Lensman!

Time for the creaky old fan (with apologies to Steve Davidson) to ramble.

Way back in the dawn of time when Pyramid came out with an edition of "Doc" Smith (both the Skylark tales and the Lensman tales) with those utterly wonderful Jack Gaughan covers, I read the whole Lensman series on Friday nights when we went to a place called Packard's Market (sort of a department store) in Hackensack, NJ. My parent's would drop us kids off at the books, we'd read them, and they'd pick us up eventually.

Imagine doing that today?

Anyway, over the course of a spring, into a summer, and then a fall, I read "Doc" Smith. Years later I bought a different edition from Pyramid (and eventually got most of them in hardcover...in early to original editions!). But the first time was the magic time. Hurtling planets, negaspheres, colliding galaxies and more! From the birth of the planets in our galaxy to ancient Rome, to WWI, WWII, WWIII and beyond, from hurtling spaceships to hurtling planets to fleets of planets, "Doc" Smith Thought Big.

I re-read these books every few years. Sure, the dialog is corny. Sure, the "sex" is silly. Sure, it's pulp.

But. It is the essence of great science fiction. It is one of our wellsprings. And it is a dang lot of fun.

Hmmm..it's been a few years. Time to pull a volume off the shelf.