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Title: Galactic Patrol (The Lensman Series, Book 3) by Edward E. Smith, John Clute ISBN: 1-882968-11-5 Publisher: Old Earth Books Pub. Date: November, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.55 (20 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The best of the best!
Comment: Before Star Trek, before Star Wars, before all the other Space Opera's, there was E.E. "Doc" Smith's LENSMAN (or History of Civilization) series. Make no mistake about it: this is THE classic sci-fi work! Galactic Patrol is the first novel in the series which chronicles an epic struggle between Good and Evil -- and Mind and Matter, incidentally, if you want to look for a deeper meaning. OK, chronologically, its the third, but it was the first one written, suitably revised for inclusion in the series. If you want to get started in Sci-fi, this is the series for you. If you want to start the younger generation, it's even better! Written in the 1930's, it's long on action, but the love affairs and language are mild by today's standards, perfect for young readers. (although the vocabulary is pretty advanced). It's strong on family values and democratic ideals, but don't make the mistake of thinking it's preachy or sentimental. Just good, solid, Outer Space adventure throughout. I first read these novels in the eighth grade, and I've read them fifteen times since; my original copies have long since disintegrated. The Lensmen novels truly rank with Tolkien as one of the classics of Sci-fi/fantasy genre. Do yourself a favor and read this series.
Rating: 2
Summary: A great book if you are 14.
Comment: There should be an age warning on this book: "Not for mature audiences." It is part of the Lensman series, probably the first extended space operas. I thought it was wonderful when I first read it, and would have given it five stars. However, I was about 13 at the time, Amazon didn't exist, and people were saying that there would never be a need for computers in the home. Most adult readers will find the prose, and particularly the dialogue, painful to read. The characters are less developed than in contemporary comic books. Still, if you know a young teenager who likes science fiction, you could make him happy by giving him this book. I'm not so sure that would work if the teenager is a girl; this series..., very much relects the prejudices and stereotypes of the times in which they were written.
Rating: 5
Summary: The Defining Masterpiece of Space Opera
Comment: Capsule Description: Old-fashioned space opera, filled with super-science, Good Guys and Bad Guys (as Bad as they get), far-flung settings, and battles on a scale unimaginable. Purple prose by today's standards, but written with energy and the true classic "Sense of Wonder". This series was and is one of the major foundations on which later SF was built. It inspired many later authors. I still find them great fun to read.
Review: "Doc" Smith may not (quite) have INVENTED the "space opera" (although offhand I'd be hard put to find one written earlier than the original drafts of The Skylark of Space), but almost no one would be able to argue against the assertion that it was Doc who DEFINED it and perfected that subgenre. And the series in which he did that was the Lensman series. Originally published starting with Galactic Patrol (though now officially starting with "Triplanetary", to which the above links), the Lensman series deals with a slowly-escalating war in a far-distant future, a war that has many levels (levels we don't penetrate for several volumes). The "Lensmen" are those who have been given the mysterious device called the Lens by the inhabitants of the even more mysterious planet Arisia. How the Lens is created, no one in the Patrol understands; but what it does is give the wearer perfect telepathy -- the ability to communicate mind-to-mind -- so that no language, howsoever alien, is a barrier to communication. It cannot be worn by anyone except its owner -- to touch a Lens that is not being worn by its owner, for more than a fleeting instant, is agonizing death. It enhances all of the wearer's mental capacities, giving him access to other psychic talents, and protects him against attacks by other psychically powerful minds. The wearer of a Lens is incorruptible -- though they can feel the temptation of money, power, drugs, or other lures, they will in the end resist these lures; they have the inherent ability to do this (it's not forced on them by the Lens, but rather the Lenses are only given to those who have this characteristic). The combination makes the Lensmen the only reliable policemen for a galaxy of a million species, a million languages, a million laws. The Lens is perfect identification, a badge that cannot be faked and a translator which won't fail. And such a reliable, incorruptible force is needed, because the threat that is waiting for the Galaxy is enough to make even a stalwart Hero quake in his boots.
The old-fashioned prose and simple characters often turn newcomers off from reading the series, but this is a wonderful set of stories. Doc Smith started the movement that led to everything from Star Wars to David Weber's Honor Harrington series. Give the old man a try, he's worth it, as long as you still like heroes who are Heroes and villains who give no quarter and no excuses for being as nasty as they come. Purists would insist that you start with Galactic Patrol and go on, since Triplanetary was originally not a Lensman novel and First Lensman was written after the others, and both always contained spoilers for the others, which revealed only slowly what was going on behind the scenes.
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Title: The Skylark of Space by E. E. Smith, Vernor Vinge, O. G., Jr. Estes ISBN: 0803292864 Publisher: University of Nebraska Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 2001 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
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Title: Skylark Three by E. E. Smith ISBN: 0803293038 Publisher: Bison Books Pub. Date: 01 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Masters of the Vortex by Smith ISBN: 0515030007 Publisher: Jove Pubns Pub. Date: January, 2000 List Price(USD): $1.25 |
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Title: Skylark of Valeron by E.E. Doc Smith ISBN: 0425089533 Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group Pub. Date: 01 April, 1986 List Price(USD): $2.95 |
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Title: Skylark Duquesne by E.E. "Doc" Smith ISBN: 0425091481 Publisher: Berkley Pub Group Pub. Date: 01 June, 1986 List Price(USD): $64.50 |
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