Complete Venus Equilateral: Smith, George O.: 9780345289537: Amazon.com: Books

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George O. Smith

Complete Venus Equilateral Mass Market Paperback – September 12, 1980

by George O. Smith (Author)

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The wacky adventures of the Scientists and other denizens of the communication space station 'Venus Equilateral'. This is Golden Age mad science at it's best, with rather wonderful futuristic vacuum tube technologies. Written mostly in the 1940s these stories, are of their time, but transcend it, with some wonderful villains, and entertaining plots.

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Print length

480 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Del Rey
Publication date

September 12, 1980
ISBN-10

0345289536
ISBN-13

978-0345289537
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Del Rey (September 12, 1980)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Mass Market Paperback ‏ : ‎ 480 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0345289536
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0345289537
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9 ounces

Best Sellers Rank: #2,766,266 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #122,236 in American Literature (Books)
- #126,839 in Science Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
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4.6 out of 5

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Forgotten, charming, science fiction universe

Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2023

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There is something so incredibly charming about space-based science fiction that was written before RADAR was invented. (One of the stories in here could have been resolved in about ten minutes if they'd had RADAR, but it hadn't been invented in the real world yet, and hence it's not in this story, so they have to do laborious workaround to figure out where something is).

There's a giddy energy to everything in the absolute best tradition of the (good) pulp SF era, and a hard left turn in the middle when replicator technology is invented, and civilization collapses. (If everyone can have everything forever and at no cost, why work? Why even leave the house?) so the remainder is desperately trying to find a *new* basis for value that isn't based on gold or labor or whatever, because those are now meaningless. Their solution was blatantly stolen by Star Trek DS9.

There's a nice 'thirty years later' story showing our heroes in their declinng years, teaming up to solve one last very personal thing.

The only downside is the last story , set several centuries hence, and intended to be the start of a new series of adventures in this universe, but it's surprisingly brutal and mean-spirited, and I found myself disliking everyone in it. But apart form that, the collection is wonderful.

Excellent classic space opera

Reviewed in the United States on March 4, 2022

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This is excellent classic hard space opera. If you like E.E. Doc Smith. Robert Heinlein, Poul Anderson, H Beam Piper, etc., then you will love this. The stories, and characters, are perfect for that genera.

1940's technology goes to Mars (and elsewhere)!

Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2021

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This excellent collection of short stories gives an 1940's-Electrical Engineer's view of the near future. It's amazing what he got wrong ;) but it is sure a cool read. For example, the whole premise was that a communications relay station (manned with a large crew and positioned at one of the La Grange points in Venus' orbit) was needed to "get around the sun". (All of the inner planets were habitable and populated.) The communications were based on old fashioned teletypes, with huge quantities of punched paper tape! Towards the end the violations of Special Relativity and Quantum Mechanics were hilarious.

3 people found this helpful

Great Read for Sci Fi Fans

Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2017

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An excellent classic of science fiction - this is my second copy, since my original, beat up and dog-eared copy finally fell apart. It was worth replacing.

3 people found this helpful

Smith Had a Reputation as a Jerk

Reviewed in the United States on March 16, 2018

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Entertaining stories about engineers on a space radio relay station, who invent all kinds of great stuff. What it asks you to believe is that these guys had no idea they could invent a matter duplicator, or that there would be any demand for one, until a critical situation came along that required it. The author, George O. Smith, was a friend of the famous editor John Campbell, who published Smith's stories. Until Campbell's wife Doña ran off with Smith, that is.

I've been told that new technologies often arrive unexpectedly, but that's not true. The guys who invented the transistor and the laser were trying to do exactly that. The general public may not have expected it, but the inventors certainly did.

Classic tales of radio engineering and adventure in space

Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2019

During World War II the author worked on one of the most outrageous (and successful) electrical engineering projects of all time--a vacuum tube radio set manufactured in the tens of thousands, designed to be fired from an artillery piece, withstanding an initial acceleration of 20,000 gravities and spinning at 500 revolutions per second--the radio proximity fuze. To relax, he wrote the Venus Equilateral stories, published in Astounding Science Fiction and collected in this volume along with a retrospective written in 1973 for an anthology in memory of long-time Astounding/Analog editor John W. Campbell, Jr.

If you like your science fiction hard, this is about as geeky as it gets:

“ ‘The nice thing about this betatron,’ said Channing, ‘is the fact that it can and does run both ends on the same supply. The current and voltage phases are correct so that we do not require two supplies which operate in a carefully balanced condition. The cyclotron is one of the other kinds; though the one supply is strictly D.C., the strength of the field must be controlled separately from the supply to the oscillator that runs the D plates. You're sitting on a fence, juggling knobs and stuff all the time you are bombarding with a cyc.’ ” (From “Recoil”, p. 95)

Notwithstanding such passages, and how quaint an interplanetary radio relay station based on vacuum tubes with a staff of 2700 may seem to modern readers, these are human stories which are, on occasions, breathtaking in their imagination and modernity. The account of the impact of an “efficiency expert” on a technology-based operation in “QRM—Interplanetary” is as trenchant (and funny) as anything in Dilbert. The pernicious effect of abusive patent litigation on innovation, the economics of a technological singularity created by what amounts to a nanotechnological assembler, and the risk of identity theft, are the themes of other stories which it's difficult to imagine having been written more than half a century ago, along with timeless insights into engineering. One, in particular, from “Firing Line” (p. 259) so struck me when I read it forty-odd years ago that it has remained in my mind ever since as one of the principal differences between the engineer and the tinkerer, “They know one simple rule about the universe. That rule is that if anything works once, it may be made to work again.” The tinkerer is afraid to touch something once it mysteriously starts to work; an engineer is eager to tear it apart and figure out why. I found the account of the end of Venus Equilateral in “Mad Holiday” disturbing when I first read it, but now see it as a celebration of technological obsolescence as an integral part of progress, to be welcomed, and the occasion for a blow-out party, not long faces and melancholy.

Arthur C. Clarke, who contributes the introduction to this collection, read these stories while engaged in his own war work, in copies of Astounding sent from America by Willy Ley, acknowledges that these tales of communication relays in space may have played a part in his coming up with that idea.

3 people found this helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Sidecar Bob

Should be required reading for Sci-Fi fans

Reviewed in Canada on July 7, 2013

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I bought this book because I remembered reading it many, many years ago and it wasn't new then. It was the origin of many of the ideas that became common in Science Fiction afterward and it predicted many of the modern conveniences we take for granted today, but all based on the vacuum tube technology of the time when it was written. Definitely an important piece of literary history.

Ms. Elise Hey

Old Books from Amazon

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 20, 2011

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I bought this book for my Dad as a Christmas present. Books in our family are very precious! I could pick out a dozen or more paperback books my Dad has had for over 50 years, and they still look nearly new! I knew when I ordered this book that it was used, and not in "as new" condition, and I was a bit disappointed that it was as worn as it is, however my Dad has said the condition doesn't matter as much as getting this rare old book which he has been trying to find for years. I can't comment on the story itself, because I haven't read it, but Dad says it's a great story which he is looking forward to reading again after many many years.

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