E. E. Smith (1890–1965)

The pulp-era history of space opera is complicated, but E. E. “Doc” Smith is undoubtedly one of its icons. His Triplanetary is one of two prequels to the Lensman series. When its first version was published in 1934, the Buck Rogers radio series was in the middle of its run, and the comic strip had been out for five years. And, of course, the kid genius Tom Swift had been busy defeating bad guys with clever inventions since 1910. In 1948, a clunky, expanded fixup version of Triplanetary brought the beginning of the series into the Atomic Age. Reading the novel almost ninety years on, I was struck by the shifting style that veers from wartime slang to prose so purple it would make Bulwer-Lytton blush. At the heart of it all is the adoration of technology devoted to speed and power—especially force fields and beamed transmissions. Smith is especially fond of tractor beams, a term he may have coined as early as 1931.
Smith makes giant technological leaps seem easy. How about an inertialess tractor beam? “A tractor—inertialess?” Cleveland wondered. “Sure, why not?” Even fish, deep in the oceans of a distant planet, can do it because “those high-pressure boys were no fools.”
But my favorite bit of Smithian prose comes when the Nevians first appear in Tellurian space: “Space became suffused with a redly impenetrable opacity, and through that indescribable pall there came reaching huge arms of force incredible; writhing, coruscating beams of power which glowed a baleful, although almost imperceptible, red.”
Kids, they don’t write ‘em like that anymore.… (més)

Another "classic" sci-fi novel and another reminder of how much the genre --and really society, as if sci-fi existed separately from that-- has changed in the last 70 to 85 years (this was originally published serially starting in the early- to mid-1930's, I think, then collected and amended/rewritten for publication in 1948.)

More genre specific is the lower quality of the writing (reasonably decent here, considering, but still...) and the very time-specific plot/event style. E.g. "humans" discover some new technology based on some new physics and have a working, battleship-mounted weapon based on it in 3 days. E.g. the uber-competent agent/engineer/scientist builds a functioning first-of-its-kind "ultra wave" "camera" in-field in what sounds like hours, or at most days. I get it that (these days) that is a (sub-)genre specific trope and, moreover, that when e.g. someone on Star Trek picks a crystal up *off the ground* and "wires" it into their tricorder, or when someone in the Expanse decrypts and reprograms a Martian gunships' military-level encrypted computer with *hardware* tamper-triggers in what is apparently 9 to 90 minutes, that I am letting the exact same thing slide by... but it just seems so much worse and more obvious here.

I feel like I can also detect the fingerprints of the post-WWII, building Red Scare re-writes here. There are passages that either were super-awkwardly inserted and/or just leap out now. Some (one passage RE: an outside power riling up, essentially, "minorities") almost seem prescient a la "Russian election tampering" OR as simply being quite racist (e.g. the attraction of Communism for many black people in the period was because it spoke about and criticized American racism.) Others seem immensely callous OR as subtle criticisms (e.g. the worthy adversary that the "Earthlings" make peace with... nevermind that the Earthlings already realized that those same aliens have brutally subjugated and continue a total war against the other intelligent species on their planet... is this commentary on Communist Russia? Nazi Germany? "Worthy" adversaries in general?)

To be fair, I suppose that is another genre change. Early sci-fi was 100% action. The characters do not have, ah, "rich inner lives" nor do they live in societies.

Anyway, as a historical piece this was interesting; for my particular interest it was worth reading; as a story... eh, probably a waste of your time.… (més)