Operation: outer space [Hardcover]

Murray Leinster (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1954

Jed Cochrane tried to be cynical as the helicab hummed softly through the night over the city. The cab flew at two thousand feet where lighted buildings seemed to soar toward it from the canyons which were streets.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 190 pages
• Publisher: Fantasy Press (1954)
• ASIN: B00005WIPN
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,466,548 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Two Types of Edison, November 18, 2010

By 

Paul Camp (Chattanooga, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Operation; Outer Space (Paperback)

_Operation: Outer Space_ first saw the light of day in 1954, recieved more critical attention than most of Murray Leinster's books, and sold well enough to go through several printings. It is of some interest today because it is an edisonade, a type of science fiction novel that few authors were writing by the 1950s. The edisonade is a breathless adventure in which a young male inventor tinkers around and makes a fabulous invention (usually a form of transportation) which becomes a means of conquering enemies and mastering the universe. The classic example of the edisonade in science fiction is E.E. Smith's _The Skylark of Space_ (1928), in which an inventor-hero makes the galaxy his playground. It was not the type of story that the rational, ironic Leinster usually wrote. Nevertheless, he demonstrates here a knowledge of the conventions of this form of writing.

The edisonade was named after Thomas Alva Edison. John Clute (1992) notes that there were in effect two Edisons: the young, innocent inventor and the self-promoting older man who took credit for the work of others and who claimed to have made ficticious inventions that would end war and make America invincible. There are two such characters in _Operation: Outer Space_: Jones, the actual inventor of communication and transportation devices, and Dabney, a neurotic fraud who has bought the rights to one of Jones's inventions. Since Jones shuns publicity and wants to continue his work, Dabney is allowed to take the credit for the inventions. He serves as a front to help raise money while the real scientific work is done in the background.

In _The Skylark of Space_, the inventor-hero is able to finance his space ship because his best friend is a millionaire. In _Operation: Outer Space_, more attention is given to how the money is raised. The inventor falls in with a television executive who forms a stock company and wheels and deals to get the money to build the ship. It is usual for the inventor in an edisonade to have such a sidekick. What is unusual in Leinster's story is that the executive, Jed Cochrane, is the central character rather than the inventor.

Most edisonades have plots that are demonstrably silly, and Leinster's novel is no exception to the rule. His lone inventor creates an invention but fails to realize that it could lead to a new space drive until the television executive makes up a story about an FTL drive. The invention is modified and attached to an old rocket that is being used for the background of a movie set on the Moon. After a few tests, the stockholders-- including Jones, Cochrane, a starry-eyed secretary, a pilot, a psychiatrist, an amoral sportsman, and his long-suffering wife-- are bundled aboard the ship. They zoom light-years out of the solar system, and nobody has thought to bring maps to guide the ship home.

The characters have all the flaws of typical edisonadians. They are cardbord, with a kind of naivite about them. They don't worry very much about the consequences of their actions, the possible dangers of their invention, or the finer ethical points of whether man should conquer the universe. They simply surge ahead, recklessly innocent, taking diamonds from a world here, shooting natives on a world there (though Leinster seems to disapprove of this action), and opening up the planets for future exploitation. Little precautions are taken to test for infectious diseases, and at one point, a character tests the atmosphere by stepping outside the airlock and opening his helmet. Scientists who fear that the explorers will bring back diseases are ridiculed as pompous windbags. "No big name," the psychiatrist tells Cochrane, "will tell you that of course it's all right to take a walk in the rather pretty landscape outside" (86).

If the edisonade has a silly plot and immature characters, what is its appeal? Part of its strength comes from its innocence. It indulges us in the fantasy of having absolute dominion over nature. This is not a fantasy that we should exercise too much in real life, but it is one that is fun to read about. Part of the appeal comes from a charm that transcends literary technique. This may have something to do with how well the author describes the sights and sounds of the fantastic voyage. Leinster does fairly well here. At one point, he describes that walk through the woods, with furry bipeds, a spindly-legged creature, and an alien with "panic-stricken blue eyes" (95). At another point, the hero and heroine watch in shock as the ship vanishes in a flash, followed by "a thunderclap of air closing the vacuum the ship's disappearance had left" (109). And there is the sight of a volcano booming and flashing, with the glow of its lava glaring across the glaciers (109).

After 1950, there weren't many other novels modeled on _The Skylark of Space_. Perl T. Barnhouse's eccentric _My Journeys with Astargo_ (1952) was one. And Leinster's later novel, _The Wailing Asteroid_ (1960) was another. Though they probably weren't intended as such, they were farewell tributes to a type of writing that science fiction had outgrown.