Sometimes, I'm a fool. I thought, perhaps, that the "so called" golden age of sci-fi before Heinlein would be as painful to read as the old Jules Verne. I even tried to read the first ten pages of the first book of the Lensman of E. E. Smith PHD and cringed down to my soul. I was thinking that nothing would be worth the pain of reading this trash. And yet, all of my favorite past couple of generations of sci-fi authors swore by the old doc, and there are still generations of readers that are surprised and delighted by the stories. Heck, the fourth book is considered by some to be the 98th best sci-fi book of all time. I buckled down, gritted my teeth, and picked up the fourth without so much as reading eleven pages of the first three.

I WAS DUMBFOUNDED. I was awestruck. I was plainly amazed and giddy in the reading of these little serialized bubblegum stories of sci-fi heroes. I'm too young to have watched Flash Gordon, but I understand the draw. I'm certainly old enough to have sat amazed through all the Star Wars at the inception. I've watched all of the original Star Treks, (not to mention every iteration after). I was forced to re-evaluate my entire internal consistency engine of sci-fi idea sources and lineage, and all of a sudden, the mitochondrial eve of sci-fi tropes (at least the best surviving eve) is FOUND. Now I understand. The light shines upon my mind. The great cosmic egg lights up like a big bulb.

So I asked in a small voice... "So the Lensman series is what encouraged the Green Lantern Comics into being? It also encouraged the biggest space operas? It took over as the sci-fi successor to all westerns and greek hero myths?" And E. E. Smith replied, "Yes, you dumbshit."

AAaaahhhh... ok... I feel like a moron now, but at least I didn't proliferate that weird-ass idea about galaxies colliding... whew... I'm back on my moral high ground again. :)

I might just have to read them in order again and ignore, dutifully, the Really Bad Physics in favor of the Great Fun.

Update:
I can't get this out of my head: The proper term for the collision of two planets is "Squishingly". I can't unread what I have read, so I pay it forward. :) ( )

The fourth volume in the six-part Lensman series. It continues the development of the Galactic Patrol and the extension of their fight against Boskone into the second galaxy. ( )

Action-packed pulp that's classic sci-fi, but a bit short on character and development. Otherwise the plot moves well and Smith certainly has imagination. However, he's definitely old school so he likes his men to be men and his women to stand by supporting their men - so definitely *not* in the feminist category. ( )

Embarrassingly badly written. He spends time telling us in detail things we don't care about and glosses over what would be interesting. He just can't seem to be bothered to do it properly. Poor show. ( )

The story continues as the Lensmen continue to make progress against the 'pirates' while slowly coming closer to finding out who's really behind all of the problems in the Galaxy! See my other reviews for comments on this series, but these really are great examples of the space opera genre. ( )