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DOC_SMITH

                                             February 3, 2016

             (As opposed to Dr. Smith.)

I read a bunch of E.E. "Doc"
Smith when I was young teenager,         As I put it at the time,
but never really thought it was          Niven's central conflict was
all that great.  I thought Larry         man-against-universe, and
Niven was more interesting.              Smith's was man-against-man,
                                         or rather intelligent
                                         entity-against-intelligent
Of late, I've been listening             entity.
to the librivox reading of
"Triplanetary", which I don't
think I've ever read-- the
solar system-bound story is
not Smith's forte' after all.

It's nominally the first book in the Lensman
series, though actually it's a fix-up job, a
work based on early stories that were retconned
into the Lensman universe
   
First thing of note: the central premise    
is effectively racist: the benevolent          The early chapters are about
Arisians are engaged in a millenia long        the heroic escapades of the
selective breeding program, creating a         ancestors of Kinball Kinnison,
race of supermen who will become The           most of whom tend to die
Lensman.  They tend to be -- if I remember     performing their duty-- after
right -- blondes with gold-flecked auburn      breeding young: they leave
eyes.                                          behind children to Carry On.
                                   
      I can't say I've ever seen                   There's nothing much of
      someone with "gold-flecked"                  interest in these stories.
      eyes.  This sounds like a Doc     
      Savage reference: Smith                      In one of them ("19--?")
      clearly liked to drop                        we see a vision of
      allusions to other fiction.                  defense against nuclear
                                                   attack that's remarkably
            EMERALD_LAND                           primitive and somewhat
                                                   romanticized with lots
                                                   of room for individual
  The tone of the story has a distant              initiative in a "rocket"
  quality I've noticed in authors like             staffed with a dozen guys
  Hal Clement: the characters in the               manning guns.
  story are in the heat of action--
  breathless, disoriented, frightened--            There's a line about how
  but the narrator remains calm,                   they may seem ill-prepared
  above it all, objectively explaining             for this attack, but it's
  the state of mind of the hero.                   because "democracies"
                                                   always must wait until
                                                   they're attacked first.
     The Arisians talk about being for                                     
     "democracy" and the evil aliens                   Remember those times     
     (Ghedorians) try to snuff out                     before "preemptive"      
     "democracy", but one might wonder                 attacks? Ah, those       
     what "democracy" has to do with                   were the days.           
     any of this...  The Arisians are a                                         
     faction of telepaths manipulating                                         
     events that the "democracies"         
     can't vote on, because they know          
     nothing about them.  If democracy     
     needs a secret conspiracy of          
     powerful aliens to defend it, that       
     would not seem to be a ringing        
     endorsement of democracy.               
                                              
                                           
                                               
                                          
                                       
                                      
                                     
                                    

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