Triplanetary Re-Visited (Sort Of)

I have made no secret of my great love for the works of E. E. “Doc” Smith. I am currently one book away from finishing his classic Lensman series, and still can’t get over the wonderful way that he merges incredibly cool and imaginative ideas, exciting storytelling, immense grandeur, and extremely fun corniness.

So I was quite excited to discover that e-text website Manybooks.net has a copy of the original version of Smith’s Triplanetary to download as a free PDF. See, Triplanetary is, now, the first book in the Lensman series, but the fact is that when said series was originally coming out serialized it began with what is now the third book. When given the chance to release them as novels, Smith felt that he wanted to emphasize the larger, overarching story that hardly made itself felt in some of the earlier books, and so he added on two more. The second, First Lensman, was entirely new, while for the first he re-purposed his earlier, unrelated novel Triplanetary. I haven’t read this early version, but I’m sure I will someday. They’ve also got some other Smith novels over at Manybooks.net, including part of his earlier Skylark series–worth taking a look at.

I have been, however, re-reading the Lensman version of Triplanetary recently. I know, it’s strange to re-read the first book in a series you haven’t even finished yet, but the difference is that I’m now reading it out-loud. It’s very cool to experience it all over again with a better idea of what comes later, of what was being set up, and to really see the scope of what Smith was creating there. It doesn’t hurt to see it through someone else’s eyes either, watching the listener’s reactions. But, besides that, I’ve been coming to the realization that Smith’s ultra-purple prose is immensely fun to read out-loud. Seriously, when you can get your mouth around the words it’s great fun. In past posts I’ve given examples of Smith’s prose, but to give you a different idea, here are some wonderful little bits from Backstage Lensman, a short story written by one Randall Garrett in 1949 that parodied the Lensman books:

The awesome awfulness of the unimaginable vastness of the intergalactic void.

and…

… beams, rods, cones, stilettos, icepicks, corkscrews, knives, forks, and spoons of energy raved against the screens of the Dentless.

That’s pretty much his style in a nutshell. I find myself having to take many long breaths after certain tension-wrought paragraphs.