Simon's Reviews > Triplanetary

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.