Showing posts with label E.E. Doc Smith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label E.E. Doc Smith. Show all posts

Thursday, September 14, 2017

Skylark of Valeron and Skylark DuQuesne by E.E. "Doc" Smith (Pyramid, 1967)

The last two volumes in the "Skylark Series"!


STAR WANDERER
As the mighty spaceship Skylark roved the intergalactic world, scientist Richard Seaton and his companions uncovered a world of disembodied intelligences.  A world of four dimensions where time was insanely distorted and matter obeyed no terrestial laws... where three-dimensional intellects were barely sufficient to thwart invisible mentalities!


My Ally, The Enemy
Dick Seaton and Marc DuQuesne are the deadliest enemies in the Universe -- their feud has blazed among the stars and changed the history of a thousand planets.  but now a threat from outside the Galaxy drives them into a dangerous alliance as hordes of strange races drive to a collision with mankind!
Seaton and DuQuesne fight and slave side by side to fend off the invasion -- as Seaton keeps constant, perilous watch for DuQuesne's inevitable double-cross!
More adventures of Dick Seaton and his merry chums, as they blithely invent new and improved weapons of mass destruction and impulsively leap into interstellar wars.  I could suggest that this is a metaphor for something--but instead I'll just say that the Boys' Own Adventure style of this series and some of the views expressed by the author jarred upon my modern sensibilities.

Like the previous two books in the Skylark series I bought these at the Woden Seniors' Club book fair.  They were printed a few years earlier than The Skylark of Space and Skylark Three and it shows in the cover design.  It also shows in the cover price--which rose by a whole fifteen cents between 1967 and 1970!

Monday, August 21, 2017

The Skylark of Space and Skylark Three by E.E. "Doc" Smith (Pyramid, 1970)

I went to a charity book fair the other weekend.  Someone had evidently been keen on traditional space opera, because I managed to find a number of vintage paperbacks containing early science fiction reprints:


IT STARTED ON EARTH...
Scientist Richard Seaton had discovered the secret of complete release of ultimate energy--the key to exploration of the Universe.  The powerful, unscrupulous DuQuesne, backed by a great industrial combine, tried every means to gain the secret.
... it ended in space, when Seaton, DuQuesne, and three others--two of them women--were marooned, countless light-years from Earth, with only one chance in a million of ever returning!

OSNOME
The first of the mighty Skylark spacecraft took Dick Seaton and Mart Crane on a fantastic tour of the galaxy and to the strange planet of Osnome.  Skylark Two returned them to Earth.  Now in this next adventure, they voyage again to Osnome to meet the deadly threat of war.
On the way, in the deeps of space, Seaton and Crane meet an alien spaceship.  From it they discover a danger more deadly and immediate than any planetary battle.  In a desperate race to mobilize the scientific talent of a score of planets, Seaton makes himself into a "superman" of knowledge and drives toward his goal of building the greatest spaceship of all time--Skylark Three!
Look up in the sky!  It's a bird, it's a plane, it's... a cosmic beach ball!  Seventies cover art meets very old-fashioned space opera, of the sort where men wield "rays" and women need rescuing.