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A review by chrisgordon65
Grey Lensman, Lensman Series Book 4 by E.E. "Doc" Smith
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!)