E. E. Smith (1) (1890–1965)

As you might expect, this is solidly in the dated, sexist, adolescent escapist fantasy mode. The men are handsome and brilliant, and the women are plucky (without ever going beyond needing a real man to rescue them when the going gets tough) and beautiful. The aliens are bug eyed monsters or human clones (dipped in green paint). The most interesting character is DuQuesne, who is brilliant, ambitious and completely amoral, yet honorable in his own perverse way. Too bad he disappears for long show more stretches at a time, despite being cooped up in a relatively small spaceship with the four good guys. Still, the action, especially in the last 50 pages, is reasonably entertaining, and you have to acknowledge that some of the basic ideas being addressed in this novel are still driving the imaginations of science fiction authors and readers 80 years later (e.g., Star Trek: Voyager). show less

Some good adventure in Skylark but I found the racist, sexist, and colonial assumption got in the way of my enjoyment of the novel. This novel has not aged as well as some of the other early SciFi of similar vintage (e.g., Verne, Burroughs, Wells). I cannot recommend this book unless you are interested in the history and development of science fiction.

Reading the original Buck Rogers novels helped kindle within me a fondness for pulp sci-fi. And Doc Smith is a legend of that period. So I was really prepared to enjoy this book. But ultimately I couldn't even finish it. The style is so overwrought, I could practically hear the voice of a Radio Drama Announcer reading the descriptions. ("...through raging beam, through blasting ray, through crushing force; through storm of explosive and through rain of metal the Dresden remained apparently show more unscathed. Her screens were radiating high into the violet, but they showed no signs of weakening or of going down...Since she was...being fought by inhumanly intelligent monstrosities, she was invulnerable to any one ship of the Fleet as long as her generators could be fed.") The opening story ("The Galaxy Primes") is so badly plotted and the characters so broadly drawn, I had to just thumb through the last half of it. If these stories are examples of good science fiction from the Pulps era, it is no wonder that sci-fi had a bad reputation for decades. show less

Reading this book, today, is the equivalent of watching an episode of Mystery Science Theater, with my mind providing the sarcastic commentary. There is a gosh-gee, me smart strong male, you clever beautiful woman feel to this that might be amusing if it was ironic, but read plain it is just laughable. And some of the writing, I have to wonder, "Could Doc Smith have written that without intending it to be a joke?" Such as when Seaton is inside his spaceship, the Skylark, and puts his hand on show more the cental support beam inside it: "Resting one hand caressingly upon the huge member..." Maybe this wasn't a double entendre back in the day, but it just screams phallic symbol now.

When you get towards the end of the book, you also have to contend with Seaton's seeming affability about murdering strangers on a whim (it just feels right to him), and his admiration of a race that not only kills their own weak, but anyone they perceive to be lesser than them, on their way to becoming closer to god. This is eerily prescient, coming a little more than a decade before World War II, and is just creepy to read in hindsight.

Finally, if I never hear the phrase, "You're a blinding flash and a deafening report" again, it will be none too soon. show less