mclure@sri-unix (08/09/82)
#N:sri-unix:1900003:000:2810 sri-unix!mclure Aug 8 23:20:00 1982 E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman series was recent re-released after a hiatus of several years when it was not in print. Here's an interesting message about the series. Date: Sun Aug 8 02:43:30 1982 From: decvax!utzoo!henry at Berkeley Subject: Lensman series People who want to read the Lensman series in the *right* order, as opposed to the strict chronological one, should first read \Galactic Patrol/, \Gray Lensman/, \Second Stage Lensmen/, and \Children of the Lens/, in that order, ***without*** reading the forewords and afterwords on the last three. These four books, minus the forewords and afterwords, actually form one very large novel with gradually building suspense and insight. That is the way Doc Smith originally conceived them, that is the sequence he published them in, and that is the way they read best. It's most unfortunate that he chose to add the forewords and afterwords for the book versions; they should have gigantic bright red ***SPOILER WARNING***s on them, because that's exactly what they are: huge spoilers. \Triplanetary/ actually consists of filler material plus a much older short novel rewritten to fit it into the Lensman universe. Its age shows. \First Lensman/ was actually the last book published (barring \Masters of the Vortex/ which is in the same universe but otherwise unconnected), and was written as a gap-filler. It's not bad. Both of these should be read after, not before, the four main novels, because both are spoilers with respect to major plot elements of the four. Except for the short story that eventually became \Masters of the Vortex/, I don't know of any other Lensman fiction by Doc Smith himself. There have been two attempts by other authors to set fiction in the Lensman universe. William Ellern had a Lensman-universe story, \Moon Prospector/, in Analog in 1965 or 66. This was quite good, although there was already a bit of strain because of the divergence of real history and technology from what Doc Smith had envisioned. The technology of \Moon Prospector/ is really incompatible with the Smith novels, but so smoothly done that you have to think about it to notice this. Ellern, incidentally, at John Campbell's suggestion, got Doc Smith's approval before publishing. The more recent effort is David Kyle's [sp?] \The Dragon Lensman/. I started to read this. Twice. I couldn't make myself go much beyond the first hundred pages. The technological incompatibilities are far more severe, and are major elements in the plot so they cannot just slide past you without being noticed. It just wasn't the same. Although Doc Smith had thought about writing the stories of the other second-stage Lensmen, I doubt very much if he would have produced anything like this. Henry Spencer decvax!utzoo!henry @ Berkeley