Tag Archives: lensman series

Book Review of “Second Stage Lensman,” Book Five in the Lensman Series

Cover art for “Second Stage Lensman” by E.E. “Doc” Smith

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It has been almost a year-and-a-half since I reviewed E.E. “Doc” Smith’s Gray Lensman the fourth book in the “Lensman series” following Triplanetary, First Lensman, and Galactic Patrol.

Today, I’m reviewing Second Stage Lensman. While the Lensman series of books was first published in mass market paperback in the mid to late 1960s when I was in Junior High (and when every boy I knew was reading them), as a hardback book, it first came out in 1953. It had been published serially in “Astounding Science Fiction” from Nov 1941-to-Feb 1942.

Keep that in mind for the entire series since it is not only absolute classic science fiction and the emergence of the “space opera” but it really old.

That part is important, especially if you are used to more contemporary works “updated for modern audiences.” The 21st century progressive SciFi industry has little tolerance for it’s own past.

In this case, as with the others in the series, I can sort of see it, at least a bit.

For instance, slang. After all, from the 1940’s perspective, this is the future, but how would “future people” express themselves, especially when excited and agitated? How about:

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Book Review of E.E. “Doc” Smith’s “Gray Lensman”

gray lensman

Mass market paperback cover for “Gray Lensman”

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Gray Lensman by E.E. “Doc” Smith (I bought the cheap kindle version) is the fourth book in the Lensman series following Triplanetary, First Lensman, and Galactic Patrol.

After my binge read of James S.A. Corey’s nine-book The Expanse saga, I realized I hadn’t read a Lensman book in over a year. Part of the reason was that they’re hard for me to read. They’re really old fashioned, to the point of being almost farcical.

But they are also an important part of science fiction history and the development of the classic space opera.

This particular book was originally published in serial form in Astounding (later Analog) magazine in 1939. It made it to book form in 1951 and to the paperbacks I became familiar with in the 1960s.

As I’ve mentioned before, in the mid to late 1960s, while all the other guys were reading the Tarzan and Lensman books, I was absorbed in the Barsoom and Skylark books, by Edgar Rice Burroughs and E.E. “Doc” Smith respectively.

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