The Fredösphere

I blogged a while back about buying First Lensman by E. E. "Doc" Smith.  Since today is Sci-Fi Thursday (not to be confused with Antipope Thursday) I thought I'd follow up with a mini review.  First, you may want to read this plot summary if you need it.  Here's a more detailed summary of the whole Lensman series.

This book is non-great.  It is non-good.  It avoids badness barely.

Yes, I've been told Doc Smith was the first author to move the action outside of our solar system.  I grant you, that's an achievement.  But if you want people to still read your stuff 50 years after its written (you know, the current day, when people really are traveling between the stars) you better pay attention to plot or character development.  Preferably some of both.

A number of things were embarassing, like the authors ignorance of the group dynamics of national elections, or the way the bad guys are unable to anticipate obvious tactical innovations, or that one small spaceship's crew consists of eight military men and one cook (I guess the microwave oven was broken), but hey, you expect any old sci-fi novel to show it's age in that way.

There are two more fundamental weaknesses.  First, we're introduced to some awsomely wise and powerful aliens who can predict the future and manipulate it.  In the first chapter therefore, we find out that

SPOILER ALERT

the good guys are going to win.  Not only are they going to win, but this godlike race will choreograph every step along the way to victory.  Shoo, I've never seen an author purge the suspense from his novel quite so quickly or ruthlessly.  In some highbrow novels, that might be okay.  Maybe Doc Smith is an early, precocious postmodernist who is experimenting with plotless fiction.  Maybe he's one of those etiolated aesthetes who care only for character development and eschew action.

No. 

The conceit of First Lensman is that the gods are recruiting certain individuals of exceptional intellect, benevolence and will power to form an elite cohort to police the galaxy and establish Civilization.  They are given "lenses", devices that allow them to read minds.  Pretty cool, but my problem is with the title character, Virgil Samms.  We are told over and over (and over and over) that he is the great man of his age, that all who know him freely acknoledge the superiority of his mind and character.  We are told it, but we are never shown it.  The Virgil Samms that the reader comes to know seems to be pretty average, frankly.

Too bad.  I really like fiction that is innocent of the difficulty in human space travel.  The whole space opera genre had my hopes up.  I won't be reading the other books of the Lensman series.  Looks like I need to keep looking if I want to find the Wagner of early sci-fi.