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THROUGH_THE_LENS

Concerning E.E. Smith's "Lensman" series.  
Is it "Hard SF"?

extra-terrestrial intelligences
  == valid hard SF notion.

Cheesy humanoid aliens
   => borderline             Maybe: bad execution 
                             of valid notion. 


faster-than-light travel 
  => also borderline, at best.     
                                 (And Smith's super-science 
                                  method here isn't terribly 
   At the very least              impressive: does he even 
   imaginatively lazy             address the light-speed 
   in much the same               limit?  Instead he talks 
   way as humanoid                about an "inertialess" drive, 
   aliens.                        as though overcoming inertia
                                  were the only problem.)
                    

But "The Lens of Arasia" 
pushes it over the edge:
   
Psychic gadgetry that not only allows    
some telepathy (if I remember right),     
but allows you to scientifically prove
someone's moral caliber.              

That is clearly total fantastic       
nonsense.  It's also probably the most
enduringly interesting thing about the    
series.                                

The suggestion that morality is a     
physical phenomena, objectively       
measurable by a technology of the     
spirt is so absurd once it's stated in    
the open like that, it becomes a kind    
of reducto ad absurdum for a whole    
class of ideas.  It's nonsense that    
clarifies, nonsense that brings you    
back to sense by rubbing your nose in    
it's ridiculousness.                  
                    


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