I consider the LensmanSeries some of the best SpaceOpera ScienceFiction ever written. I must have read it more than five times now. I like the part of WildBillWilliams, MeteorMiner, best. I heard the term 'Lensmen' the first time when I read RobertHeinlein's TheNumberOfTheBeast. EeDocSmith also wrote other books, e.g. the SkylarkSeries and the FamilydAlembertSeries, but I haven't read them (yet). Are they as good as the LensmanSeries? -- LorenzBeyeler

''There is some discussion over whether this is the Lensman series, the Lensmen series or the Lens Men series. Anyone care to explain why Lensman is right?''

I have one of the books right in front of me. Its title reads "E.E. 'Doc' Smith's classic Lensman series" and the subtitle is "Grey Lensman". I think that settles the discussion.

''I quite like these books, but they have to be read with an understanding of when they were written. Released now, they'd sink without trace. Also, any fan of these should read HarryHarrison's StarSmashersOfTheGalaxyRangers for an affectionate parody of the LensmanSeries''

-Could you give a description of the plot?

''Galaxies collide. Godlike goodies discover ultimate baddies, start a stock-improvement program. Ages pass as two families meet without ever sharing genes. Irresistable force/ray/bomb meets immovable object/screen/shield. Again and again. Baddies get beaten only for men to discover they're not the real baddy. Again and again. Genes are shared, gods retire, humans win.''

The Lensman series is often taken to be a major inspiration of DC Comics' Green Lantern Corps. The official line is that the similarities started out as a coincidence, but the basic premise of both is pretty similar - interstellar cops whose badge of authority also gives them special powers, and is issued to them by sufficiently-advanced aliens. The major difference is that the Lensman series keeps finding out that the big baddies of the previous book were pawns for the bigger baddies of this book (and when the prequel volume was written, the biggest baddies were written in as the motivation for the sufficiently advanced aliens all along), while the Green Lantern Corps has no equivalent of Eddore (the Silver Age DC Multiverse did have Qward and the Anit-Monitor...)
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CategoryBook, CategoryScienceFiction