Spacehounds of Ipc

Rating:
Summary: Moons of Jupiter, then and now.
Review: Edward E. Smith, Ph.D, in addition to being the foremost writer of all time about "Space Opera" was in many ways a visionary, and with his "Skylark" and "Lensman Series" constructed a universe so filled with spacefaring heroes and weird and wonderful aliens of all description as to boggle the imagination. Unlike the two series mentioned above, Spacehounds of IPC was a "stand alone" book about a huge spaceship on a standard run from Earth to Mars being partially destroyed by aliens who begin towing the spaceship back to Jupiter, where they live.

In light of todays space probe explorations of the planet Jupiter and its moons, one of which is thought to have frozen seas capable of supporting possible lifeforms, Smith's saga about "Steve Stevens" and "Nadia" Newton's adventures on Ganymede and Callisto, two of the moons of Jupiter, their subsequent rescue by Stevens' Interplanetary Corporation friends in the IPC research spaceship "Sirius" and their involvement in the war between the Hexans and Vorkulians of Jupiter, makes one wonder what we will find when our "Spacehounds" venture out past the Asteroid Belt and begin our own explorations of the moons of Jupiter. I consider myself fortunate to have a hard-cover copy of this book I purchased from Fantasy Press a half-century ago, and recommend it particularly to those science-fiction enthusiasts who like the grandeur and sweep of Smith's books.

Rating:
Summary: First SF book I ever read - have been a convert ever since.
Review: This book contains a number of elements that are unrealistic (e.g. it features real live Martians, and the author's take on womankind is, to put it lightly, less than politically correct - though I'm told that that was simply how American society viewed women at the time). If you can look past things like that, this book is *brilliant* ! And it's a prime example of what SF was like when it all began. That also means that, compared to current SF, the story is kind of dated - SF has gone a long way since way back then. But this book really opened my eyes in regard to the fun of discovering what an author thinks the universe would be like if ____ (just fill in the blank however you like) was true, possible, and/or had turned out differently.