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imakandiway's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.5
jason_pym's review against another edition
4.0
Rollicking 1940s space opera / pulp science fiction. Our hero is Gray Lensman Kimball Kinnison, who uses his lens-enhanced telepathic powers to defeat the evil Cthulu-esque Overlords of Delgon.
It rocks.
Note: Mentions humans regenerating limbs “like starfish”, I thought this was a much later idea.
It rocks.
Note: Mentions humans regenerating limbs “like starfish”, I thought this was a much later idea.
titusfortner's review against another edition
3.0
Superman protagonist; knows everything, the best at everything. The hero's hero. Lots of ray guns, and force shields, and all the techie stuff you would expect from serialized 1930's pulp science fiction. There is very little character development, and the plot is over the top, but it is seminal Space Opera, and fun enough for escapist fiction.
chrisgordon65's review against another edition
3.0
So I've said I love the ingenuity of the series, the fact it paved the way for Star Wars, Star Trek, The Green lantern Corps and so much space opera that was to follow, and just the fondness of it blowing my mind as a kid. All that's true but this volume isn't the pride of the fleet.
It reads very much like a James Bond story (impressive enough since this considerably pre-dates Bond) but in this book the dialogue and tech descriptions are probably at their most tortured. I guess no-one expects dialog to always stand the test of time but Smith's dialog between adversaries reads at times like very cheap gumshoe fiction, and his relationship passages are worse. It was a different time, yada yada yada but it made for hard going.
Also the tech descriptions are long and detailed but I'm still very stuck on projectors, screens, duo-dec, primaries... although I almost understand inert versus free travel. Trying to get my head around these descriptions of yet to come technology (that all these decades later is still yet to come) just frustrated me at times. This story DOES advance the narrative though and wasn't horrible, just seemed fair to list it's flaws for balance. I'd probably give it a 7/10 but in Goodreads system, I'll round it down to a 3 and not up to a 4 (SPOILER... the next edition is better!)
It reads very much like a James Bond story (impressive enough since this considerably pre-dates Bond) but in this book the dialogue and tech descriptions are probably at their most tortured. I guess no-one expects dialog to always stand the test of time but Smith's dialog between adversaries reads at times like very cheap gumshoe fiction, and his relationship passages are worse. It was a different time, yada yada yada but it made for hard going.
Also the tech descriptions are long and detailed but I'm still very stuck on projectors, screens, duo-dec, primaries... although I almost understand inert versus free travel. Trying to get my head around these descriptions of yet to come technology (that all these decades later is still yet to come) just frustrated me at times. This story DOES advance the narrative though and wasn't horrible, just seemed fair to list it's flaws for balance. I'd probably give it a 7/10 but in Goodreads system, I'll round it down to a 3 and not up to a 4 (SPOILER... the next edition is better!)
darylreads's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
3.75
bookwomble's review against another edition
5.0
Don't trust my rating for this book. See this
review for why.
review for why.
smcleish's review against another edition
3.0
Originally published on my blog here in November 1998.
By the second Kimball Kinnison Lensman book, the fourth in the series overall, the path to the final conflict between the Arisians and the Eddorians is set. Each remaining book now contains the downfall of one or more of the races in the lower echelons of the Eddorian scheme of things, with Smith bursting his imagination to come up with every more spectacular weapons to destroy the planetary headquarters of these races. In Grey Lensman, these consist of a planet sized sphere of negative mass, drawn in ever faster by the frantic efforts of defenders to push it away and eating into the planet to leave rubble (none of the vast explosive release of energy which is actually the consequence of the interaction of matter and anti-matter); and a pair of planets released to crush Jarnevon, planet of the Eich, between them.
The ethics of such a destruction are taken entirely for granted, as was generally the case in science fiction of the time; the justification is the self-evident evil nature of the Eddorians and their henchmen (henchbeings?). Human beings are the only species in significant numbers on both sides (this is something that clearly worried Robert Kyle in his series of authorised Lensman sequels); all other species are either black or white as a whole, with no exceptions. The tendency to paint with a broad brush in this way is common even today; there must be many decent Serbs, for example, but we never hear about them and crimes are attributed to "the Serbs" by the media, as though they were all equally culpable.
One cannot really fault Smith for being of his time and not of now; and he does allow Kinnison a moment of self-doubt, for leading good men to their deaths. It is for the exuberance of his story-telling that people still read Smith's space operas, not for his moral philosophy.
By the second Kimball Kinnison Lensman book, the fourth in the series overall, the path to the final conflict between the Arisians and the Eddorians is set. Each remaining book now contains the downfall of one or more of the races in the lower echelons of the Eddorian scheme of things, with Smith bursting his imagination to come up with every more spectacular weapons to destroy the planetary headquarters of these races. In Grey Lensman, these consist of a planet sized sphere of negative mass, drawn in ever faster by the frantic efforts of defenders to push it away and eating into the planet to leave rubble (none of the vast explosive release of energy which is actually the consequence of the interaction of matter and anti-matter); and a pair of planets released to crush Jarnevon, planet of the Eich, between them.
The ethics of such a destruction are taken entirely for granted, as was generally the case in science fiction of the time; the justification is the self-evident evil nature of the Eddorians and their henchmen (henchbeings?). Human beings are the only species in significant numbers on both sides (this is something that clearly worried Robert Kyle in his series of authorised Lensman sequels); all other species are either black or white as a whole, with no exceptions. The tendency to paint with a broad brush in this way is common even today; there must be many decent Serbs, for example, but we never hear about them and crimes are attributed to "the Serbs" by the media, as though they were all equally culpable.
One cannot really fault Smith for being of his time and not of now; and he does allow Kinnison a moment of self-doubt, for leading good men to their deaths. It is for the exuberance of his story-telling that people still read Smith's space operas, not for his moral philosophy.
hammard's review against another edition
1.0
I've been reading a lot of books from this era recently and I have to say that even for the time it feels markedly old fashioned. The storyline has trouble keeping focus, the characters overwrought and the whole thing was less an exciting space adventure than talky info-dumps and capture-escape padding. Perhaps I would have enjoyed this more if it wasn't my first foray into the Lensman stories but I don't think so.
Essentially the plot is a police officer doing an undercover investigation into the drug trade as a war builds up in an old Western style of the future. Nothing feels radical or interesting to me and I don't think I am likely to return.
Essentially the plot is a police officer doing an undercover investigation into the drug trade as a war builds up in an old Western style of the future. Nothing feels radical or interesting to me and I don't think I am likely to return.
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