The Skylark of Space

Rating:
Summary: In The Beginning...
Review: ... There Was Doc Smith. "The Skylark of Space" was first written somewhere around the turn of the century. Some modifications were done to it before its publication in 1928, and in the 1950s Doc did some updating, but the vast majority of the story remains unchanged. "Skylark" was a revolutionary story of its time, featuring super-science, far-ranging adventure (it may be the very first story to take place beyond the bounds of the Solar System), and (for its genre) well-developed characters. Dated in many ways by today's standards, "The Skylark of Space" is still a hell of a yarn, and the spiritual ancestor of every great space adventure written since. Buy it and read it. It's a piece of SF history.

Rating:
Summary: In The Beginning...
Review: ... There Was Doc Smith. "The Skylark of Space" was first written somewhere around the turn of the century. Some modifications were done to it before its publication in 1928, and in the 1950s Doc did some updating, but the vast majority of the story remains unchanged. "Skylark" was a revolutionary story of its time, featuring super-science, far-ranging adventure (it may be the very first story to take place beyond the bounds of the Solar System), and (for its genre) well-developed characters. Dated in many ways by today's standards, "The Skylark of Space" is still a hell of a yarn, and the spiritual ancestor of every great space adventure written since. Buy it and read it. It's a piece of SF history.

Rating:
Summary: In The Beginning...
Review: ... There Was Doc Smith. "The Skylark of Space" was first written somewhere around the turn of the century. Some modifications were done to it before its publication in 1928, and in the 1950s Doc did some updating, but the vast majority of the story remains unchanged. "Skylark" was a revolutionary story of its time, featuring super-science, far-ranging adventure (it may be the very first story to take place beyond the bounds of the Solar System), and (for its genre) well-developed characters. Dated in many ways by today's standards, "The Skylark of Space" is still a hell of a yarn, and the spiritual ancestor of every great space adventure written since. Buy it and read it. It's a piece of SF history.

Rating:
Summary: Ho-Hum Space Adventure
Review: According to the introduction to this book, "The Skylark of Space" is the first "space opera" ever written. The story first appeared during the 1920's in the pages of "Amazing Stories," and was reedited in the 1950's by the author, E.E. "Doc" Smith. Smith went on to write other Skylark stories, as well as a few other sci-fi series. The introduction also calls attention to other themes in the story: the role of women in the sci-fi genre, the idea of manifest destiny, and the accuracy of predictions made in the story as opposed to real scientific development.

"The Skylark of Space" is entertaining. Of that there is no doubt. Scientist Richard "Dick" Seaton, during the course of mundane research at his government laboratory, accidentally discovers a new means of propulsion. Of course, no one at the lab believes him. Seaton then goes to his buddy Martin Crane, inventor and millionaire, for help. Together, the two begin to develop a spaceship using the new propulsion formula. The wily Marc DuQuesne, a fellow scientist in league with the evil World Steel Company, constantly undermines their plans in the hope of stealing the formula and making a fortune out of it. When DuQuesne abducts Dorothy, Seaton's fiancée, and flies her away on a second ship using the stolen formula, the hijinks begin. The characters end up uniting to face a host of spectacular space dangers. The characters, who use their wits and strength to great advantage, overcome black holes, hostile planets with weird animals, and a planet-wide war.

While the story is entertaining, the cheese factor here is off the charts. The story starts out well, but quickly descends into confusion and pure goofiness. The introduction stresses that the reader must suspend disbelief, but this is ridiculous. The characters are all models of perfection, and each difficulty encountered in space is overcome with seeming ease. The only thing missing from Seaton's profile is the gleam of his teeth when he smiles. The worst part of the book is the end, when the marriage of Seaton and Crane to their respective women dominates the story. Who cares? Isn't one of the goals of science fiction, at least in theory, to provide action sequences? There is action here, but not nearly enough to hold my attention.

This is probably essential reading for the diehard sci-fi fan, but all others should steer clear. A high intake of cheese like this can clog your arteries!

Rating:
Summary: first of the Skylark series
Review: an easy-to-read adventure and an SF classic, but outdated by "ten thousand rows of Christmas trees."

Rating:
Summary: Smith Sizzles
Review: Brilliant scientist Richard Seaton builds the first (many times) faster than light spaceship and travels the universe with a band of friends. Along the way he saves a race of aliens, helps decimate another, rescues his girlfriend and thwarts the misdoings of his arch rival Marc DuQuesne.

This is the first E.E. Smith book I've read and I must say that for the type of book that it is, The Skylark of Space isn't too bad. Think old school comic books. It has high adventure, a smart/strong/handsome protagonist, a loyal sidekick, gee whiz technology, an extremely evil bad guy, and pretty girls. For a large part of the book, the story is fairly interesting. Smith moves the action along quickly and provides a respectable amount of tension to the drama. Even though I knew everything would turn out fine in the end, I still wanted to know how Smith would accomplish it. At a short 159 pages, it was a quick and fun diversion.

The Skylark of Space is not, however, without issues. Many of them are given: flat, completely unreal characters, rigid gender roles, featherweight science, wildly campy. I won't fault the book for these sorts of things. It's a product of its time that targeted a specific audience.

What I do want to point out is that Smith treats war very lightly. Although this book was completed in 1920, Smith revised it in 1958. It's surprising to me that even though Smith had seen the effects of two world wars, mass destruction of life is a very casual act in his book.

For those of you who aren't already huge Doc Smith fans, you'll probably enjoy this book if you know what you're getting into. Understand that it doesn't hold up very well under careful (or even casual) scrutiny. But, for what it is, Smith wrote a great book.

Rating:
Summary: Careening recklessly through space was never so fun!
Review: For someone like me, who grew up on old Tom Swift books often purchased at antique stories, Doc Smith is the paragon of lightspeed adventure. Not particularly keen on technical accuracy ("After all, Einstein's theory is just a theory," one character says upon discovering that he's traveling many times the speed of light) and full of predictibly stalwart or nefarious characters, Smith still manages to spin a great yarn. The main characters seem to exhibit a joyous recklesness remniscient (for me, at least) of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's trilogy. The "testing" of the flight systems and nuclear-powered bullets, in particular, are quite memorable.
If you're looking for gritty realism in characters or technical accuracy in technologies, you probably won't be able to enjoy this book. But for those who wish to put their brains in neutral and have a jolly good time, I can think of few books better than The Skylark of Space.

Rating:
Summary: Careening recklessly through space was never so fun!
Review: For someone like me, who grew up on old Tom Swift books often purchased at antique stories, Doc Smith is the paragon of lightspeed adventure. Not particularly keen on technical accuracy ("After all, Einstein's theory is just a theory," one character says upon discovering that he's traveling many times the speed of light) and full of predictibly stalwart or nefarious characters, Smith still manages to spin a great yarn. The main characters seem to exhibit a joyous recklesness remniscient (for me, at least) of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's trilogy. The "testing" of the flight systems and nuclear-powered bullets, in particular, are quite memorable.
If you're looking for gritty realism in characters or technical accuracy in technologies, you probably won't be able to enjoy this book. But for those who wish to put their brains in neutral and have a jolly good time, I can think of few books better than The Skylark of Space.

Rating:
Summary: Careening recklessly through space was never so fun!
Review: For someone like me, who grew up on old Tom Swift books often purchased at antique stories, Doc Smith is the paragon of lightspeed adventure. Not particularly keen on technical accuracy ("After all, Einstein's theory is just a theory," one character says upon discovering that he's traveling many times the speed of light) and full of predictibly stalwart or nefarious characters, Smith still manages to spin a great yarn. The main characters seem to exhibit a joyous recklesness remniscient (for me, at least) of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's trilogy. The "testing" of the flight systems and nuclear-powered bullets, in particular, are quite memorable.
If you're looking for gritty realism in characters or technical accuracy in technologies, you probably won't be able to enjoy this book. But for those who wish to put their brains in neutral and have a jolly good time, I can think of few books better than The Skylark of Space.

Rating:
Summary: Please reprint this book
Review: I first discovered E E 'Doc' Smith through a tatty second hand copy of this book. That introduced me to the more famous Lensman series (an influance on various modern day sci-fi, from Star Wars to Babylon 5). I read my tatty copy until it fell apart in my hands some years ago.

Anyone who loves a good heroic yarn will love this book. I totally recommend you try and find a copy. (If I don't find it first!)