Customer Reviews

The Skylark of Space

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm guessing a lot of folks who've reviewed these books experienced them in the original printings, prior to Star Wars and the mass-popularization of space opera. I didn't- I "discovered" Doc in the late-80's as a teenager, and have become a huge fan. But heed the warnings of "camp" and "cheese": if there were an MST3K of books, his would be regular fodder. The gender stereotypes and roles as well as the frequent commission (and implicit condonement) of genocide by the heroes in particular are very hard to get past for a modern reader. Character development is non-existant (all protagonists are basically Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts), dialogue is awkward and unbelievably cheesy, genocide is repeatedly condoned, and the fact that the books were originally written as serials is painfully evident (almost every chapter ends with a CLIFFHANGER!). If you are a conesseur of camp, these books are a *rich* source of material.

But what I love about Doc's books is not rooted in irony: the incredible creativity in visualizing advanced technology, fast-forward and entertaining action plots, and the sheer scale of the "build up" within each book and from one book to another.

Technology: Although very quaint by modern standards (especially in "Skylark of Space"), put in context the creativity Doc displays in envisioning future technology is second to none. Not in terms of "accuracy", but in terms of their self-consistency and imaginativeness. Skylark was written pre-television, pre-laser, pre-NASA, and pre-nuke. What Doc built from that base is incredible, entertaining, and fun, viewed from the perspective that even relativity was a comparatively new theory when it was written (Doc obviously knew about it, and chose to ignore it). In "Skylark of Space", the result is spacesuits made out of leather, descriptions of how the spaceship's hull is fashioned from heavy steel, faster-than-light travel by simple accelertaion, and "energy beams" of different frequencies with different effects. I think Skylark of Space actually remains too tied to the technology of the day, but those shackles are unleashed in Skylark Three (the sequel) and Doc's vision really shines.

"Action": I understand that this book is the origin of spaceships shooting at each other. Doc's battle and action sequences need make no apologies for their age or context. This is why you put up with all the sexist attitudes, the bad speeches and the cheesy exclamation. Unless they are encountering the brief setbacks necessary to create some semblance of dramatic tension, Doc's heros kick so much alien bad guy butt it's amazing.

"Scale": Doc obviously is a big believer in the "orders of magnitude" theory of plot development. The formula is this: at the beginning of the book, the main characters are on top of the world, and their power seems nearly limitless. Then they nearly get their butts kicked by bad-guy aliens who are so much more powerful that the good guys look like gnats. Then the good guys bulk up (in technology, knowledge, etc...) to the point that the bad guys are completely and easily decimated. Repeat as often as necessary. What is amazing and enjoyable is how long Doc can keep this up: by the end of the series, literally whole galaxies are being destroyed. Yes, it's completely implausible, but dammit! It's fun!

Anyway, if you only are going to read one "Skylark" book, I'd actually recommend the sequel: Skylark Three. It's not very hard to get into the plot, and enough trappings of 30's earth technology have fallen away at that point to let Doc's real creativity shine.

In summary: Smith is a must-read for sci-fi buffs. Stick with it, and you will be rewarded. But don't expect any of your friends or family to enjoy it.

... There Was Doc Smith. "The Skylark of Space" was first written somewhere around the turn of the century. Some modifications were done to it before its publication in 1928, and in the 1950s Doc did some updating, but the vast majority of the story remains unchanged. "Skylark" was a revolutionary story of its time, featuring super-science, far-ranging adventure (it may be the very first story to take place beyond the bounds of the Solar System), and (for its genre) well-developed characters. Dated in many ways by today's standards, "The Skylark of Space" is still a hell of a yarn, and the spiritual ancestor of every great space adventure written since. Buy it and read it. It's a piece of SF history.

This is the original, classic space opera. I read it 30 odd years ago and it was already 30 odd years old! It predates E.E. Smith's better known Lensmen series and in many ways is better. (I don't remember the Lensmen stories but I do remember the Skylark series.) It begins with the classic brilliant, slightly mad scientist, Dick Seaton, except he's young and hunkish with a gorgeous and high-class girlfriend, Dorothy. (Her parents oppose the romance but she's loyal to her Dick.) Enter the brilliant, mad-scientist villain named Blackie. He kidnaps Dorothy. I'm happy to say she tries to kick butt, kicks the instrument panel of the space ship instead and they're off on a grand tour of outer space with our hero in hot pursuit. There's another girl and another guy and the book is climaxed by a double-wedding on an alien planet with an alien race in attendance. Of course Blackie is defeated (but only temporarily so he can show up again in the next book), and they all go home to live happily ever after until the next adventure (which will occur in about 5 minutes,) Yes, it's dated and corny and, if you think about it, extremely silly. My advice is, don't think about it. Just read it and enjoy. This is an excellent book to introduce early teenagers to a sense of wonder and adventure and awe at the vastness and mystery of the universe.

I think I'd give this 5 stars, just for being the original... if it WERE the original. E. E. Smith did some serious re-writing on this one, sometime during the 1950s. In this version, Greedo shoots first.

Okay, that's a joke, but the Star Wars fan-boys get what I mean. I didn't want something revised, with mushroom clouds and television sets. I wanted something written in 1915. I think that's when Smith claimed to have started "Skylark of Space".

Anyway, it's still a fun story, and since it sets you up for "Skylark 3" and "Skylark of Valeron" (both better written and more engaging), it's important reading. I think I'm like a lot of people who read something this old-- I'm trying to fill in the cracks in my understanding of the progression of sci-fi. It's an entertaining history lesson.

I can still glean what the untouched book must have been, but I wish I could actually read the original version. If you can find that one, read it. If you can't, read this one.

***UPDATE*** I've just discovered that Project Gutenberg has the original "Skylark of Space," taken from the 1928 Amazing Stories, available as a FREE html download. It includes the original cover and interior artwork. So what are you waiting for?

For someone like me, who grew up on old Tom Swift books often purchased at antique stories, Doc Smith is the paragon of lightspeed adventure. Not particularly keen on technical accuracy ("After all, Einstein's theory is just a theory," one character says upon discovering that he's traveling many times the speed of light) and full of predictibly stalwart or nefarious characters, Smith still manages to spin a great yarn. The main characters seem to exhibit a joyous recklesness remniscient (for me, at least) of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's trilogy. The "testing" of the flight systems and nuclear-powered bullets, in particular, are quite memorable.
If you're looking for gritty realism in characters or technical accuracy in technologies, you probably won't be able to enjoy this book. But for those who wish to put their brains in neutral and have a jolly good time, I can think of few books better than The Skylark of Space.

This is another classic example of "Doc" Smith's early space opera-- Dick Seaton is the clean-cut, all-American scientist who accidentally develops an incredibly fast, amazingly powerful spaceship. Due to an accident brought about by his nemesis, the self-serving but honorable 'Blackie' DuQuense, Seaton and his friends (and DuQuense, of course) are catapaulted hundreds of light years from earth... the dated 1930s hero/villain and man/woman stereotypes will bring a smile to your face, as will Smith's preposterous pseudoscience. Another lost classic.

Brilliant scientist Richard Seaton builds the first (many times) faster than light spaceship and travels the universe with a band of friends. Along the way he saves a race of aliens, helps decimate another, rescues his girlfriend and thwarts the misdoings of his arch rival Marc DuQuesne.

This is the first E.E. Smith book I've read and I must say that for the type of book that it is, The Skylark of Space isn't too bad. Think old school comic books. It has high adventure, a smart/strong/handsome protagonist, a loyal sidekick, gee whiz technology, an extremely evil bad guy, and pretty girls. For a large part of the book, the story is fairly interesting. Smith moves the action along quickly and provides a respectable amount of tension to the drama. Even though I knew everything would turn out fine in the end, I still wanted to know how Smith would accomplish it. At a short 159 pages, it was a quick and fun diversion.

The Skylark of Space is not, however, without issues. Many of them are given: flat, completely unreal characters, rigid gender roles, featherweight science, wildly campy. I won't fault the book for these sorts of things. It's a product of its time that targeted a specific audience.

What I do want to point out is that Smith treats war very lightly. Although this book was completed in 1920, Smith revised it in 1958. It's surprising to me that even though Smith had seen the effects of two world wars, mass destruction of life is a very casual act in his book.

For those of you who aren't already huge Doc Smith fans, you'll probably enjoy this book if you know what you're getting into. Understand that it doesn't hold up very well under careful (or even casual) scrutiny. But, for what it is, Smith wrote a great book.

I first discovered E E 'Doc' Smith through a tatty second hand copy of this book. That introduced me to the more famous Lensman series (an influance on various modern day sci-fi, from Star Wars to Babylon 5). I read my tatty copy until it fell apart in my hands some years ago.

Anyone who loves a good heroic yarn will love this book. I totally recommend you try and find a copy. (If I don't find it first!)

Skylark of Space (1928) is the first SF novel in the Skylark series. It is set in the era of its publication; i.e.. the 1920s. Despite the theories of Einstein, the speed of light does not limit the velocity of the spacecraft in this story.

In this novel, Richard B. Seaton is a chemist working for the Rare Metals Laboratory in Washington, DC. He is a tennis player, playing as a doubles team with Crane. Dick is also recently engaged to Dorothy Vaneman.

M. Reynolds Crane is a very rich man. Since he has been the target of many aspiring wives and matchmakers, Martin avoids women. But then he meets Dorothy and learns the value of a good woman.

Marc C. DuQuesne is another chemist working for the Rare Metals Lab. He is also a psychopath, without any conscience. He has moonlighted for the World Steel Company on various deals of a criminal nature.

In this story, Seaton has been working on a container of heavy metal waste. He separates out several valuable metallic elements, but an unknown metal remains. Then he learns that the metal is an almost stable transuranic element. He calls the element "X" metal.

In his processing, Seaton has a small accident with the waste. While electrolyzing the solution, a little waste spills into the copper steam-bath. He snatchers up the beaker, but the heavy bath plows through his lab apparatus and disappears out the window at high speed.

The accident makes an exciting bit of gossip in the Lab. The next day, Dick tries to recreate the incident with a piece of copper wire, but nothing happens. The Lab folk begin to talk about his overstrained mind and go back to work.

Seaton considers the circumstances surrounding the incident and decides that the main difference was that a device designed by DuQuesne was not operating during the second try. He waits until DuQuesne turns on his device and notices that the characteristic color change appears on the copper wire. He puts an electric current through the wire and it goes through the brick wall.

Seaton talks to Dorothy after the first incident. She is supportive, but doesn't really understand. After the second incident, Dick goes to Crane with the story. Martin advises that they purchase the solution, so Seaton returns it to the chief clerk for auction.

After buying the solution, Martin immediately forms a new corporation: the Seaton-Crane Company, Engineers. Then they call the first meeting of the board. Afterward, Seaton starts analyzing the properties of the unknown element.

His investigations show that the unknown element catalyzes the release of the total energy of the copper. It can be channeled into motion or release the energy as an explosion. The element also has some other strange properties.

Meanwhile, DuQuesne deduces the nature of the incident and informs a World Steel executive of the discovery. He wants to kill Seaton, steal all the solution, and gather up any available documents. The executive refuses to allow a direct attack on Seaton or Crane, but has a thief break into the mansion to steal half the waste and replace it with water.

DuQuesne states his terms for working on the new element, but the World Steel executive declines. Instead, the executive has another scientist explore the properties of the element. The hireling leaves a two mile crater where the town of Bankerville, West Virginia, had been.

Seaton-Crane issues an order with World Steel for construction materiel, but Crane correctly suspects that the company will deliver flawed goods. He issues another secret order to an independent steel mill that has proved dependable in the past. Seaton-Crane publicly builds the flawed craft -- which they call Old Crip -- while constructing another, larger ship in a hidden location.

This tale involves Seaton and Crane in a covert war against World Steel and its minions. But their true adversary is DuQuesne. When DuQuesne abducts Dorothy with his own spaceship and flees into space, Seaton and Crane soon follow in the newly finished Skylark.

Seaton and Crane accelerate continuously after the fleeing ship. Soon they exceed the speed of light. They travel far out into the cosmos.

Dorothy is strong minded woman in this story, but her role in the novel is to be protected rather than as an active partner. The author treats her more kindly than others of his day, but the publishing industry believed that strong heroines would not sell SF novels. Others -- including female SF authors -- eventually overcame that restricted viewpoint.

This novel made the author the leading writer of space operas for the period. Although others wrote such SF, Doc Smith wrote the stories that people anxiously awaited. He set the standard for decades.

You may wonder why Seaton was making major discoveries in physics at the Rare Metals Laboratory. Mainly because the author was a chemist. Moveover, in those days, the difference between chemists and physicists was not as wide as it is today. Modern physics had been formulated over the previous twenty years, but only theorists were working on exotic aspects such as relativity and quantum mechanics.

Since chemists and physicists -- indeed every scientist and engineer -- learned both classical physics and chemistry in the pursuit of their degree, chemists were fully capable of separating heavy metals using physical methods. Indeed, many of the scientists in the Manhattan project were chemists -- not physicists -- even though their major task was separating heavy metals.

The author had a doctorate in chemistry -- hence his nickname of "Doc" -- and worked in this field for decades. He is better known in SF for the later Lensman series. Apparently much of the plot of the prequel to that series is based on his experiences as a chemist during the second World War.

This series continued for three more volumes. The next installment is Skylark Three. Read and enjoy!

Highly recommended for Smith fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of scientific discovery, space adventures, and old-fashioned romance. This work is included in The Complete Skylark.

-Arthur W. Jordin

Please note, my negative review is ONLY for THE FREE edition of this book -- I have known and loved the Skylark books for over 40 years!

If you read doc smith from the 60's and 70's editions, you may NOT want to download the free edition of this book. I no longer have my copies from back then, and was looking forward to getting re-aquainted with an old friend by reading the e-version.

I didn't realize just how much culture change had been made between the magazine version (which this is) and the book editions (which are all I've ever read)

Within the first five paragraphs I was really put off by the references to "colored laboratory helper", "dusky assistant", and the like.

I know this is accurate for the time period of the serial publication; and may not be an issue for other people. In other contexts, I would not find it an issue, either. I just wasn't expecting it here, based on the decades of reading these books without that language.

If you are looking to recreate your experience with the Doc Smith paperback books, or are looking to introduce someone to the Skylark books, I strongly suggest you do NOT get the free edition. I'm off to find a version based on the Pyramid paperbacks, if I can.....