Customer Reviews

Masters of Space

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E. Everett Evans died in the mid-1950s, leaving an unfinished space opera, MASTERS OF SPACE, which was supposedly completed by his friend E. E. Smith. It's a fairly rare book in its original hardback edition. This version is based on the text serialized in IF Magazine circa 1960.

It's hard to believe any trace of Evans' original survives, because what we have here is very pure "Doc" Smith. Probably Evans contributed no more than the basic plot framework, of an expedition of interstellar exploration encountering a whole planet of friendly androids who just burn to gratify the earthmen's every whim and desire.

Unlike in Evans' previous novels, such as MAN OF MANY MINDS and ALIEN MINDS, which have no female characters whatsoever, here we have an interstellar expedition staffed by equal numbers of male and female scientists, all of whom are at the peak of physical perfection. As in almost all of Smith's novels, the earthlings step into a war between their new friends, the androids, and an emotionless race of hideously inhuman creatures, the Stretts, who ultimately plan to conquer all "civilized planets."

An unusual touch is that the only way the hero can figure to win the war is to have all the expedition scientists be reborn as androids. Smith has considerable fun with the various consequences of this transformation. As in most Smith space operas, the war is basically over once the earthmen develop various preposterous supernatural powers to the fullest... but there are still a number of space battles, where the adjectives required to describe colossal explosions and related consequences of deploying high-tech weapons soar far into the purple.

I read the whole, fairly short novel in a single sitting, and I enjoyed it, but I enjoy everything written by "Doc" Smith. If you don't like "Doc," you won't enjoy this at all, because it is 100% pure-quill "Doc." Produced in the late 1950s, it really comes intellectually and culturally from the 1930s.

Another lost Space Opera classic returned to print after 30+ years!

First, the original magazine text of Doc Smith's Triplanetary (in hardcover and trade paperback.) Then, the first hardcover publication of The Galaxy Primes. Now, Doc's completion of his late friend's (E. Everett Evans) unfinished novel--Masters of Space.

What next from Aegypan? The original magazine texts of Galactic Patrol, Grey Lensman, Second Stage Lensman and Children of the Lens, perhaps?

I have been a "Doc" Smith fan since high school, and have read all of the Lensman and Skylark series numerous times. This book was so extremely bad, it is hard for me to express it meaningfully. Perhaps rather than rating this as one star, I should rate it as 5 black holes, or negative stars.