Triplanetary.

By E.E. 'Doc' Smith.

Synopsis:
Well... There are these two big huge ancient races, The Arisians (who are Good, and who represent order) and the Eddorians (who are Bad, and who represent choas). The Arisians come to be aware of the Eddorians, and decide that they must save all the innocent little races of the galaxy from their Evil ways. They therefore appoint themselves guardians of sentient life, and begin a campaign to guide the development of the various assorted creatures of the galaxy in order to create the Galactic Patrol, which will be able to beat up the nasty Eddorians (this all happens without the Eddorians noticing that the Arisians really exist). That's the first half of the book. The second half is taken up with a) random and entirely pointless examples of the Arisians' influence, and b) the story of Conway Costigan, his annoying girlfriend, his annoying mate and their escape from some bug-eyed aliens.

Review:
Baaaaad. The Lensman series is a classic, and it even occasionally gets referenced, and I feel obliged to read it, but I'm not enjoying the process one bit (Then why carry on? An excellent question, and one I keep asking myself, but have yet to come up with a satisfactory answer for).

Once it actually got going, it wasn't so bad. Once all the setting-the-scene stuff was done with. Running away from the bad guys (who were really Eddorians (or one Eddorian, anyway) in disguise) and getting caught by the aliens, and escaping from the aliens, all that was fun. If a little... I would say brainless, if it weren't for the million or so plot lines, so let's just call it clichéd. Clio was annoying, but she could've been worse. Clio and Costigan (or 'Spud' to his friends) together were disgusting. I hope they end up with a really bitter drawn-out divorce, I really do. Stupid happy people.

There's a very wierd undercurrent to this series (bearing in mind I've only read one and a half (pauses to check progress on First Lensman) ...sorry, make that one and three-quarters... of the books, and therefore am not really qualified to make such sweeping statement, but still...). There's this sort of conservative elitest patronising feel - the only bit of Earth worth bothering about is North America, the good guys (human and Arisian) are convinced that their own way is the best, and are determined to implement their ideas regardless of what everyone else thinks (and without bothering to justify themselves, except to state in general terms that their opponents are Bad). In other words, it's all a bit American. It's also all a bit Forties, especially where women are concerned. Well, I say women, Clio was the only woman who got any lines. And she was the very personification of a wet blanket. She did pick up a gun every now and then, when menaced by evil guys or aliens, at which point it was pointed out how 'plucky' she was. No comment.

Speaking of being menaced by evil guys, I'm afraid I've gotta touch on the whole Clio-getting-kidnapped-by-Roger thing. Now, she gets captured, she gets dragged off to a bedroom, and her menfolk are left to imagine what terrible doings may be being done. No doubt thrown in to titilate the twelve-year-old boys in the audience, for much the same reason ladies in the cheaper variety of horror movies are so often killed without their shirts on. Fair enough, worse things happen at sea, except that when they rescue her, all he's done is stared at her, and she's all overcome with horror and disgust. Excuse me? Since when have rancid little tarts like that not enjoyed being stared at by rich, powerful men? Did this guy work for the Obsidian Order or something? Did he have some sort of wierd Eddorian eye-sex power? Deep deep sigh. I love Clio, I really do. I think she's a wonderful and well-rounded character. You can tell, can't you?

Speaking of one-dimensional (if that) characters, Costigan comes straight out of the John Carter mold. In fact, this whole bloody book is from an era when men were real machismo self-righteous bullshit merchants and women were real decorative worthless baubles. And I've read Edger Rice Burroughs, and I'm bored with that. I'm not an adolescent boy in need of a role model, and therefore I should just stop reading the bloody things...

I'd just like to add that I didn't get into this voluntarily. I was bought Masters of the Vortex as a present, on the grounds that it was about space and that I would probably therefore like it. Obviously didn't read the back where it said '...seventh novel in the classic Lensman series...'. So then I went and bought this, on the grounds that if I'm going to read the bloody things, I might as well start at the beginning.

Anyway, see you next time for the wonderful review of book two - First Lensman.