EE Doc Smith

Just a correction before listing it: the book is Grey Lensman by E. E. “Doc” Smith, not E. E. Doc Smith by Grey Lensman. The ISBN confirms the 1973 Panther edition.

Kimball Kinnison is now a Grey Lensman, which means he is no longer attached to a particular base or chain of command and can roam the galaxy pursuing the forces of evil wherever they may be inconveniently established. It is a position requiring exceptional intelligence, enormous courage, advanced telepathic powers and a willingness to destroy things on a scale that would make an ordinary insurance policy completely meaningless.

In Grey Lensman, Kinnison continues his campaign against Boskone, the vast criminal organisation threatening civilisation across the galaxy. The enemy’s headquarters are hidden, its agents are everywhere and its organisation extends through worlds, species and layers of command. Kinnison must infiltrate enemy societies, assume disguises, investigate obscure connections and engage in battles involving enough ships, weapons and planetary destruction to make subtle diplomacy seem rather underfunded.

E. E. “Doc” Smith was one of the founding architects of space opera, and here the opera is being performed with the entire orchestra, several additional brass sections and the occasional collision of celestial bodies. His universe is filled with alien races, telepathic communication, stupendous machines, impenetrable force fields and weapons whose output is best measured by asking how much of the surrounding solar system remains afterwards. Modern science fiction may have become more restrained and psychologically ambiguous, but restraint was plainly not the department Smith had been hired to supervise.

Yet the novel is not merely a succession of enormous explosions, although readers who appreciate enormous explosions will not feel neglected. Kinnison operates undercover, follows trails of evidence and attempts to understand the structure of Boskone from within. He is part detective, part secret agent, part interstellar policeman and part superhuman battering ram. When careful investigation fails, civilisation fortunately possesses battleships.

Originally serialised in 1939 and later published in book form, Grey Lensman is a landmark of classic science fiction and a major instalment in Smith’s hugely influential Lensman series. Its scale, speed and wholehearted enthusiasm helped establish the vocabulary of galactic adventure long before space opera became respectable enough to acquire complicated politics, morally uncertain heroes and television adaptation budgets. There is something magnificently refreshing about a book in which good and evil occupy clearly labelled sides and both have access to planet-sized weapons.

This 1973 Panther edition is in Good condition. It has undergone the ordinary effects of terrestrial handling but remains structurally sound, entirely readable and unlikely to require repairs from the engineering division of the Galactic Patrol.

Sold by Crappy Old Books, an independent organisation not currently affiliated with either Civilization or Boskone. We reserve the right to reconsider our allegiance if either side offers free postage.

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