Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Rating the Cosmos Books; Reprint edition, not the work, January 21, 2009
The "Cosmos Books; Reprint edition" is not the same as any previous release I've owned. It opens with the Rodger the Space Private story and does not include any of the Arisia/Eddore series setup material. No Atlantis, no Rome, no WWI, II, or III.
Oddly the back cover suggests that all that material is included. Half the page count is some obscure Smith yarn called "Masters of Space".
Since I particularly like the early saga pieces, I am really ticked off.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Overture to a space opera, March 22, 2007
This starts the Lensman series. Rather, it sets the stage, since the Lens hasn't actually appeared yet - but wait.
It has all the swashbuckling silliness you've come to know and love. It's filled with lines like:
"[she was] thrilled this time to the depths of her being by the sheer manhood of him ..."
Yes, that was meant seriously. Not to worry, though, this 1940s adventure story thrills her in a G-rated kind of way. Heck, I think that manly man in charge has spent his whole life swashing so many buckles that I'm not sure he's ever been on a date.
But, no matter, we have super-spaceships outdoing each other by the day, it seems, in a madly inflationary cycle. We have grey-skinned bad guys with mysterious connections to the Evil 77th-level Adepts of North Polar Jupiter. We have the mysterious, ugly, and funny-smelling beings from a distant sun who, in their transgalactic hunt for iron, decide that the easiest place to get it is from the structural steel of Pittsburgh, and from the red blood of its citizens. Fair's fair, so Our Hero destroys one of their cities to the last man (or whatever), woman, and child, plus part of another population center with poison gas. In the end, it was brusque apologies all around - no hard feelings, y'know, a man (or snake-necked, four-eyed fellow with tentacles) has gotta do what a man (or SNFEFwT) has gotta do.
This was written closer to the era of Flash Gordon than to the current day, by about a 3:1 margin, so it can only read as quaintly archaic. Laws of physics come and go at convenience, and relations between men and women hover between the neolithic and chivalric. Reading these books is a wonderful alternative to reading anything to think about.
//wiredweird
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17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Old School SF, January 14, 2003
This is one of the most energe6tic books I have read. Yes, it is pure "pulp fiction" in the non-Quentin Terantino sense of the word, but it was a powerful page turner. Every page was super-charged, and every chapter left you wanting more!E. E. "Doc" Smith is one of the giants of SF, and one of it's greatest popularizers. He doesn't have the finesse that Asimov of Heinlein. He doesn't have the aura of humor of Niven. Doc's strength is his raw energy. This book is like watching Yoda's fight with Count Dooku at double-time. He overwhelms at times.. Another one of Doc's strength is his mixture of science and gadgets. You are immediate placed in a world of sub-ether communicators, atomic weapons, tractor beams, spacer ships, space armor, and all the other props associated with old school SF. I now know where Roddenberry and Lucas got many of their terms and gadgets. This tale is layered, and you can actually smell the intrigue and forces control other forces and nothing is what it seems. "Wheels within wheels" and "plots within plots within plots." At times it can be over complex. Sometimes the action runs too fast, and I find myself panting for the characters. I realize this is pulp fiction, but I wish there was a bit more character development. At times it is almost a melodrama, or a morality play. After reading the first chapter of the first book, I bought the rest of the series. I am excited to finish the series. I wish I had listened to my grandpa and read these books earlier.
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