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Triplanetary
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October BofM 2023: Pre 1940, Proto and Pulp Eras, "Triplanetary" by EE Doc Smith
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Natalie
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rated it 4 stars
Sep 07, 2023 10:07AM
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Interplanetary has been sitting on my bookshelf for over a year, waiting to be read, alongside First Lensman. Both books ended up there after I finished reading the last four Lensmen books and needed a break from “Doc” Smith. The poor characterisation and relentless action in his books don’t make them a reading delight for me so I can only handle so much. Still, he is one of the godfathers of space opera so it might be time to dive back in.I’ve read that Triplanetary is the worst of the series but I will dust it off and give it a go after I finish off the Mick Herron Slough House Series. Now there is a book series with great characters!
I plan to join, but probably closer to the mid-month
I started reading and got through the first two parts which makes up maybe the first third of the novel. the first part is deadly boring, a lot of exposition about the Bloods and the Crips or whatever the aliens are called. the second part wasn't too bad, telling the story of Kinnison family experiences in WWI, WWII, and WWIII. The third part of the novel is the original Triplanetary story that was serialized in Amazing Stories in 1934. the rest of the novel was fixed up and published in 1948.
I'm just about to start that third part. more comments to follow...
I've just finished, and i have to say that despite being probably the third ( or fourth ) time I've read this in 40+ ( gosh almost 50 now ) years i still really enjoyed it. Yes even the first section introducing the two greatest alien races. Maybe I'm easily pleased 🙂The final section of the book is full of chases across the universe and various descriptions of space battles as our heroes of the Triplanetary Council make giant leaps forward for mankind
Now the question is, do i go on and attack the rest of the Lensman series again
Started yesterday, at first a lot of tell, don't show
I decided to quit the book. I came at 1/3 but was losing interest and concentration. There's too much pages to come to finish it this way. Adrian's review kept me going for a while longer :-), but I don't think I will pick it up later.
Leo wrote: "I decided to quit the book. I came at 1/3 but was losing interest and concentration. There's too much pages to come to finish it this way. Adrian's review kept me going for a while longer :-), but ..."I don't blame you. It's kind of a slog. I'm a little over halfway done and I'm plugging away at it but it's not a great book. I will say that the third part of the book - the original Triplanetary story - is better than the tacked on first two parts.
I've got over the first two 'books' semi-conscious, i.e. I tried to follow the story on audio but don't care if I misunderstand something. Now I'm to 'true' Triplanetary story and I see that I may have liked it as a juvenile (to use then-standard term for teens) but now it seems too simplistic
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I'm not very familiar with Green Lantern in general, though I very much enjoyed Far Sector by N.K. Jemisin.
The basic idea of Green Lantern is that anyone who wears a special ring becomes a superhero and tries to protect some world. The ring also translates speech and gives limited telepathy.
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I really enjoyed it! There were parts that dragged a little but I found the space travel, the pirates, and the amphibious aliens very interesting! It definitely was dated (dials in the ship, rays and beams as the only weapons) but I thought it had quite a bit of action, instead of discussions of ideas!
100+ pages in and I‘m struggling like most of y‘all. I promised myself I would finish this over the weekend but as I am having difficulty reading more than a chapter at a time this could be optimistic
I've finished it, the book was an interesting experience, but more in the sense of learning than of enjoying the novel per se. The indiscriminate killing irked me as well as using names w/o substance, I guess because there already were novels by Hamilton and other 30s space opera. Take 'pirates' as an example and compare those space ones, who are more saboteurs with ones from the history
Met my self imposed deadline and finished Triplanetary before the weekend ended. Reflecting on the book I can see how this helped spawn a genre but it just doesn’t age well imo. The characters are one dimensional super men who bare no resemblance to real people. The only female is a prop to add badly needed humanity to the male lead. The plot shifts and logic leaps are ridiculous. The indiscriminate killing and casual disregard for life seems abhorrent now but probably resonated in the post war era this was written. Episodic in nature it never really escapes its serialisation roots. Overall it’s just dull. Good books make us care about the characters. They ask questions that we read on to find answers. This does neither.
I've checked some reviews and found an interesting fact in this one: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...to quote the relevant part: this was the period when most scientists believed that the Solar System started when another star had a near miss with our own sun, dragging matter out of it by tidal forces.
This is both why we have 1 planet per galaxy in another galaxy and why two galaxies collide at the start of the full version of the book
I'm glad that I have not been the only one to enjoy this book , as I have relished the chases, battles and obvs the prates and yet others have found parts of the book "abhorrent". I know it is dated, but found the characters and story enjoyable none the less.In fact so enjoyable I am now onto book 3 in the series and still enjoying the story .
Adrian wrote: "I'm glad that I have not been the only one to enjoy this book , as I have relished the chases, battles and obvs the prates and yet others have found parts of the book "abhorrent"...."I don't think Andrew was attacking your opinion Adrian, and I'm sure you didn't mean to challenge his either. It's OK to share opinions, not OK to attack others' opinions. Personally, I am glad you liked the book. I on the other hand am a little over halfway through and struggling to maintain interest. It will probably end up as a two-star read for me.
But a lot of people agree with your thoughts Adrian - in 1966 the Lensman series was voted the 2nd best Sci-Fi series of all time by Huga Award voters, finishing behind only Asimov's Foundation series. That's pretty impressive. Of course, Hugo voters also voted Redshirts by John Scalzi as Best Novel, so.... ;-)
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to quote the relevant part: this was the period when most scientists believed that the Solar System started when another star had a near miss with our own sun ..."
I also saw that and was intrigued. I don't remember that idea from history. It probably is true. But when quoting a review from "Manny Rayner" it is important to remember that he is a trickster.
The first line of that review is "Reading Bishop Barnes's rather interesting Scientific Theory and Religion earlier this evening, I was reminded of E.E. Doc Smith's dreadful space opera series."
If you go to his review of that book https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6... , you will see that he says "People new to Goodreads will not be familiar with the enigmatic BishopBarnes. When I joined in 2008, he was one of the most active members..."
He goes on to explain that the book in question was not really written in 1932. I enjoy his little tricks, but don't trust everything he says!
Does anyone have a more reliable source of the idea that planets result from near-collisions of stars?
Sounds something like the “planetesimal hypothesis” discussed here:https://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...
(1917 Scientific American article)
No offence taken, no offence intended. EE Smith is a Great of my favourite genre. Clearly a lot of people have loved his work so don’t see why criticism of him would bother anyone. I’ve read 5 of the series in question and will read no 6 ( or in this case, no 2, First Lensmen). I can appreciate the series, and respect the work, I just don’t love his work the way I love Asimov, Heinlein, Le Guin, Pohl and Scott Card.
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Thanks. That seems about right. It is a bit surprising how recent some discoveries and theories are.
I have a slight nagging sense that I should have read this, as a science fiction lover interested in the history of the genre, but I’ve read just enough of this kind of thing to be pretty confident I wouldn’t have enjoyed it.
I'm going to power through and finish this one in the next week if it kills me.
I've just finished the book and thought it was fine. It started slowly but I enjoyed the action sequences in the last third. It was a product of its time regarding the roles of men and women.I found it an enjoyable break from more serious reading.
Rosemarie wrote: "I've just finished the book and thought it was fine. It started slowly but I enjoyed the action sequences in the last third. It was a product of its time regarding the roles of men and women.I fou..."
I just got to the part where they landed on the planet of the lizard people and now they're going to fight some undersea battle. I'm hoping to wrap this one up this weekend.
There are some terrific battles.
Rosemarie wrote: "There are some terrific battles."And lots of exclamation marks!
RJ - Slayer of Trolls wrote: "I don't think Andrew was attacking your opinion Adrian, and I'm sure you didn't mean to challenge his either. It's OK to share opinions, not OK to attack others' opinions. Personally, I am glad you liked the book. I on the other hand am a little over halfway through and struggling to maintain interest. It will probably end up as a two-star read for me. "......."Oh gosh no, I certainly wasn't either criticising or attacking his opinion, I was just commenting how interesting it is that peoples opinions can differ so much. In fact I've commented elsewhere that its the fact we all like different books that makes this site what it is.
Rosemarie wrote: "There are some terrific battles."Yeah I thought so to.
And I really liked your comment about a change from serious reading. I think a mix is what keeps me reading !!
I should be finishing this today. By the way, this is the song I keep hearing in my mind as I read the book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=af7AR...
Feel Your Pulse (Mind Vortex Remix) by Camo and Krooked
EDIT: The quotes in the song are from the film "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers"
I finished yesterday and wanted to share some overall thoughts as I prepare to write my review. Triplanetary was first serialized in Amazing Stories in 1934. Originally the story had no connection to the Lensman series, the first four books of which were serialized in Astounding Stories - beginning with Galactic Patrol - in 1937-1948 but at the suggestion of Editor Lloyd Arthur Eshbach the Triplanetary story was expanded and re-worked into a prequel to the four Lensman books (a second prequel First Lensman was also published to bridge the gap between Triplanetary and Galactic Patrol).
As a novel, Triplanetary is broken into three parts: Book One gives the background of the meeting of the warlike Eddorian species and the secretive advanced Arisian species. The Arisians conceal their existence from the Eddorians to avoid conflict, and they breed humans (called "Tellurians" throughout the story) through eugenics to create a race that will be able to fight the Eddorians. Book Two follows the history of the Kinnison family from Atlantis through Rome, then both World Wars and eventually WWIII. The Kinnisons don't play much of a role in the rest of Triplanetary but Kimball Kinnison was the hero in Galactic Patrol, so this might have been a thrill for fans of the original four Lensman stories. Book Three appears to be the original published Lensman story but likely updated to fit the Lensman universe, and it concerns itself with the Triplanetary League (Earth, Venus and Mars) fighting a pirate named "Roger" (I swear to God I'm not making this up) who is actually an Eddorian when a race of Lizard-men Iron Pirates shows up to complicate matters.
Let's break this down a little further.
The good: Smith's imagination was amazing, and really far ahead of his time. Although they aren't called "lasers" (the term would not be coined until 1959 although the concept was suggested by Einstein back in 1919) the space battles use various "ray" weapons. Also, I was surprised to hear the term "tractor beam" used several times. The first time I had heard of tractor beams in my lifetime was in Star Wars (Han Solo says, as I recall: "We're caught in a tractor beam, it's pulling us in...") but apparently the term was coined by Smith in the novel Spacehounds of IPC published in - hang on to your hats - 1931. Good God! There's plenty of action in the book including some amazing space battles in the final few chapters. No wonder Smith is called the "Father of Space Opera" and Lensman finished second only to Asimov's Foundation when fans voted for Best All-Time Series in 1966 at the Hugos.
The bad: It's not well written. Let's get that out of the way right now. In fact, the sentence structure is often awkward, there are too many meaningless characters popping up to confused readers, the first Book is just lengthy paragraphs of boring exposition and the second Book is a family history of people who really don't even appear in this story. The pacing is terrible, with long boring stretches followed by pages of great action sequences. The prose is purple-ish and clunky, and the best that can be said for Smith's writing style is that it is technically accurate, with commas and periods in the right places. There is a female love interest who actually takes a hand in some action scenes although usually she just shrieks - this was par for the course in the 1930s-50s but hasn't aged well.
Overall I gave it two stars, but I'm not giving up on Smith - I have the feeling that Galactic Patrol might be more fun. Smith's imagination in many ways encapsulates the feeling of early pulp Science-Fiction with larger than life heroes battling space monsters with the Earth's future hanging in the balance.
RJ-SofT: I agree with your assessment. Reading Smith makes me want to rewatch Buckaroo Banzai.
Thomas wrote: "RJ-SofT: I agree with your assessment. Reading Smith makes me want to rewatch Buckaroo Banzai."Remember - no matter where you go, there you are.
Impressive analysis RJ, thanks. I didn't make it past the first two books but I think I would have liked the third part best.
Leo wrote: "Impressive analysis RJ, thanks. I didn't make it past the first two books but I think I would have liked the third part best."The whole last 50-70 pages were very action-packed. Very.
I agree. Very action-packed!
The Evolution of Science Fiction
Books mentioned in this topic
Galactic Patrol (other topics)First Lensman (other topics)
Spacehounds of IPC (other topics)
Redshirts (other topics)
Green Lantern: Earth One, Volume 1 (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
John Scalzi (other topics)N.K. Jemisin (other topics)
