The Forces Of Boskone

Having just finished reading Gray Lensman today (I already used its cover in my last post on the subject, so here’s Galactic Patrol instead) I felt the urge to share a certain thought that’s been running through my head since fairly early in the Lensman series.

Maybe this kind of musing is better left to the NSFW-titled rap music blog that I write for, but here goes.

For those who don’t know, E.E. “Doc” Smith is always quick to point out, throughout the Lensman series, that the major conflict is not between good and evil, but between Civilization and “Boskone”–which is essentially vice and the utter antithesis of Civilization in all its forms. (Granted, one could classify Boskone as “everything fun” but that’s beside the point, the books are great anyway.) While the forces of Boskone dabble in all sorts of evils, including piracy and genocide, the main operation of theirs that the novels seem to focus on is drug-running. Of course, many fun future-y space-drugs are introduced, the strongest of which is the ultra-hallucinatory thionite, but even with that the books’ constant eye to drugs as the most evil of evils is a little strange. Not to mention that the forces of Boskone are seriously, megalomaniacally evil in a crazy supervillain sense that seems to not quite jibe with simple drug pushers.

None of this bothers me, mind you, because the series is goofy anyway, and still plenty of fun, but it got me thinking. You see, for those unaware of the trends in rap music, nearly every rapper these days is, at least according to their lyrics, a drug pusher. This is nothing new (on my other blog I’ve gone into the fact that, to kids from the Bay Area like me, crack raps are, in fact, nostalgic) but it’s especially pronounced right now. The point is, with rapper/dealers definitely being the trend these days, and with there always being at least a couple of lyricists willing to make some weird pop-culture references, I would really love it if someone were to appropriate the phraseology of Boskone in their rhymes. F*ck Tony Montana (that movie is hella boring anyway) pushers don’t get any more masterful, Machiavellian, or cold-blooded than the Boskonians who watch with detached interest as they pump drugs into other galaxies and cause massive destruction with untold weaponry.

Rick Ross, I’m looking at you.