lensman series, which begins here, is a classic of pulp science fiction. It's one I grew up with, several decades after its first appearance. It's a great, fun series, but only if taken in the context of its time - the leadup to World War II, and a time with very different values than we enjoy today. The women are smart, plucky, and essentially decorative. The men are strong, brilliant, and brave. Most moral decisions are clearcut, and when they aren't, the way forward is nonetheless obvious. Government is good and always acting for the best.
The two powerful races that start the story (in epically dense prose), the Eddoreans and the Arisians, encapsulate the ethos perfectly. The Eddoreans are selfish, arrogant, greedy - the epitome of everything cruel and evil. The Arisians are wise, generous, kind - they can do no wrong, even as they see their own shortcomings and plan for a stronger successor. That's pretty much the style of the series, and certainly of this first book (retrofitted to the series when novelized) - you'll never be in much doubt as to whom to root for. There's an attractive simplicity to that. In a time when we are blessed with SFF characters who travel in shades of grey, it can be relaxing to return to a series where good is good, and that's all there is to it.
The sexism in the series is a pervasive product of its time. It's not as easy to settle into that aspect of the book, but give Smith the benefit of his time, and focus more on the plot action, and you'll get past it. The characters here aren't deep - they're staunch and loyal, and they always do the right thing. It's the tractor beams and blaster fire that are important.
I'd forgotten just how rapidly the technology develops here. I could have sworn that shears and pressors and the inertialess drive took much longer to emerge, but they all come in right in this first book, seemingly developed over a matter of weeks by geniuses who need only one look at an enemy's polycyclic shield to immediately understand both its foundational principles, and the technology needed to go it one better.
Again, though, the Lensman series is not about credibility. It's about good beating evil. That was something people needed to hear in the middle of the last century. It's something we can stand to dream about again now. If you haven't read this series, you should. It's Science Fiction 101, and if you read it as a creature of its time, it's a lot of fun.
January 26, 2018
Old fashioned space opera.
Two ancient races battle for the universe, and Earth is a battleground, only most earthling don't know it.
It sounds like something I'd like, but surprisingly, it simply didn't hit the spot. I think it was the combining Lovecraftian and Cold War elements into the same novel.
Two ancient races battle for the universe, and Earth is a battleground, only most earthling don't know it.
It sounds like something I'd like, but surprisingly, it simply didn't hit the spot. I think it was the combining Lovecraftian and Cold War elements into the same novel.
January 28, 2016
Wow, grandpa was right!
Many (many) years ago my grandfather tried to interest me in E.E. Smith's Lensman series. He failed then, but the books somehow remained with me, always hovering at the edge of my consciousness. Now that I've finished Triplanetary I can honestly say: Grampa, you were so right! This is military-type, space-opera SF at its pulpy best. The pacing is lightning quick, the action unrelenting. It's a really, really fun read from first page to last. Yes, the characters are a bit "stock", but the plotting is extraordinarily imaginative, the writing style fluid and propulsive. And the Kindle e-book is free! Why are you hesitating? If you like Heinlein's military stuff (e.g. Starship Troopers), give Triplanetary a try. I can't wait to pick up First Lensman and keep reading! Thanks, Gramps, thanks!
Many (many) years ago my grandfather tried to interest me in E.E. Smith's Lensman series. He failed then, but the books somehow remained with me, always hovering at the edge of my consciousness. Now that I've finished Triplanetary I can honestly say: Grampa, you were so right! This is military-type, space-opera SF at its pulpy best. The pacing is lightning quick, the action unrelenting. It's a really, really fun read from first page to last. Yes, the characters are a bit "stock", but the plotting is extraordinarily imaginative, the writing style fluid and propulsive. And the Kindle e-book is free! Why are you hesitating? If you like Heinlein's military stuff (e.g. Starship Troopers), give Triplanetary a try. I can't wait to pick up First Lensman and keep reading! Thanks, Gramps, thanks!
June 24, 2010
1.5 stars. Classic "space opera" by one of the fathers of the genre. First in the Lensman Series. Not horrible (though the dialogue at times made me wince), but I didn't really like either. This seems to be the weakest entry of the Lensman saga though it does set the stage well for the later novels.
July 28, 2015
"In which scientific detail would not be bothered about, and in which his imagination would run riot," Smith’s biographer Harry Smith said of the Lensman stories. And how.
Interesting more as a historical document than as literature, this includes the 1934 story which was the first Lensman story of classic science fiction. The writing is over-the-top, the characters heroic and chauvinistic, but it’s all great fun. The books influenced military development and future science fiction. (George Lucas read the Lensman series as a youth.)
Three stars is a gift. I wouldn’t have finished such an outlandish tale if written today, but it was hot stuff back then.
Thanks, Doc.
Interesting more as a historical document than as literature, this includes the 1934 story which was the first Lensman story of classic science fiction. The writing is over-the-top, the characters heroic and chauvinistic, but it’s all great fun. The books influenced military development and future science fiction. (George Lucas read the Lensman series as a youth.)
Three stars is a gift. I wouldn’t have finished such an outlandish tale if written today, but it was hot stuff back then.
Thanks, Doc.
December 3, 2012
I tried to like this, I really did. Some books age well but this one does not stand the test of time. I can see the seeds that planted in later sci-fi authors and there are some great ideas here, but I found it was poorly written and at times the author really didn't seem to know where he was planning on going and it meandered a lot.
October 23, 2014
I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who didn't like or want to understand 'Campbellian' SF. It's not bad, especially a book or two into the series. After that, it gets to be a bit much.
July 2, 2017
I suppose it was about time for me to read this first volume in the famous Lensman series. After all, I’m pretty sure this epic science-fiction series was the inspiration for Steve “Slug” Russell’s Spacewar!, arguably the template for computer games as developed in the early ‘60s. But I kept trying to fill in the gaps in the series before I started it and now, I have all but one of the volumes. So, I read Triplanetary. It was a surprise.
It was a surprise because the first 80 pages or so served merely as set-up. E. E. “Doc” Smith posited two transcendent civilizations, the cerebral Arisians and the consuming Eddorians. He redefined human warfare in terms of this cosmic struggle and didn’t really introduce the real protagonist, Conway “Spud” Costigan,” until after this set-up. As a result, I didn’t find myself emotionally engaged in the book until after this point. It would have been a lot of exposition to backtrack onto if he hadn’t started this way, but things didn’t really get hopping until the latter two-thirds of the book.
Triplanetary was also a surprise because this pre-Korean Conflict novel presents an interesting perspective on the early atomic age. Although Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in October of 1947, breaking the sound barrier must still have been a big deal in 1948 when Smith published Triplanetary for the first time. Witness this description of defensive rockets: “The rocket shivered and trembled as it hit the wall at the velocity of sound, but it did not pause.” (p. 83) In that section, Smith captured some of the flavor of the Cold War without guessing exactly how Strategic Air Command would work. However, he did forecast a base within a mountain with something of the same function (but on a broader scope) as the NORAD Alternate Command in the Cheyenne Mountain region (see pp. 170-1). But once Smith moved beyond the history that we know and he couldn’t possibly know, his ideas of alien beings and civilizations really begin to shine.
Particularly amusing was the fact that Smith visualized a modern video game move long before it appeared in Quake. Note the description of what is essentially a “rocket jump:” “…as he floated ‘upward’ he corrected his course and accelerated his pace by firing backward at various angles with his heavy service pistol, …” (p. 115). But I wasn’t nearly as amused by the idea that Costigan smuggled out 30 pounds of allotropic iron in his boot (p. 157)—even its gamma form would need to be heated so hot it would have been impossible to touch). It just didn’t seem likely to me. Another interesting, but peculiar, speculation was that if an alien technology could absorb all the iron found in any given area, it would absorb all the iron in an individual’s bloodstream, leaving it white (p. 167).
But the heart of Triplanetary is a romp through the galaxy or galaxies where Costigan teams with his ship’s captain, Captain Bradley, and his romantic interest, Clio Marsden, to thwart the machinations of an advanced amphibian society and escape from them in time to get vital information to Triplanetary Command and save humanity. Several of the scenes involving the two male protagonists and Clio reminded me (and caused me to visualize retro-images associated with) Flash Gordon, Dale Arden, and Dr. Zarkov (except in this case, Costigan takes on the role of both Flash and Zarkov).
It's easy to see why Triplanetary is considered an iconic work in science-fiction, as well as how it inspired one video game and “predicted” a maneuver in another. It’s also easy to see how it inspired a Japanese anime film and television series, but wonder why there isn’t a live-action, CGI choreographed version in pre-production today. I’m also not sure how I could call myself a legitimate science-fiction fan without having read this classic. And, for those who think I rated Triplanetary too low, please recognize my protest that if I were rating the last part of the book it would have been, at least, four stars. Still, I liked the entire novel even though the long, slow set-up wasn’t as inspiring as the mid-20th century science-fiction adventure toward the end.
It was a surprise because the first 80 pages or so served merely as set-up. E. E. “Doc” Smith posited two transcendent civilizations, the cerebral Arisians and the consuming Eddorians. He redefined human warfare in terms of this cosmic struggle and didn’t really introduce the real protagonist, Conway “Spud” Costigan,” until after this set-up. As a result, I didn’t find myself emotionally engaged in the book until after this point. It would have been a lot of exposition to backtrack onto if he hadn’t started this way, but things didn’t really get hopping until the latter two-thirds of the book.
Triplanetary was also a surprise because this pre-Korean Conflict novel presents an interesting perspective on the early atomic age. Although Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in October of 1947, breaking the sound barrier must still have been a big deal in 1948 when Smith published Triplanetary for the first time. Witness this description of defensive rockets: “The rocket shivered and trembled as it hit the wall at the velocity of sound, but it did not pause.” (p. 83) In that section, Smith captured some of the flavor of the Cold War without guessing exactly how Strategic Air Command would work. However, he did forecast a base within a mountain with something of the same function (but on a broader scope) as the NORAD Alternate Command in the Cheyenne Mountain region (see pp. 170-1). But once Smith moved beyond the history that we know and he couldn’t possibly know, his ideas of alien beings and civilizations really begin to shine.
Particularly amusing was the fact that Smith visualized a modern video game move long before it appeared in Quake. Note the description of what is essentially a “rocket jump:” “…as he floated ‘upward’ he corrected his course and accelerated his pace by firing backward at various angles with his heavy service pistol, …” (p. 115). But I wasn’t nearly as amused by the idea that Costigan smuggled out 30 pounds of allotropic iron in his boot (p. 157)—even its gamma form would need to be heated so hot it would have been impossible to touch). It just didn’t seem likely to me. Another interesting, but peculiar, speculation was that if an alien technology could absorb all the iron found in any given area, it would absorb all the iron in an individual’s bloodstream, leaving it white (p. 167).
But the heart of Triplanetary is a romp through the galaxy or galaxies where Costigan teams with his ship’s captain, Captain Bradley, and his romantic interest, Clio Marsden, to thwart the machinations of an advanced amphibian society and escape from them in time to get vital information to Triplanetary Command and save humanity. Several of the scenes involving the two male protagonists and Clio reminded me (and caused me to visualize retro-images associated with) Flash Gordon, Dale Arden, and Dr. Zarkov (except in this case, Costigan takes on the role of both Flash and Zarkov).
It's easy to see why Triplanetary is considered an iconic work in science-fiction, as well as how it inspired one video game and “predicted” a maneuver in another. It’s also easy to see how it inspired a Japanese anime film and television series, but wonder why there isn’t a live-action, CGI choreographed version in pre-production today. I’m also not sure how I could call myself a legitimate science-fiction fan without having read this classic. And, for those who think I rated Triplanetary too low, please recognize my protest that if I were rating the last part of the book it would have been, at least, four stars. Still, I liked the entire novel even though the long, slow set-up wasn’t as inspiring as the mid-20th century science-fiction adventure toward the end.
June 29, 2023
This is an interesting novel to read and review as a modern science fiction and popular culture fan. Why? It established so many of the tropes we take for granted today. It feels unoriginal, but I wonder if the argument can be made that it is in fact innovative. With that caveat in mind, here are a few critiques. The pacing felt really awkward. The story proceeds at breakneck speed, basically from intense crisis to intense crisis (e.g. one moment the characters are discussing an engineering problem, and within a page or so, they have flit across the galaxy and there is an interplanetary war going on). Most of the characters are wooden, flat, even robotic. But nuanced characterization probably wasn't an aesthetic element readers of pulp space opera were looking for in the 1940s (although I could be wrong--I understand that is a big generalization and there is a some artful science fiction from the 1940s). Moving on from critiques: there is also an interesting metaphysical element. Without spoiling too much, there are two highly advanced non-human races who seem interdimensional who are manipulating other lesser intelligent civilizations (like human civilization) around like chess pieces on a board. This was a fascinating element, but it is mostly in the background, a kind of narrative frame. I don't know a lot about the publication history of this novel but I do know that *Triplanetary* was effectively an anthology of previously published stories that were somewhat sutured together in story chronological order. One wonders how reading them would have been different out of order and in the original pulps. All in all, I'm glad I read this but I think it would be dishonest if I said I enjoyed it all the way through.
August 10, 2013
Nutshell: first third chronicles intergalactic duel between super-species, through proxies on earth, mostly; remainder involves virtually unrelated space opera contest between overachiever earthlings and trespassing pisceans.
Advertised as the first Lensman book, I’m not really seeing any of the items made famous by that series. Opening section indicates that super-species brought down Atlantis and Rome, and then are involved with the three world wars of the 20th century. No idea what all that has to do with the later space opera, which is more concerned with the fish-aliens, who are iron-maruaders. One super-species has a proxy in the solar system during the time, a faux pirate who acts the mad scientist.
Pisceans have some kind of evil ray gun that divests enemy fleets of their ferrous properties, including hemoglobin. Human military is therefore annihilated on first encounter. But captives on fish-ship are able to discern the principles of the ferrous-stealing raygun and deliver it to humans, who build a new “supership” in a few weeks (no shit!) and use that ship to defeat the fishes. W00t! Fucking uppity fish!
Advertised as the first Lensman book, I’m not really seeing any of the items made famous by that series. Opening section indicates that super-species brought down Atlantis and Rome, and then are involved with the three world wars of the 20th century. No idea what all that has to do with the later space opera, which is more concerned with the fish-aliens, who are iron-maruaders. One super-species has a proxy in the solar system during the time, a faux pirate who acts the mad scientist.
Pisceans have some kind of evil ray gun that divests enemy fleets of their ferrous properties, including hemoglobin. Human military is therefore annihilated on first encounter. But captives on fish-ship are able to discern the principles of the ferrous-stealing raygun and deliver it to humans, who build a new “supership” in a few weeks (no shit!) and use that ship to defeat the fishes. W00t! Fucking uppity fish!
May 1, 2012
For a pulp sci-fi novel, it's very well-written. What became tedious to me, though, was scene after scene of vast, hideous destruction, described in pretty much the same terms every time, and in such a way that it somehow failed to be horrible.
What I mean is that hundreds, thousands or millions of humans or aliens were being killed, and because they had no names and no faces and the named characters were all stiff-upper-lip about it, the horror of war was minimised and it became mere fireworks. I imagine that being written just after World War II had something to do with it.
What I mean is that hundreds, thousands or millions of humans or aliens were being killed, and because they had no names and no faces and the named characters were all stiff-upper-lip about it, the horror of war was minimised and it became mere fireworks. I imagine that being written just after World War II had something to do with it.
October 6, 2017
I am a bit deceived with this one, but it is my fault. I assumed that classic was synonymous with quality but this is not the case. Triplanetary deserves its place in the history of the genre for the innovative approach at the time and because serialized space operas (pulps) were a very popular form of science fiction in its beginnings.
In a near future, I hope, a bit more explained on the blog: girotix.blogspot.com.es V'ger willing ;-)
In a near future, I hope, a bit more explained on the blog: girotix.blogspot.com.es V'ger willing ;-)
November 30, 2016
Probably one of the worst books I've ever read. The first half was stapled on in 1948 as a sort of prequel to the Lensman novels. The back half was the original story from 1934. Most fascinating is the anti-fascism fears mixed with cold war era fears as a result of being written at different times.
All that said...ugh.
All that said...ugh.
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