/lit/ - Literature

Read pic related -- "Triplanetary" by E.E. Smith -- as part of a batch of old paperbacks I picked up at a used bookstore.

I knew it was the "first" book in the Lensman series, but I didn't realize it was a prequel to the earlier-written "Galactic Patrol". Triplanetary is full of allusions and references to Galactic Patrol, as expected. Anyone interested in the Lensman books should read Galactic Patrol first.

Triplanetary gives a rundown of the origins and history of the conflict between the evil Eddorians and the good Arisians that serves as the background for the Lensman. Once the infodump is over, Triplanetary turns into a first-contact story between humans and the alien Nevians, while the evil Eddorian Gray Man attempts to bring the human race into subservience by any means necessary.

The Lensman setting is not subtle, and Smith personifies common criticisms of the genre. The Eddorians and Arisians are respectively so evil and so good as to be metaphysical forces rather than characters or species in any real sense of the words. Anything the Arisians and their allies do is good, and anything the Eddorians and their allies do is bad, and little detailed examination is made otherwise.

Smith's worship of technocratic competence makes Robert Heinlein look like Ursula Le Guin; the main characters are all hypercompetent (the protagonist, held prisoner on an alien starship, literally memorizes everything he sees so exactly he's able to have a superior human starship built based on his descriptions). The nameless mass are worthless; several cities are casually destroyed by weapons of mass destruction, with no apparent hard feelings by either side. Shit happens; it's not like a plot-relevant character died.

The Triplanetary intelligence service, under the command of the Best Dude Ever, secretly controls everything from behind the scenes. They explicitly maintain extensive dossiers on the pathetic elected leaders of obsolete national governments, which they use to control opposition and prevent the public from questioning their policies. This is portrayed not merely as normal but desirable.

Anyway, it's pretty hard to recommend except for someone interested in the history of the genre. 2/5.