The Complete Venus Equilateral

Venus Equilateral #1-2

by George O. Smith

Contents:
QRM - Interplanetary (1942)
Calling the Empress (1943)
Recoil (1943)
Lost Art (1943)
Off the Beam (1944)
The Long Way (1944)
Beam Pirate (1944)
Firing Line (1944)
Special Delivery (1945)
Pandora's Millions (1945)
Mad Holiday (1947)
The External Triangle (1973)
Identity (1945)

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Short Stories, Classics

468 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 12, 1976

About the author

George Oliver Smith (April 9, 1911 - May 27, 1981) (also known as Wesley Long) was an American science fiction author. He is not to be confused with George H. Smith, another American science fiction author.

Smith was an active contributor to Astounding Science Fiction during the Golden Age of Science Fiction in the 1940s. His collaboration with the magazine's editor, John W. Campbell, Jr. was interrupted when Campbell's first wife, Doña, left him in 1949 and married Smith.

Smith continued regularly publishing science fiction novels and stories until 1960. His output greatly diminished in the 1960s and 1970s when he had a job that required his undivided attention. He was given the First Fandom Hall of Fame award in 1980.

He was a member of the all-male literary banqueting club the Trap Door Spiders, which served as the basis of Isaac Asimov's fictional group of mystery solvers the Black Widowers.

Smith wrote mainly about outer space, with such works as Operation Interstellar (1950), Lost in Space (1959), and Troubled Star (1957).

He is remembered chiefly for his Venus Equilateral series of short stories about a communications station in outer space. The stories were collected in Venus Equilateral (1947), which was later expanded as The Complete Venus Equilateral (1976).

His novel The Fourth "R" (1959) - re-published as The Brain Machine (1968) - was a digression from his focus on outer space, and provides one of the more interesting examinations of a child prodigy in science fiction.

Reviews

[Fred D · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'n not sure when I read this book. Early '80's is my best guess. I don't think I realized at the time that this book was actually a collection of separate short stories. I read it and treated it as a novel. Anyway, I really enjoyed it. This is definitely classic hard science fiction from the 1940's. Good stuff. The technology is the focus of the stories, and the heroes are engineers and scientists. The book explores the effects of technology on society, as all good sci-fi does. In this book, a space station has been established at a Lagrangian Point between Venus and the Sun, to improve communications between Venus, Earth, and Mars. The station is threatened at times by space pirates, conniving businessmen and politicians, etc. and the engineers on board the station figure out technological solutions to save the day. A matter transmitter/replicator is invented, and the book describes it's impact on society. Not a very well-known book nowadays, nevertheless it's high quality in my opinion. The technology is a little dated (vacuum tubes are still used in computers in this book's depiction of the 21st century), but it's easy to overlook that and still enjoy the story.

[Bob Alberti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic hard science fiction about a space station run on vacuum-tube technology. Despite its age, it addresses questions ignored by contemporary SF, such as how to spot a ship in space.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly dated but a lot of fun.

[David Palazzolo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting book—and really difficult to get through. Written as short stories between 1942-45 for the most part, it details the adventures of the crew of a three mile long communications relay satellite that handles the flow of information between the planets in the solar system, but mainly Earth, Mars and Venus. It’s hard to get through because many of the characters are interchangeable, the antagonists are mustache twirlers from central casting and a heavy conformity to gender roles but mainly because it was so hard to picture the technology involved. These stories were written by an engineer, who if I read Arthur C Clarke’s introduction correctly was one of the people behind the radio proximity fuse, at a time before the invention of the transistor and solid state circuitry (the invention of solar power was a plot point in one story). So all the tech involved vacuum tubes and other various things not really talked about anymore in a futuristic setting like this one. Basically consider the tech here as the step between steampunk/clockwork and more modern visions of the future.

Having said all that, it’s worth noting the stories for the most part fit together really well—so well that it makes this book feel more like an actual novel than a short story collection. The thing I liked the best though was the point of virtually all the stories was the building of new and needed tech to overcome the situation and that none of the new tech were throwaway Deus Ex Machina—each subsequent piece of tech would be built on the old. Another thing I liked was that George Smith was not afraid to look at unintended consequences of new tech on society and the economy. As I watched the progress of tech evolving, I couldn’t help but wonder if Gene Roddenberry had ever read any of these stories—in some ways the Venus Equilateral stories could serve as a blueprint for the pre-warp development of humanity as it develops things interstellar communications, energy weapons both large and handheld, replicators and primitive teleporters.

I wish I could say that this book is for the casual reader, but I can’t. This one is strictly for those who either love old stories for their own sake or for those who have an interest in seeing how the future was imagined by popular authors of the time.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun, very fun book from a series of short stories written 1940-1946.

[Mark V2 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Real SCIENCE Fiction. Vacume tubes. Space pirates. Golden age. Must read.

[Patrick Scheele · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book, but I failed. The whole concept of a communications relay in space is interesting enough, but so many things bugged me:

* The technical stuff was overwhelming (anodes and cathodes and tablecloths, oh my!). I wouldn't have minded that, because I like to sink my teeth into things like that, but it was clearly not written with the intent that a lay reader should ever understand it. And once we got past the first few innovations and added the magical Martian tube, anything suddenly became possible. At that point I realized all the technical mumbo-jumbo was just an early version of techno-babble: meant to sound clever and technical and scholarly, but meaningless in the end.

* There was a very strange undertone in some of the stories. After a disaster that left a number of people dead and seriously injured and everyone else in mortal danger, people just kept joking and making light-hearted smalltalk. Creepy. Another time they invented something that would put Venus Equilateral out of business. So, they immediately threw a farewell party, before the invention was even thoroughly tested and taken into use.

* The matter duplicator was an interesting invention. I like that eventually wars were fought with just copies of the best soldiers the countries had. But the writer missed a few more interesting tricks: achieve a kind of immortality by making a recording of yourself and producing a copy of yourself every time you die. Great way to create supervillains that are constantly defeated, yet refuse to stay dead! Another one was exploring neighbouring stars at sub-light speed. With the matter duplicator fuel isn't a problem and colonists can be duplicated from their recordings once the ship gets to a planet.

Anyway, there were some interesting ideas in this book, although I never really warmed to all the communication problems the gang were trying to solve. But is it worth reading? Probably not. The stories weren't very interesting and there was a very pulpy feel to the characters (the superscientists conquer every problem, get the girl and banter all day long). Meh.

[Freesia Perricone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Got 12 of the 13 stories on Project Gutenberg, though it took three files to do it. The 13th -- actually the 12th in internal chronology, though the 13th written -- is not yet out of copyright and I had to read it on my old, falling apart, tattered, print copy. I ordered another copy though.

Certainly a lot of things in these Golden Age sci-fi stories feel dated. They're using vacuum tubes, women are 'girls' and it isn't until the last story that any of them can be more than a secretary, and so on. And don't get me started about how the two archaeologists behave! None of the characters has much depth to them and they are all largely interchangeable (the author tries to fix this in later stories by contrast Wes Farrell to the others, but it's a bit heavy-handed).

But a lot of it is surprisingly relevant now. The first story features a cost-cutting business executive who does not understand the business he runs and nearly ruins it out of arrogance and ignorance. While later stories have tech that goes pretty far from plausibility, I can almost follow the science in the earlier ones, and it rings true.

But you have to really like the engineers being engineers to enjoy these stories. I do, but I bet most of the people I know would find them tedious and baffling.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great but not perfect example of nuts-and-bolts science fiction. The main stories (i.e. All but the last two) pretty much bootstrap the "classic" space opera setting using only vacuum tubes and electrical engineering knowhow, and Smith smartly anticipates (though doesn't exactly elaborate on) some of the social consequences of disruptive technology. They're also great examples of how much can be done with just a few modest "gimmes."

Flaws: pretty much what you would expect from fiction writing in the Forties and Fifties, although credit to Smith for at least making the women characters interesting in their own ways. Gender roles here are more of the witty-repartee, men-are-from-Mars-women-are-from-Venus variables, but we see enough of all the main characters that they're at least equal in force of personality.

Overall, an exemplar of the "rational extrapolation" theme in sf.

[Rj Lesch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here's what I wrote in my journal in 1997:
"Finished reading The Complete Venus Equilateral by George O. Smith. The stories are such period pieces -- that 1940s 'Jolly Engineer' stuff: 'The station's in danger -- we'll blow in nine minutes! Wes -- invent something!' Keeping booze in the filing cabinet, solving complex engineering problems on a tablecloth in the bar, having affairs with the secretary -- not stuff you'd see in a novel today. I can't help but think it'd be a fun movie -- sort of a Hudsucker Proxy in space, with the retro book and feel, but a modern sensibility to the script. I see Nick Nolte as Don Channing, Cathy Moriarty as Arden Westland, John Goodman as Walt Franks, maybe John Lithgow as Mark Kingman. It'd be perfect."

[Rodzilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite dated in terms of technology. But this is a fun series of short stories from the Golden Age of SF. I concur with other reviewers that you won't get some mystical experience from this, but you will get the sense of pulp fiction fun in these hard SF stories. The 40s language is a hoot, but didn't bother me (and was occasionally a source of unintentional comedy, which is all for the better).

[Stefanoc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Typical of early SF, they extrapolate the technology, but assume that society doesn't change. Therefore we have here spaceships and ray guns, but a 1940s mentality: everbody smokes and drinks hard liquor, all the scientists are male, and a woman who spends too time with a man is expected to marry him.

[Touch Pu'uhonua · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the classic book (originally a series of short stories) in the subgenre of "Wiring Diagram Science Fiction". The author described increasingly advanced and wonderful inventions in great detail. In its era it was a wonderful treat for the imagination of young geeks, such as myself!

[Donn Mukensnable · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nifty series, but one of the best examples I can find of "failure of imagination" - space travel with vacuum tubes; didn't anticipate semiconductor electronics at all!

[Planchette]

Man, I just saw this book at my local bookshop and totally failed to buy it. I'll have to go back, but I'm proud to say I might not find it in the nine different places that this awesome bookseller keeps its bajillion pulp sci fi books.

[Jimbo · Rating 5 out of 5]

i really enjoyed this book. all of the stories where very good except the last one. the final story should have been left out, in my opinion.

[Randy Pursley · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a fun read. The stories that comprise the book were written in the 1940's, so it's dated a little. The stories are very well written and still keep your attention.

[Woolstar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great stories about engineering, space, and civilization facing radical changes (no, not the internet, but something similarly disruptive).

[Kyla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love it! I've read it a dozen times, my copy is dog-eared with love.

[Marko]

I have the german edition: Der Strahlenpirat
It quotes to be only part 2 of the original.