The Skylark of Space by E. E.'Doc' Smith, Science Fiction, Adventure, Space Opera Paperback – Import, 1 April 2007

If you are expecting something like the very woke style of 21st Century SciFi keep looking. These classic books have the guys as the heroes and the girls as 2nd place heroines who need to be rescued from the bad guys.If you can get over that then they are great stories, with a little tweaking they could make a decent couple of films. They aren't hard to read and have all the charm of Flash Gordon or Buck Rodgers. Download and enjoy them.

Novella scritta nel 1921 (ma pubblicata, con alcune correzioni, nel 1946). Bisogna assolutamente avere questo dato in mente, quando nel testo si incontrano i riferimenti a fusione e fissione nucleare (in quegli anni materia sconosciuta al di fuori del giro degli scienziati) oppure all'elicottero (di cui il primo prototipo aveva volato solo alcuni anni prima). Per non parlare della velocità superiore a quella della luce. Tutto questo rende questo libro (ed i successivi tre della serie, che sono solo una ripetizione con variazioni) un gioiello imperdibile per gli appassionati di fantascienza. La trama è in linea con l'epoca. Il protagonista che da solo sbaraglia orde di nemici (come i primi film di 007), alieni dalle forme strane ed altre esagerazioni del genere. Il linguaggio è quasi da caserma (non scurrile, ma estremamente gergale, farcito di frasi idiomatiche, soprannomi e codici verbali) e risulta pesante. Ripeto dopo Verne e Wells questo è un precursore della fantascienza, da non perdere.

During the years from age 10 to 18 I read hundreds of Science fiction books. Most were good, but few of them do I re read every other year as I do the Skylark series. I have seen many reviews of the story telling being "Campy" etc, but we must remember they were written in a time that was much nocer than ours and people were less offended by...everything actually. I never had any trouble seeing that as a non issue while enjoying the sheer sense of scale Smith gave to the story and characters. Many writers have more magnificent character development, but few have been able to combine that with the kind of grandeur as Doc Smith.My great thanks goes out to whoever did the work to make this available as a Kindle book. I may buy them all even though I already own the series in paperback, just for the convenience of being able to find them when I want them.

The imagination of 'Doc' Smith is a joy to walk alongside.

Has E E Doc Smith's books withstood the test of time? In my view the answer is yes, but with some provisos. The problem is that some of the facts have not quite stood up to time as the references to what have now come to be called Computers, as can be seen in the references to very large machines. The use of tobacco products - cigarettes, cigars, pipes and various others, which was quite obvious and even though there was at that time in the 1950's and 60's ample evidence (that tended to be supressed) that pointed towards its eventual 'demonisation'. There are several other examples, but in reference to the question I posed above the answer is a resounding yes. How my own mind reacts to all this is that if I been asked to review these books back then I would have given them five stars.