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Lensman #5
Second Stage Lensman
The Interplanetary Spy. Kim Kinnison had the incredible assignment of infiltrating the inner circle of Boskone.His job was to become a Boskonian in every gesture, thought, and deed. He had to work himself up through the ranks of an alien enemy organization, into the highest echelons of power - until it was he who would be issuing the orders that would destroy his own civilization!
271 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published October 1, 1941
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1176 people want to read
About the author
E.E. "Doc" Smith
217 books325 followersEdward Elmer Smith (also E.E. Smith, E.E. Smith, Ph.D., E.E. “Doc” Smith, Doc Smith, “Skylark” Smith, or—to his family—Ted), was an American food engineer (specializing in doughnut and pastry mixes) and an early science fiction author, best known for the Lensman and Skylark series. He is sometimes called the father of space opera.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 105 reviews
May 2, 2018
I'm reading this mainly because it's on the ballot for the retro Hugos for 1953 and, incidentally, I've read the fourth in the series already because it keeps being put on the "best SF ever lists". (I don't think it should be, but I may be a minority.)
Moving on.
I cringed a lot while reading this. Mostly I just went intellectual and pointed at all the Kirk-like alpha gets the alien girls swooning for him, the pleasure planets that pretend not to be (nudist planet of women, anyone?), or the equally cringeworthy ugly-factor for competent women.
Okay. This was pulp SF of '53. Have you SEEN THOSE COVERS? Like, ANY OF THEM? It's interesting to note which Golden-Age SF actually HAS scenes of naked women leaning up against silver spaceships both IN the text and ONLY on the cover. :)
MOVING ON.
Despite all this, Toots, I was actually rather surprised to find some BIG SF going on here. Maybe it's all cliché now, with Star-Trek tractor beams and boarding parties and pirates in space as well as deep infiltration tactics so wildly implausible that it could only be the work of Bond, James Bond, but let's put this in its proper place. The early fifties. This kind of thing is POPULAR. Add super super super powerful telepathic abilities and a weakness for the ladies, and we've got a square-jawed hero that later becomes the Green Lantern.
No. Wait. He was never the Green Lantern. Just as powerful as, perhaps, and as a Corpsman devoted to justice with uber powerful aliens using these gene-sports as their proxy weapons...
Oh, wait. Well. Never mind. This is STILL 1953 and no one takes SF seriously. Except those who do. And those who did, back then, ALSO found a lot of decent and exciting action and adventure with super-heroic and courageous derring-do right here in E. E. "Doc" Smith's work.
I didn't hate this. I did want to tear my eyes out for the first quarter or so. Certain depictions. But once we went into the whole infiltration of the baddies' empire, using telepathy to cloud the minds of all the aliens to make them think he was one of them, I was pretty much hooked and rocking along.
The good. The bad. The action is always pretty awesome. Think Star Wars meets Babylon 5 meets Pirates of the Carribean. Add James Bond with the powers of Voldemort. It can be VERY FUN, too!
All in all, I'd have to give it a 5 star on the one and a single star on the other. If you read this, manage your expectations and you might have a grand time or just find so much fodder for your ire that you'll have a different kind of a good time. :)
Moving on.
I cringed a lot while reading this. Mostly I just went intellectual and pointed at all the Kirk-like alpha gets the alien girls swooning for him, the pleasure planets that pretend not to be (nudist planet of women, anyone?), or the equally cringeworthy ugly-factor for competent women.
Okay. This was pulp SF of '53. Have you SEEN THOSE COVERS? Like, ANY OF THEM? It's interesting to note which Golden-Age SF actually HAS scenes of naked women leaning up against silver spaceships both IN the text and ONLY on the cover. :)
MOVING ON.
Despite all this, Toots, I was actually rather surprised to find some BIG SF going on here. Maybe it's all cliché now, with Star-Trek tractor beams and boarding parties and pirates in space as well as deep infiltration tactics so wildly implausible that it could only be the work of Bond, James Bond, but let's put this in its proper place. The early fifties. This kind of thing is POPULAR. Add super super super powerful telepathic abilities and a weakness for the ladies, and we've got a square-jawed hero that later becomes the Green Lantern.
No. Wait. He was never the Green Lantern. Just as powerful as, perhaps, and as a Corpsman devoted to justice with uber powerful aliens using these gene-sports as their proxy weapons...
Oh, wait. Well. Never mind. This is STILL 1953 and no one takes SF seriously. Except those who do. And those who did, back then, ALSO found a lot of decent and exciting action and adventure with super-heroic and courageous derring-do right here in E. E. "Doc" Smith's work.
I didn't hate this. I did want to tear my eyes out for the first quarter or so. Certain depictions. But once we went into the whole infiltration of the baddies' empire, using telepathy to cloud the minds of all the aliens to make them think he was one of them, I was pretty much hooked and rocking along.
The good. The bad. The action is always pretty awesome. Think Star Wars meets Babylon 5 meets Pirates of the Carribean. Add James Bond with the powers of Voldemort. It can be VERY FUN, too!
All in all, I'd have to give it a 5 star on the one and a single star on the other. If you read this, manage your expectations and you might have a grand time or just find so much fodder for your ire that you'll have a different kind of a good time. :)
January 12, 2024
Solo Series Read 2023/24
Now according to GR I read this in 2015, but if I'm honest I didn't remember much about this book.
It was , like Grey Lensman, focussed mainly on the adventures of the strongest mentally of the lensman, one Kim Kinnison. Like the last episode, Kim, is struggling to discover who the major players are in the enemy camp of Boskone. Going undercover again in the enemy stronghold, Kim works his way up the organisation using all the skills he has as the lead Lensman, until he is leading the whole planet of Thrale, except for the advisor from Boskone.
In the meantime his wife to be is also undercover investigating the evil Overlords who work for Boskone.
Kim and Chris have already postponed their wedding but are hopeful that with a positive outcome against the Boskonian evil doers they will be in a position to finally go ahead.
A well written SF Space Opera , and I will be carrying on with the series as I really don't remember how this is all going to end.
Now according to GR I read this in 2015, but if I'm honest I didn't remember much about this book.
It was , like Grey Lensman, focussed mainly on the adventures of the strongest mentally of the lensman, one Kim Kinnison. Like the last episode, Kim, is struggling to discover who the major players are in the enemy camp of Boskone. Going undercover again in the enemy stronghold, Kim works his way up the organisation using all the skills he has as the lead Lensman, until he is leading the whole planet of Thrale, except for the advisor from Boskone.
In the meantime his wife to be is also undercover investigating the evil Overlords who work for Boskone.
Kim and Chris have already postponed their wedding but are hopeful that with a positive outcome against the Boskonian evil doers they will be in a position to finally go ahead.
A well written SF Space Opera , and I will be carrying on with the series as I really don't remember how this is all going to end.
November 11, 2023
Intergalactic Imbroglio! Fair or Foul! Mastermind Mocks Missive! "Hey! No Fair! I call timeout! Mentor of Arisia promised Boskone that he wouldn't intervene in Civilization's fate beyond the provision of the Lens. Then he directly helps his star pupil, Kimball Kinnison, to survive or win through on three occasions. Arisians - you just can't trust 'em!" - Gharlane of Eddore - The Eddorian Edifier
Another enthusiastic outing with the Lensmen. There is something tremendously refreshing in the unbridled optimism of E.E. Smith's story telling.
The only mar is that the pacing was a little off in the middle due to the absence of a visible villain and the multiple 'Deus Ex Machinas,' (DEMs) to save the hero in the back half of the book... I can forgive one DEM, but not this many strung together. Hence 4 stars on this outing.
Looking forward to the next and last book in the series.
Recommended. 4 'Despite the Protection of the Gods...' stars.
Another enthusiastic outing with the Lensmen. There is something tremendously refreshing in the unbridled optimism of E.E. Smith's story telling.
The only mar is that the pacing was a little off in the middle due to the absence of a visible villain and the multiple 'Deus Ex Machinas,' (DEMs) to save the hero in the back half of the book... I can forgive one DEM, but not this many strung together. Hence 4 stars on this outing.
Looking forward to the next and last book in the series.
Recommended. 4 'Despite the Protection of the Gods...' stars.
April 15, 2019
As I mentioned in my review of "Gray Lensman," Book 4 of E.E. "Doc" Smith's famed six-part Lensman series, that installment, although it followed its predecessor, "Galactic Patrol," by mere seconds storywise, was actually released over 1½ years later; 20 months later, to be exact. Book 5 of the series, "Second Stage Lensman," would follow the same scheme. Although the events therein transpire just moments after the culmination of Book 4, readers would in actuality have to wait a solid 22 months to find out where author Smith would take them next. Book 5, like its predecessors, initially appeared in the pages of the legendary pulp magazine "Astounding"; in this case, as a four-part serial in the November '41 – February '42 issues, as America entered WW2. As had been the case with "Gray Lensman," the first two installments copped the front cover illustration, again by famed artist Hubert Rogers. "Second Stage Lensman" saw its first book release as a $3 hardcover from Fantasy Press in 1953, with another wonderful cover by Ric Binkley, and has seen numerous incarnations since; this reader was fortunate enough to get hold of the 1982 Berkley edition, with still another beautiful cover by David B. Maddingly. Book 5 continues the adventures of Galactic Patrolman and Unattached (i.e., under no outside authority) Lensman Kim Kinnison as he and his fellows strive to eradicate the Boskonian threat emanating from a neighboring galaxy. The book ups the ante considerably, brings back many old characters while introducing new ones (including new villains and evil races), incorporates new weapons of superscience, and wows the reader with some of the truly colossal space battles that seem to have become de rigeur at this point.
As I mentioned, the story line here picks up almost precisely where Book 4 left off--with Kim and his beloved nurse/fiancée Clarrissa MacDougall running off to get married--but not before "historian" Smith gives his readers a concise synopsis of what had transpired earlier; a summary requiring a full 14 pages, the plot having become so involved by this point! And then, we're off, as Kim receives a mental warning from the multibrained being known as Mentor, from Arisia...the planet that had benevolently provided the suitable recipients of this galaxy with the Lens, and whose 2 billion-year conflict with the evil entities from Eddore constitutes the overarching backdrop of this series. Mentor warns Kim that his work is not yet finished, despite the destruction of the Eich in Book 4, and counsels Kim to "THINK." A little cogitation on Kim's part makes him realize that his wedding plans may indeed be a bit premature, and that an alien invasion from that other galaxy, most likely via the Boskonians' hyperspatial tube, is very probably imminent. And indeed, after a short period of waiting, that attack does indeed come, resulting in a very narrow victory for our Civilization, in a battle sequence that might have been a fitting climax for most other books (but that here occurs within "Second Stage Lensman"'s first 30 pages!). Following this victory, Kinnison follows a suspected "zwilnik" (i.e., a person involved in the Boskonian drug business) to the distant world of Lyrane II, located in Rift 94 of Dunstan's Region, one of the spiral arms near our galactic rim. The world's only populace, as it turns out, is a male-detesting, naked-going matriarchy, equipped with not inconsiderable mental abilities of their own. But Kim and his 2,100 crewmembers of the Dauntless manage to leave safely with their zwilnik, a young woman named Illona, who becomes enamored with Civilization's mores and allows Kinnison to probe her brainwashed mind for clues. With some invaluable assistance from Nadreck the Palainian (a bizarre race that had been introduced to us in Book 2, "First Lensman"), Illona's home planet, Lonabar, is tracked down, and Kinnison goes undercover there as a jewelry dealer and fence named Cartiff, in an attempt to wrest information from the planet's headman, Menjo Bleeko.
Later, Kim is called back to Lyrane II by the matriarchy and winds up helping to clean out a hidden cavern of those pesky, sadistic, murderous Delgonian Overlords, who we'd previously encountered in "Galactic Patrol" and thought had been wiped out for good in Book 4. Kinnison and Nadreck later proceed on to Lyrane VIII, a frigid world where the remnants of the Eich have built a formidable base, and home in on one of their communication beams. This signal leads them to a world called Thrallis II, in the second galaxy, where, as we have previously seen, the Tyrant Alcon rules over Boskonia, assisted by the Prime Minister Fossten AND the reptilian monstrosities of Thrallis IX, also known as Onlo. Realizing that a distraction of sorts is required so that Kim and Nadreck can do their work, Port Admiral Haynes and our galaxy's entire Grand Fleet invade the second galaxy, easily conquering the first world they come to, Klovia, where a mammoth foothold base is constructed. Meanwhile, Nadreck proceeds on to Onlo, and Kinnison goes undercover yet again, this time as one Lt. Traska Gannel, in Alcon's Royal Guards. Using the Thrallian-approved methods of treachery and ruthlessness, he rises in the ranks to become a captain, then a major, and finally, supplanting Alcon himself, the new Tyrant of Thrale! Now in command of Boskonia itself, Kim prepares the Grand Fleet of that evil empire to attack Klovia, while keeping the hypersuspicious and mentally powerful Fossten from piercing his identity. But as the two Grand Fleets converge in space above Klovia, Kinnison discovers one very shocking secret, indeed....
Interestingly, our two main characters here, Kim and Clarrissa, the two penultimates in the Arisians' millennia-long breeding program, undergo some subtle changes in this installment. Kinnison is noticeably tougher and more hard-boiled; more ruthless and less like the "good little Boy Scout at heart," as he describes himself to the Lyranian headwoman. Indeed, his manner of speaking to those murderous Lyranians is actually like something out of a 1940s film noir drama, and he ultimately comes to realize that Nadreck's cold-blooded efficiency ("cold-blooded" in both senses of the word, as the Palainian hails from a frozen ice planet) is indeed the way to best accomplish his tasks. As for Clarrissa, she is here made an official Lensman, the first female in our galaxy to be given that honor, and is nicknamed the "Red Lensman," in acknowledgment of her flaming hair color. (On a side note, this reader could not stop picturing the early 1940s Maureen O'Hara as the perfect actress to portray MacDougall. I don’t know which actress today would--to use Galactic Patrol parlance--"have the jets to swing it.") The character of Mentor, too, is subtly changed here, coming to Kim's long-distance aid on at least three occasions, rather than just giving answers to tough questions.
As mentioned, this Book 5 introduces some new weapons of superscience, as it seems every time the Boskonians or the Galactic Patrol comes up with something unbeatable, it is either copied by the opposing side or countered with some neutralizing gizmo shortly after. Thus, in this installment, the Patrol has as its newest offensive weapon the "sunbeam," which drains the power of a nearby star when shooting off its irresistible rays of destruction. And Kim himself has a new weapon at his disposal, as if his Lens were not enough; a miniature device invented by Worsel the Velantian that enables Kim to make unstable the complex brain molecules involved in thought, spelling instant death for his victim!
As for those battles alluded to up top, this installment gives the reader some doozies, including the Boskonians' attack on Earth; the battles with the Boskonians both above Lyrane and involving hand-to-hand combat in the Lyranian streets; the Grand Fleet's capture of Klovia; and the two fleets' final duke-out in Klovian space. Remarkably, all these battles are very different in character--both in terms of weapons, tactics and pacing--not just from each other, but from all the many battles that had preceded them in Books 1 – 4. This volume, besides boasting those terrific sequences, also dishes out some other thrilling scenes, such as Kim's saber duel with his immediate Thrallian superior; the scene in which the Dauntless becomes trapped in the limbo of hyperspace (a scene that furthers the plot not one bit, except to ratchet up that elusive sense of cosmic wonder); Kim's mental battle with Fossten, the ricocheting mental detritus of which is severe enough to kill over 1,500 Boskonians nearby; and, most especially, the reemergence of the Eddorians, in the person of Gharlane, who had played such a huge role in Book 1, "Triplanetary," and who'd been absent since the beginning of Book 2. His/its reappearance is surely this installment's finest moment, and I would not dream of divulging which of the characters Gharlane had been posing as. Kim here has no knowledge of the Eddorians, of course, but thanks to Smith's wise decision to have written Books 1 and 2 as prequels, the reader surely does, and it is a stunning moment, indeed.
"Second Stage Lensman," more so than its predecessors, stresses the chesslike nature of the galactic struggle between the Boskonians and Civilization; both sides, happily, contain beings of genius, cunning and insight. And if I have not made it clear before, perhaps I should say here that the action in these books is not confined merely to the physical. Many of the alien races dealt with are telepathic, as are the Lensmen, natch; thought shields are fairly ubiquitous, thus; and mind control, brainwashing, cerebral wiping and other nasty stunts are commonplace elements of the game. These are fairly sophisticated books, and assuredly meant not just for very bright teens, but for adults, as well. And really, how many teens--or, for that matter, adults--would know the meanings of such words as "peradventure," "refulgent," "contumacious," "gudgeon" and "immiscible," all to be found in the pages herein? And for the young readers and adults alike, Smith gives us this line, as he compares the evil Boskonians to we members of civilized society: "...it has been argued that sexual equality is the most important criterion of that which we know as Civilization...." A pretty right-on sentiment, wouldn't you say?
As Book 5 draws to its conclusion, the Boskonian menace seems to have been pretty well eliminated (again), and Kim and Clarrissa finally do wed in a celebration sequence that is wonderful to behold. But as the reader is well aware (although Kim and the Patrol are not), the 2 billion-year struggle between the Arisians and the Eddorians has not been resolved yet at all. So what can possibly happen next? I suppose that I will just have to proceed on now to the Lensman series' final installment, Book 6, "Children of the Lens," to find out....
(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at http://www.fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most ideal destination for all fans of E. E. "Doc" Smith....)
As I mentioned, the story line here picks up almost precisely where Book 4 left off--with Kim and his beloved nurse/fiancée Clarrissa MacDougall running off to get married--but not before "historian" Smith gives his readers a concise synopsis of what had transpired earlier; a summary requiring a full 14 pages, the plot having become so involved by this point! And then, we're off, as Kim receives a mental warning from the multibrained being known as Mentor, from Arisia...the planet that had benevolently provided the suitable recipients of this galaxy with the Lens, and whose 2 billion-year conflict with the evil entities from Eddore constitutes the overarching backdrop of this series. Mentor warns Kim that his work is not yet finished, despite the destruction of the Eich in Book 4, and counsels Kim to "THINK." A little cogitation on Kim's part makes him realize that his wedding plans may indeed be a bit premature, and that an alien invasion from that other galaxy, most likely via the Boskonians' hyperspatial tube, is very probably imminent. And indeed, after a short period of waiting, that attack does indeed come, resulting in a very narrow victory for our Civilization, in a battle sequence that might have been a fitting climax for most other books (but that here occurs within "Second Stage Lensman"'s first 30 pages!). Following this victory, Kinnison follows a suspected "zwilnik" (i.e., a person involved in the Boskonian drug business) to the distant world of Lyrane II, located in Rift 94 of Dunstan's Region, one of the spiral arms near our galactic rim. The world's only populace, as it turns out, is a male-detesting, naked-going matriarchy, equipped with not inconsiderable mental abilities of their own. But Kim and his 2,100 crewmembers of the Dauntless manage to leave safely with their zwilnik, a young woman named Illona, who becomes enamored with Civilization's mores and allows Kinnison to probe her brainwashed mind for clues. With some invaluable assistance from Nadreck the Palainian (a bizarre race that had been introduced to us in Book 2, "First Lensman"), Illona's home planet, Lonabar, is tracked down, and Kinnison goes undercover there as a jewelry dealer and fence named Cartiff, in an attempt to wrest information from the planet's headman, Menjo Bleeko.
Later, Kim is called back to Lyrane II by the matriarchy and winds up helping to clean out a hidden cavern of those pesky, sadistic, murderous Delgonian Overlords, who we'd previously encountered in "Galactic Patrol" and thought had been wiped out for good in Book 4. Kinnison and Nadreck later proceed on to Lyrane VIII, a frigid world where the remnants of the Eich have built a formidable base, and home in on one of their communication beams. This signal leads them to a world called Thrallis II, in the second galaxy, where, as we have previously seen, the Tyrant Alcon rules over Boskonia, assisted by the Prime Minister Fossten AND the reptilian monstrosities of Thrallis IX, also known as Onlo. Realizing that a distraction of sorts is required so that Kim and Nadreck can do their work, Port Admiral Haynes and our galaxy's entire Grand Fleet invade the second galaxy, easily conquering the first world they come to, Klovia, where a mammoth foothold base is constructed. Meanwhile, Nadreck proceeds on to Onlo, and Kinnison goes undercover yet again, this time as one Lt. Traska Gannel, in Alcon's Royal Guards. Using the Thrallian-approved methods of treachery and ruthlessness, he rises in the ranks to become a captain, then a major, and finally, supplanting Alcon himself, the new Tyrant of Thrale! Now in command of Boskonia itself, Kim prepares the Grand Fleet of that evil empire to attack Klovia, while keeping the hypersuspicious and mentally powerful Fossten from piercing his identity. But as the two Grand Fleets converge in space above Klovia, Kinnison discovers one very shocking secret, indeed....
Interestingly, our two main characters here, Kim and Clarrissa, the two penultimates in the Arisians' millennia-long breeding program, undergo some subtle changes in this installment. Kinnison is noticeably tougher and more hard-boiled; more ruthless and less like the "good little Boy Scout at heart," as he describes himself to the Lyranian headwoman. Indeed, his manner of speaking to those murderous Lyranians is actually like something out of a 1940s film noir drama, and he ultimately comes to realize that Nadreck's cold-blooded efficiency ("cold-blooded" in both senses of the word, as the Palainian hails from a frozen ice planet) is indeed the way to best accomplish his tasks. As for Clarrissa, she is here made an official Lensman, the first female in our galaxy to be given that honor, and is nicknamed the "Red Lensman," in acknowledgment of her flaming hair color. (On a side note, this reader could not stop picturing the early 1940s Maureen O'Hara as the perfect actress to portray MacDougall. I don’t know which actress today would--to use Galactic Patrol parlance--"have the jets to swing it.") The character of Mentor, too, is subtly changed here, coming to Kim's long-distance aid on at least three occasions, rather than just giving answers to tough questions.
As mentioned, this Book 5 introduces some new weapons of superscience, as it seems every time the Boskonians or the Galactic Patrol comes up with something unbeatable, it is either copied by the opposing side or countered with some neutralizing gizmo shortly after. Thus, in this installment, the Patrol has as its newest offensive weapon the "sunbeam," which drains the power of a nearby star when shooting off its irresistible rays of destruction. And Kim himself has a new weapon at his disposal, as if his Lens were not enough; a miniature device invented by Worsel the Velantian that enables Kim to make unstable the complex brain molecules involved in thought, spelling instant death for his victim!
As for those battles alluded to up top, this installment gives the reader some doozies, including the Boskonians' attack on Earth; the battles with the Boskonians both above Lyrane and involving hand-to-hand combat in the Lyranian streets; the Grand Fleet's capture of Klovia; and the two fleets' final duke-out in Klovian space. Remarkably, all these battles are very different in character--both in terms of weapons, tactics and pacing--not just from each other, but from all the many battles that had preceded them in Books 1 – 4. This volume, besides boasting those terrific sequences, also dishes out some other thrilling scenes, such as Kim's saber duel with his immediate Thrallian superior; the scene in which the Dauntless becomes trapped in the limbo of hyperspace (a scene that furthers the plot not one bit, except to ratchet up that elusive sense of cosmic wonder); Kim's mental battle with Fossten, the ricocheting mental detritus of which is severe enough to kill over 1,500 Boskonians nearby; and, most especially, the reemergence of the Eddorians, in the person of Gharlane, who had played such a huge role in Book 1, "Triplanetary," and who'd been absent since the beginning of Book 2. His/its reappearance is surely this installment's finest moment, and I would not dream of divulging which of the characters Gharlane had been posing as. Kim here has no knowledge of the Eddorians, of course, but thanks to Smith's wise decision to have written Books 1 and 2 as prequels, the reader surely does, and it is a stunning moment, indeed.
"Second Stage Lensman," more so than its predecessors, stresses the chesslike nature of the galactic struggle between the Boskonians and Civilization; both sides, happily, contain beings of genius, cunning and insight. And if I have not made it clear before, perhaps I should say here that the action in these books is not confined merely to the physical. Many of the alien races dealt with are telepathic, as are the Lensmen, natch; thought shields are fairly ubiquitous, thus; and mind control, brainwashing, cerebral wiping and other nasty stunts are commonplace elements of the game. These are fairly sophisticated books, and assuredly meant not just for very bright teens, but for adults, as well. And really, how many teens--or, for that matter, adults--would know the meanings of such words as "peradventure," "refulgent," "contumacious," "gudgeon" and "immiscible," all to be found in the pages herein? And for the young readers and adults alike, Smith gives us this line, as he compares the evil Boskonians to we members of civilized society: "...it has been argued that sexual equality is the most important criterion of that which we know as Civilization...." A pretty right-on sentiment, wouldn't you say?
As Book 5 draws to its conclusion, the Boskonian menace seems to have been pretty well eliminated (again), and Kim and Clarrissa finally do wed in a celebration sequence that is wonderful to behold. But as the reader is well aware (although Kim and the Patrol are not), the 2 billion-year struggle between the Arisians and the Eddorians has not been resolved yet at all. So what can possibly happen next? I suppose that I will just have to proceed on now to the Lensman series' final installment, Book 6, "Children of the Lens," to find out....
(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at http://www.fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most ideal destination for all fans of E. E. "Doc" Smith....)
January 12, 2015
"Kim Kinnison, Number One man of his time, had faced challenges before - but rarely one as daunting as this. To him fell the perilous task of infiltrating the inner circle of Boskone, stronghold of galactic civilization's most deadly foe. Kinnison had to become a local Boskonian in every gesture, deed - and thought. He had to work his way up through the ranks of an alien enemy organization, right into the highest echelons of power. Then it would be he who issued the orders - orders that would destroy his own civilization..."
If you can ignore the most obviously dated parts of this book, the story will still pull you along. However, Smith does like to go into the details of space flight as he imagined it and I found myself speed-reading those sections just to get by them. Not a computer in sight, of course, since this series was written in those misty years before computers became such a part of our society. I was somewhat disappointed that none of the engineers in this yarn pulled out their trusty sliderules!
What absolutely amazed me was Smith’s depiction of a matriarchal planet—and the degree of vitriol which he put into it! In a previous book, a woman was sent to Arisia to become a Lensman, but was turned down by Mentor or Arisia (letting the aliens be the bigoted ones). In this one, Kinnison’s fiancée achieves Lensman status, which you would think meant that women were doing okay. However, while on the planet of the Matriarchs, Kinnison couldn’t be more contemptuous—Smith depicts these women as completely unconcerned with their own appearance. Free from the male gaze, they are completely ignorant of any form of beauty, even natural beauty such as water falls, rainbows or mountain ranges! Smith’s depiction of an outraged Kinnison seems extreme. He says far worse things about these women than he does about the whole Boskonian organization! Apparently the concept of capable women, who can run a planet just fine, thank you, really flipped a switch in Doc Smith. Very revealing of the tone of the times.
Worth a read if you are into the historical roots of science fiction or if you are interested (as I am) in the evolving role of women in the genre.
2.5 stars.
If you can ignore the most obviously dated parts of this book, the story will still pull you along. However, Smith does like to go into the details of space flight as he imagined it and I found myself speed-reading those sections just to get by them. Not a computer in sight, of course, since this series was written in those misty years before computers became such a part of our society. I was somewhat disappointed that none of the engineers in this yarn pulled out their trusty sliderules!
What absolutely amazed me was Smith’s depiction of a matriarchal planet—and the degree of vitriol which he put into it! In a previous book, a woman was sent to Arisia to become a Lensman, but was turned down by Mentor or Arisia (letting the aliens be the bigoted ones). In this one, Kinnison’s fiancée achieves Lensman status, which you would think meant that women were doing okay. However, while on the planet of the Matriarchs, Kinnison couldn’t be more contemptuous—Smith depicts these women as completely unconcerned with their own appearance. Free from the male gaze, they are completely ignorant of any form of beauty, even natural beauty such as water falls, rainbows or mountain ranges! Smith’s depiction of an outraged Kinnison seems extreme. He says far worse things about these women than he does about the whole Boskonian organization! Apparently the concept of capable women, who can run a planet just fine, thank you, really flipped a switch in Doc Smith. Very revealing of the tone of the times.
Worth a read if you are into the historical roots of science fiction or if you are interested (as I am) in the evolving role of women in the genre.
2.5 stars.
May 13, 2010
This was a slog. Like most of the Lensman stuff, it's hard to rate as a whole, since each book was originally serial, and some bits are a lot less sloggy than others.
Refresher on the landfill metaphor: being 1940s sci-fi pulp serial, reading it is an archaeological dig into a landfill. There are layers of quaintness, which any science fiction turns into with time enough. There are layers of rollicking awesome, where action moves along at a good clip. And then there are layers of painful awkwardness. The layers aren't distinct of course, they blend together and veins of them intertwine with each other. But you never quite know what layer's going to dominate in a chapter to chapter reading.
I started reading it last year, and the first half's really a one-star affair. The painful awkwardness dominates all the way through it. Our hero's investigation and tracing of the structure of enlightened Civilization's enemy has led him to a planet ruled by women, you see, an extreme matriarchy because the males aren't really people, but non-sentient breeding stock. Not even a Lensman can deal with such a topsy-turvy mixed up world, where women don't behave as women ought, because, well, just look at the last three letters of "lensman!" It stands to reason. But the planet must be dealt with, for Civilization's sake! Therefore, even though the womanly mind is simply not structured or capable of wielding a Lens, a (gasp!) female Lensman must come to be! So...yeah.
The whole sequence could have been the plot treatment for a very bad Roger Corman film, and it just broke me. Thus almost a year passing before I took a deep breath and resumed.
Luckily, I found out I'd already tunneled past the very worst parts, and the rest of it flowed rather more smoothly. There was an uptick of the good bits of giant fleets verily grimly triumphantly defenestrating vacuum itself through the coruscating, incomparable, unimaginable glass of their stacked adjectives and adverbs. Things move right along, the good guys kick ass, and then in the final chapter there's a final burp of outgassing in the victory chapter of Civilization's only possible Lenswoman squealing "Now I can go clothes shopping!" for a dozen pages.
Refresher on the landfill metaphor: being 1940s sci-fi pulp serial, reading it is an archaeological dig into a landfill. There are layers of quaintness, which any science fiction turns into with time enough. There are layers of rollicking awesome, where action moves along at a good clip. And then there are layers of painful awkwardness. The layers aren't distinct of course, they blend together and veins of them intertwine with each other. But you never quite know what layer's going to dominate in a chapter to chapter reading.
I started reading it last year, and the first half's really a one-star affair. The painful awkwardness dominates all the way through it. Our hero's investigation and tracing of the structure of enlightened Civilization's enemy has led him to a planet ruled by women, you see, an extreme matriarchy because the males aren't really people, but non-sentient breeding stock. Not even a Lensman can deal with such a topsy-turvy mixed up world, where women don't behave as women ought, because, well, just look at the last three letters of "lensman!" It stands to reason. But the planet must be dealt with, for Civilization's sake! Therefore, even though the womanly mind is simply not structured or capable of wielding a Lens, a (gasp!) female Lensman must come to be! So...yeah.
The whole sequence could have been the plot treatment for a very bad Roger Corman film, and it just broke me. Thus almost a year passing before I took a deep breath and resumed.
Luckily, I found out I'd already tunneled past the very worst parts, and the rest of it flowed rather more smoothly. There was an uptick of the good bits of giant fleets verily grimly triumphantly defenestrating vacuum itself through the coruscating, incomparable, unimaginable glass of their stacked adjectives and adverbs. Things move right along, the good guys kick ass, and then in the final chapter there's a final burp of outgassing in the victory chapter of Civilization's only possible Lenswoman squealing "Now I can go clothes shopping!" for a dozen pages.
September 2, 2010
Though not the finest of the Lensman novels, it's close. And the first one I ever read. While outrageous and big in every sense, it still manages to channel a sense of amazement on its every purple exposition. Bold adventure! Ray Guns! Space axes! Horrifically alien sadists! A planet of naked ladies! And all wrapped up in the charming argot of long long ago. All Space Opera since owes a considerable debt to these bigger-than-life adventures. Great, garish fun!
May 24, 2020
Storyline: 1/5
Characters: 1/5
Writing Style: 1/5
World: 2/5
There is not much purpose to reading these other than an interest in science fiction history or for the sake of nostalgia. This one is hardly necessary for the purposes of sci fi history, truth be told. One can get a picture of what E.E. Doc Smith contributed to the genre by reading the previous four Lensman volumes. The fourth, Gray Lensman, brought the series to what appeared to be a satisfactory close. Smith must have decided afterward that he wanted to extend the series, so in Second Stage Lensman he summarizes the series so far, narrating that the resolution we had so far achieved was not as conclusive as we thought. No, he tells us, there was actually an even bigger and more sinister plot behind the big and sinister plots we had already finished! True to seven decimal places (as Smith would have qualified it). As a result, Second Stage Lensman takes us flitting along to uncover the machinations behind the machinations. Most of the characters, battles, technology, and tactics for this volume are reused from earlier ones. The newest contributions were, perhaps, the worst parts of the story. Smith was emboldened to make women more equal with men and more meaningful in the story. His attempts to do so were so stunningly misguided that one has to either get angry or laugh at him. And it is not simply a matter of looking back on an earlier era holding different values; Smith was plenty oblivious in his own time. Also, our author was a little more patriotic in this volume, endorsing wholeheartedly the forces of democracy and light against the forces of autocracy and dark. This leads to such profundities as
My mental voice for this one was much like the melodramatic voice of the narrator of old black and white adventure shows. Those voices, in excited or foreboding tones summarize events thus far and set the scene for the action to come. The tone and pace of Second Stage Lensman was 271 pages of that voice, hurrying me along while pleading for me to join in the excitement. I hurried, but I just couldn’t find the excitement.
Characters: 1/5
Writing Style: 1/5
World: 2/5
There is not much purpose to reading these other than an interest in science fiction history or for the sake of nostalgia. This one is hardly necessary for the purposes of sci fi history, truth be told. One can get a picture of what E.E. Doc Smith contributed to the genre by reading the previous four Lensman volumes. The fourth, Gray Lensman, brought the series to what appeared to be a satisfactory close. Smith must have decided afterward that he wanted to extend the series, so in Second Stage Lensman he summarizes the series so far, narrating that the resolution we had so far achieved was not as conclusive as we thought. No, he tells us, there was actually an even bigger and more sinister plot behind the big and sinister plots we had already finished! True to seven decimal places (as Smith would have qualified it). As a result, Second Stage Lensman takes us flitting along to uncover the machinations behind the machinations. Most of the characters, battles, technology, and tactics for this volume are reused from earlier ones. The newest contributions were, perhaps, the worst parts of the story. Smith was emboldened to make women more equal with men and more meaningful in the story. His attempts to do so were so stunningly misguided that one has to either get angry or laugh at him. And it is not simply a matter of looking back on an earlier era holding different values; Smith was plenty oblivious in his own time. Also, our author was a little more patriotic in this volume, endorsing wholeheartedly the forces of democracy and light against the forces of autocracy and dark. This leads to such profundities as
“Not only did the invaders [the forces of good] allow—yes foster—free speech and statutory liberty; they suppressed ruthlessly any person or any faction seeking to build a new dictatorship; whatever its nature, upon the ruins of the old.”And no, no irony was intended. Similarly, the fate of those dictatorship-loving foes comes down to their being made right by enforced “therapy” or executed. All in the name of democracy and freedom, of course.
My mental voice for this one was much like the melodramatic voice of the narrator of old black and white adventure shows. Those voices, in excited or foreboding tones summarize events thus far and set the scene for the action to come. The tone and pace of Second Stage Lensman was 271 pages of that voice, hurrying me along while pleading for me to join in the excitement. I hurried, but I just couldn’t find the excitement.
October 6, 2015
This one lacked the page turning cadence of the first four, as the repetitive nature of the plot, simply expanding upon the previously established story elements. By the end, Civilization controls both galaxies, the evil threat has been extinguished, and the Red and Grey lensmen settle down for a new life. All the while, the Arisians manipulating the chess pieces of the Civilization to achieve the ultimate goal.
There are very cool elements, the ever present increasing technology (they are now using null spheres, planet busters, mobile space stations that are in fact planets, and sun beams that feed directly off of a local star. Cool stuff.
There are very cool elements, the ever present increasing technology (they are now using null spheres, planet busters, mobile space stations that are in fact planets, and sun beams that feed directly off of a local star. Cool stuff.
March 17, 2020
Dated, but still something worth reading.
You can’t get away from the fact this book was written in a different era. At the same time, “Doc” Smith wrote the book on space opera—he actually invented the Starship.
You can’t get away from the fact this book was written in a different era. At the same time, “Doc” Smith wrote the book on space opera—he actually invented the Starship.
August 19, 2009
The Lensman series simply keeps getting better with each volume. This one is just relentless.
June 4, 2011
Not quite as good as Gray Lensman, but still
good. If you liked the earlier Lensman books, you'll like it.
good. If you liked the earlier Lensman books, you'll like it.
April 24, 2012
The books in this series get better and better. It's a shame Doc Smith didn't live longer and write more.
April 10, 2017
Hope the finale isn't a let down. This was an adventure.
January 3, 2025
2.5/5
It's definitely one of the lesser books in the series, as much of the plot seems recycled from previous books to the point that the book's narrator mentions it more than once.
It's definitely one of the lesser books in the series, as much of the plot seems recycled from previous books to the point that the book's narrator mentions it more than once.
April 11, 2018
Second Stage Lensman kicks off just where Grey Lensman finishes; Kinnison is walking off into the sunset with Clarissa MacDougall and they’re going to get married. Like a complete arse Mentor of Arisia interrupts them and tells Kinnison to think. He does and realises that because he lives in a universe designed for MAXIMUM SPACE OPERA he needs to do something first.
Turns out he hasn’t defeated and destroyed Boskone and their next obvious step is to attack Tellus, the somewhat idiosyncratic series name for Earth. There’s a big fight and the good guys win. The enemy fleet destroyed, Kinnison then tries to track the bad guys through drugs and crime. He follows a lead which eventually takes him to Lyrane II, a planet inhabited solely by women. Logical, passionless women with no taste for beauty and a hatred for strangers, especially males (on this planet about one in a hundred births, are 30 inches tall, grow up in maletoriums until they reach about 20 when they mate a hundred times then are killed when they threaten to go crazy and fight everything. It's probably not a piece of social comment).
There he finds the only survivor of the zwilniks (drug smugglers) is Ilona of Lonabar, an exotic dancer who wears lots of jewels. (The women of Lyrane killed the men). Kinnison goes telepathically en rapport with uncounted lensmen to identify the jewels and their origin, coming into contact finally with the fourth Second Stage Lensman, Nadreck of Palain VII, a four dimensional frigid world monster indescribable to warm blooded oxygen breathers. After this Kinnison goes undercover as a jeweller turned fence; MacDougall goes to Lyrane to try and figure out why the bad guys are interested.
The bad guys having learned from the events in the previous two books have been hiding themselves by erasing their existence from the memories of their underlings. Nevertheless Kinnison uncovers the existence of the Eich (returning from Grey Lensman) on Lyrane VIII and more Overlords of Delgon (returning from both Grey Lensman AND Galactic Patrol) on Lyrane II. They destroy the Overlords and Nadreck uses a thought screen drill to spy on the Eich, giving them a clue to the enemy headquarters in the Second Galaxy.
They launch an attack on the Second Galaxy, defeat the enemy fleet and find an uncontacted planet called Klovia that they take control of and turn into a fortress. This, of course, is a distraction from the actual plan, which has Kinnison go undercover on the Boskone headquarters planet of Thrale while Nadreck goes to its frozen counterpart Onlo. Kinnison takes the place of one Traska Gennel, a second lieutenant in the royal guard and makes his way up the hierarchy to become Tyrant of Thrale. There he plots the destruction of Klovia while enduring the suspicion of Prime Minister Fossten, the power behind the throne.
The final battle begins, Fossten and Kinnison have a mental duel that Kinnison wins discovering that Fossten is a giant brain, like the Arisians. Mentor misleads Kinnison, claiming that there was an insane Arisian that they thought was dead and perhaps that's who this is*. The Boskonian fleet defeated by the Patrol, he returns to Thrale and begins the long task of turning it into a civilised planet. In the meantime Nadreck has tried to get all the Onlonians to turn on each other and very nearly succeeded but is mortified to have to admit that three of them held out and he had to kill them in person. Having finally defeated the bad guys Kinnison retires into the role of co-ordinator of the Second Galaxy and marries MacDougall.
Read This: If you’ve read the previous ones and want even more twists and turns, some of which are pretty good. In addition the book makes a turn away from the "Boskone vs Civilisation: no quarter!" of previous novels as the Patrol avoids mass genocide by occupying and converting the enemy. It's possible that this is a reaction to world events during the period it was written.
Don’t Read This: If weird ideas about a planet of women aren’t your thing; also if space battles of various sizes from single ship to gigantic don't do anything for you; or if increasingly bizarre undercover roles leave you cold.
A Personally Gratifying Development: Is that the classic nature (classicness? classicity?) of the lensman novels has been confirmed recently as Second Stage Lensman has been nominated for a Retro-Hugo, an award for years in which the Hugo awards were not awarded. Confused? This link may help.
* Actually Gharlane of Eddor, the second in command of the Eddorians.
Turns out he hasn’t defeated and destroyed Boskone and their next obvious step is to attack Tellus, the somewhat idiosyncratic series name for Earth. There’s a big fight and the good guys win. The enemy fleet destroyed, Kinnison then tries to track the bad guys through drugs and crime. He follows a lead which eventually takes him to Lyrane II, a planet inhabited solely by women. Logical, passionless women with no taste for beauty and a hatred for strangers, especially males (on this planet about one in a hundred births, are 30 inches tall, grow up in maletoriums until they reach about 20 when they mate a hundred times then are killed when they threaten to go crazy and fight everything. It's probably not a piece of social comment).
There he finds the only survivor of the zwilniks (drug smugglers) is Ilona of Lonabar, an exotic dancer who wears lots of jewels. (The women of Lyrane killed the men). Kinnison goes telepathically en rapport with uncounted lensmen to identify the jewels and their origin, coming into contact finally with the fourth Second Stage Lensman, Nadreck of Palain VII, a four dimensional frigid world monster indescribable to warm blooded oxygen breathers. After this Kinnison goes undercover as a jeweller turned fence; MacDougall goes to Lyrane to try and figure out why the bad guys are interested.
The bad guys having learned from the events in the previous two books have been hiding themselves by erasing their existence from the memories of their underlings. Nevertheless Kinnison uncovers the existence of the Eich (returning from Grey Lensman) on Lyrane VIII and more Overlords of Delgon (returning from both Grey Lensman AND Galactic Patrol) on Lyrane II. They destroy the Overlords and Nadreck uses a thought screen drill to spy on the Eich, giving them a clue to the enemy headquarters in the Second Galaxy.
They launch an attack on the Second Galaxy, defeat the enemy fleet and find an uncontacted planet called Klovia that they take control of and turn into a fortress. This, of course, is a distraction from the actual plan, which has Kinnison go undercover on the Boskone headquarters planet of Thrale while Nadreck goes to its frozen counterpart Onlo. Kinnison takes the place of one Traska Gennel, a second lieutenant in the royal guard and makes his way up the hierarchy to become Tyrant of Thrale. There he plots the destruction of Klovia while enduring the suspicion of Prime Minister Fossten, the power behind the throne.
The final battle begins, Fossten and Kinnison have a mental duel that Kinnison wins discovering that Fossten is a giant brain, like the Arisians. Mentor misleads Kinnison, claiming that there was an insane Arisian that they thought was dead and perhaps that's who this is*. The Boskonian fleet defeated by the Patrol, he returns to Thrale and begins the long task of turning it into a civilised planet. In the meantime Nadreck has tried to get all the Onlonians to turn on each other and very nearly succeeded but is mortified to have to admit that three of them held out and he had to kill them in person. Having finally defeated the bad guys Kinnison retires into the role of co-ordinator of the Second Galaxy and marries MacDougall.
Read This: If you’ve read the previous ones and want even more twists and turns, some of which are pretty good. In addition the book makes a turn away from the "Boskone vs Civilisation: no quarter!" of previous novels as the Patrol avoids mass genocide by occupying and converting the enemy. It's possible that this is a reaction to world events during the period it was written.
Don’t Read This: If weird ideas about a planet of women aren’t your thing; also if space battles of various sizes from single ship to gigantic don't do anything for you; or if increasingly bizarre undercover roles leave you cold.
A Personally Gratifying Development: Is that the classic nature (classicness? classicity?) of the lensman novels has been confirmed recently as Second Stage Lensman has been nominated for a Retro-Hugo, an award for years in which the Hugo awards were not awarded. Confused? This link may help.
* Actually Gharlane of Eddor, the second in command of the Eddorians.
October 3, 2019
Doc Smith continues the adventures of Kimball Kinnison, Lantern Corps, er, I mean, Lensman Corps tier 2, and while he keeps the interest coming, he's definitely got himself into a situation where the Lensmen are always one step ahead of the bad guys.
There's not a lot of suspense, in other words. One is almost inclined to relate to the bad guys, as their plans are thwarted easily and they struggle to figure out what's going on with their heretofore stable society. If previously Kim assumed the identity of hellraising miner with difficulty, in this book he insinuates himself into the heart of his enemy's culture and rises to the top with relative ease.
Doc has to have his heroes be super—it's the underlying premise of the series, really—but as they have grown in competence their enemies have not. And in this book, KK has to confront (though he doesn't know it) an Eddorian—the anti-Arisians, the evil masterminds behind the real struggle for the galaxy, and he wins handily.
But he doesn't really, because it's really Mentor working behind the scenes. So we have a situation where peril is rare, and when it does rear up, there's always a deus ex machina available for the taking. I have only started #6 at this point, and this problem seems to be pervasive. We shall see.
There's not a lot of suspense, in other words. One is almost inclined to relate to the bad guys, as their plans are thwarted easily and they struggle to figure out what's going on with their heretofore stable society. If previously Kim assumed the identity of hellraising miner with difficulty, in this book he insinuates himself into the heart of his enemy's culture and rises to the top with relative ease.
Doc has to have his heroes be super—it's the underlying premise of the series, really—but as they have grown in competence their enemies have not. And in this book, KK has to confront (though he doesn't know it) an Eddorian—the anti-Arisians, the evil masterminds behind the real struggle for the galaxy, and he wins handily.
But he doesn't really, because it's really Mentor working behind the scenes. So we have a situation where peril is rare, and when it does rear up, there's always a deus ex machina available for the taking. I have only started #6 at this point, and this problem seems to be pervasive. We shall see.
October 12, 2014
‘Kim Kinnison, Number One man of his time, had faced challenges before – but rarely one as daunting as this. To him fell the perilous task of infiltrating the inner circle of Boskone, stronghold of galactic civilisation’s most deadly foe. Kinnison had to become a loyal Boskonian in every gesture, deed – and thought. he had to work his way up through the ranks of an alien enemy organisation, right into the highest echelons of power. Then it would be he who issued the orders – orders that would destroy his own civilization…’
Blurb from the 1973 Panther paperback edition
Kinnison’s wedding is rudely interrupted by Mentor of Arisia who enjoins him to ‘THINK!’ in big letters. The Patrol, of course, were a little premature in thinking that the forces of darkness (i.e. Boskonia) had been defeated.
Kinnison, having thunk, comes to the conclusion that the Earth will be attacked via hyper-spatial tube, and sets up defences in the nick of time. Then, following a zwilnik trail he discovers the planet of Lyrane, a matriarchy of powerful telepaths whose males are aggressive mindless animals.
Nadrek of Palain VII appears here, a character of whom Smith did not make enough use. As a child I was totally captivated by Nadrek’s outlook and philosophy, which was one of avoiding danger whenever possible.
Clarissa McDougall becomes a Grey Lensman and is posted to Lyrane to report on zwilnik activity.
There is another battle with the fiendish overlords of Delgon, some of whom are hiding out in Lyrane’s polar regions.
Kinnison, going undercover again, works himself into the retinue of Alcon of Thrale and eventually supplants him as head of Boskonian activities. However, behind Alcon of Prime Minister Fossten, who is revealed to be none other than Gharlane of Eddore.
What is interesting, given America’s recent policies on dealing with problems in the rest of the world is the Patrol’s idea of dealing with alien cultures.
‘Let’s civilize ‘em!’ as I think one of the military commandos puts it later in the novel. The US has, it seems, always been keen on forcing its culture on the rest of the world which, by the time of the Galactic Patrol, it has, since Earth has a world government which is very much US-controlled. Of course, one has to look at this from a historical and social viewpoint and not really expect Smith, revising and updating work from the Nineteen Forties, to be overly concerned with the future of the rest of the world, given that he considered his fan base to be young American men.
However, if one considers SF to be to a certain extent, the subconscious of the culture at the time at which it is written, it says a lot about the arrogance of US culture, an arrogance which sadly persists in some authors to this day.
The whole series, after all, is an ideological struggle between two cultural models, neither of which can tolerate the existence of the other. It doesn’t take Freud to work out what parallel models were in operation at the time.
It’s also worth noting that the Kinnison wedding is an unashamedly Christian one, the implication being that, with the exception of the alien Lensmen, all his human colleagues, family and friends are Christian also.
No Jewish Lensmen then?
Blurb from the 1973 Panther paperback edition
Kinnison’s wedding is rudely interrupted by Mentor of Arisia who enjoins him to ‘THINK!’ in big letters. The Patrol, of course, were a little premature in thinking that the forces of darkness (i.e. Boskonia) had been defeated.
Kinnison, having thunk, comes to the conclusion that the Earth will be attacked via hyper-spatial tube, and sets up defences in the nick of time. Then, following a zwilnik trail he discovers the planet of Lyrane, a matriarchy of powerful telepaths whose males are aggressive mindless animals.
Nadrek of Palain VII appears here, a character of whom Smith did not make enough use. As a child I was totally captivated by Nadrek’s outlook and philosophy, which was one of avoiding danger whenever possible.
Clarissa McDougall becomes a Grey Lensman and is posted to Lyrane to report on zwilnik activity.
There is another battle with the fiendish overlords of Delgon, some of whom are hiding out in Lyrane’s polar regions.
Kinnison, going undercover again, works himself into the retinue of Alcon of Thrale and eventually supplants him as head of Boskonian activities. However, behind Alcon of Prime Minister Fossten, who is revealed to be none other than Gharlane of Eddore.
What is interesting, given America’s recent policies on dealing with problems in the rest of the world is the Patrol’s idea of dealing with alien cultures.
‘Let’s civilize ‘em!’ as I think one of the military commandos puts it later in the novel. The US has, it seems, always been keen on forcing its culture on the rest of the world which, by the time of the Galactic Patrol, it has, since Earth has a world government which is very much US-controlled. Of course, one has to look at this from a historical and social viewpoint and not really expect Smith, revising and updating work from the Nineteen Forties, to be overly concerned with the future of the rest of the world, given that he considered his fan base to be young American men.
However, if one considers SF to be to a certain extent, the subconscious of the culture at the time at which it is written, it says a lot about the arrogance of US culture, an arrogance which sadly persists in some authors to this day.
The whole series, after all, is an ideological struggle between two cultural models, neither of which can tolerate the existence of the other. It doesn’t take Freud to work out what parallel models were in operation at the time.
It’s also worth noting that the Kinnison wedding is an unashamedly Christian one, the implication being that, with the exception of the alien Lensmen, all his human colleagues, family and friends are Christian also.
No Jewish Lensmen then?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 13, 2021
I (and many others) believe the best place to start with Doc Smith’s Lensman series is Galactic Patrol; and as I’ve said why, at length, in my review of that opus, I won’t repeat it here.
Furthermore, if you’ve already read Patrol and Gray Lensman with enjoyment, you’ll hardly need my urging to continue.
This is nonetheless probably the weakest of the four main Lensman novels, mainly because of Smith’s often-noted discomfort with female characters. It is a curious reflection on his powers as a writer that he can make a thoroughly convincing — even likeable! — character of a thirty-foot, crocodile-headed, winged python with eyes that come out on stalks, but can’t manage the matriarch of a tribe of human Amazons (from the planet Lyrane II).
We cannot, to be sure, be surprised that Kinnison’s skills at handling females are so deficient: after all, he’s spent his formative years galumphing around the Galaxy in search of the arch-villain Helmuth, not hanging out like a normal teenager. Military genius he may be, but socially he’s still an adolescent.
(Although... perhaps he’s not quite as inexperienced as all that? Exactly what were his experiences as a Cadet with that “bedroom-eyed Aldebaranian hell-cat”, the stunningly beautiful Dessa Desplaines? Whatever they were, they obviously left quite an impression: Kinnison — normally unflappable even by the most outré developments — is reduced to a jelly at the mere thought of meeting her again.)
Still, be all that as it may, Second Stage has many compensating pleasures, not least the exploits of Nadreck, the cowardly four-dimensional Palainian lensman.
And it leads into one of the strongest finishes of any science fiction series, as Kim and Clarissa’s offspring carry the struggle to its climax in Children of the Lens.
Furthermore, if you’ve already read Patrol and Gray Lensman with enjoyment, you’ll hardly need my urging to continue.
This is nonetheless probably the weakest of the four main Lensman novels, mainly because of Smith’s often-noted discomfort with female characters. It is a curious reflection on his powers as a writer that he can make a thoroughly convincing — even likeable! — character of a thirty-foot, crocodile-headed, winged python with eyes that come out on stalks, but can’t manage the matriarch of a tribe of human Amazons (from the planet Lyrane II).
We cannot, to be sure, be surprised that Kinnison’s skills at handling females are so deficient: after all, he’s spent his formative years galumphing around the Galaxy in search of the arch-villain Helmuth, not hanging out like a normal teenager. Military genius he may be, but socially he’s still an adolescent.
(Although... perhaps he’s not quite as inexperienced as all that? Exactly what were his experiences as a Cadet with that “bedroom-eyed Aldebaranian hell-cat”, the stunningly beautiful Dessa Desplaines? Whatever they were, they obviously left quite an impression: Kinnison — normally unflappable even by the most outré developments — is reduced to a jelly at the mere thought of meeting her again.)
Still, be all that as it may, Second Stage has many compensating pleasures, not least the exploits of Nadreck, the cowardly four-dimensional Palainian lensman.
And it leads into one of the strongest finishes of any science fiction series, as Kim and Clarissa’s offspring carry the struggle to its climax in Children of the Lens.
February 2, 2020
4 STARS - This is it, the penultimate book in the Lensman series, a series almost as famous for being the first Epic Space Opera as it is for how marvelously exciting and inventive it was.
First published in the pages of Astounding magazine back in 1941, this book mainly focuses upon the exploits of the "Second Stage" Lensmen: those who have gone through the advanced Arisian training in Galactic Patrol. These four superior Lensmen - Kinnison, Worsel, Tregonsee, and Nadreck - are armed with mental powers far in advance of other Lensmen which allows them to control the minds of others and to see/hear/feel without using their physical senses... powers they use to tip the balance against that enemy of civilization: The Boskone.
The story picks up immediately where Gray Lensman left off as Kimball and Clarissa are heading off to get ready for their impending marriage. When Mentor of Arisia stops them by commanding Kim to 'think before he acts,' whence Kim immediately realizes that the Boskonian organization has probably not been destroyed.
Like Galactic Patrol and Gray Lensman (books 3 & 4 respectively) Kim Kinnison, and the Lensman, are shown as amoral, willing to do whatever it takes to make the galaxy safe for 'Civilization.' Yet Kinnison begins to doubt the methods he's used in previous books, causing some actual character growth which is a pleasant addition. All while Second Stage Lensman spends more time, than any previous book, on the non-human Lensman.
Once again the Lensman series shows us why it was touted as 'The Famous' for so many printings in this action-packed step up to the final stage with it's mix of awe and adventure. While the the climax is as big as the previous books it's the perfect example of the non-stop entertainment and boundless imagination this series has to offer.
If you've made it this far into the Lensman series I don't know why you would need a recommendation on this book. Just read it and if you've LIKED the previous books you will LOVE this one.
First published in the pages of Astounding magazine back in 1941, this book mainly focuses upon the exploits of the "Second Stage" Lensmen: those who have gone through the advanced Arisian training in Galactic Patrol. These four superior Lensmen - Kinnison, Worsel, Tregonsee, and Nadreck - are armed with mental powers far in advance of other Lensmen which allows them to control the minds of others and to see/hear/feel without using their physical senses... powers they use to tip the balance against that enemy of civilization: The Boskone.
The story picks up immediately where Gray Lensman left off as Kimball and Clarissa are heading off to get ready for their impending marriage. When Mentor of Arisia stops them by commanding Kim to 'think before he acts,' whence Kim immediately realizes that the Boskonian organization has probably not been destroyed.
Like Galactic Patrol and Gray Lensman (books 3 & 4 respectively) Kim Kinnison, and the Lensman, are shown as amoral, willing to do whatever it takes to make the galaxy safe for 'Civilization.' Yet Kinnison begins to doubt the methods he's used in previous books, causing some actual character growth which is a pleasant addition. All while Second Stage Lensman spends more time, than any previous book, on the non-human Lensman.
Once again the Lensman series shows us why it was touted as 'The Famous' for so many printings in this action-packed step up to the final stage with it's mix of awe and adventure. While the the climax is as big as the previous books it's the perfect example of the non-stop entertainment and boundless imagination this series has to offer.
If you've made it this far into the Lensman series I don't know why you would need a recommendation on this book. Just read it and if you've LIKED the previous books you will LOVE this one.
August 6, 2019
If one has not read pulp science fiction or E. E. "Doc" Smith in particular, "Second Stage Lensman" would be an excellent starting place. Although in the middle of the series, the forward gives a good summary of prior events and familiarizing one with the series specific terms. Many find Doc Smith difficult reads due to wooden dialogue, never ending tropes and clichéd characters. But that is vintage Pulp.
Once you get into the Pulp frame of mind, this book is an easy read. With tunnels between galaxies (worm holes), negabombs (atomic bombs) , etc., it's futuristic. Keep in mind the original version was published serially in Astounding magazine starting late 1941, just prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. War was raging in Europe and China and the world was looking for a good guy strong man to clean things up. The Lensman series had the evil Boskones from another Galaxy trying to take control Planets and Galaxy controlled by the Lensman and benevolent Arisians. A perfect backdrop for what was happening in the real world.
The answer is mass annihilation of the enemy with acceptable, to the Lensman, collateral damage. Remember, the twentieth century was the bloodiest on record with two World Wars, genocide, gulags and bombing of civilians. More civilians were killed than combatants in conflicts. Given what was happening in the real world the Lensman universe was not out of place.
For me, "Second Stage Lensman" is incentive to read more Pulp sci-fi and Doc Smith.
Once you get into the Pulp frame of mind, this book is an easy read. With tunnels between galaxies (worm holes), negabombs (atomic bombs) , etc., it's futuristic. Keep in mind the original version was published serially in Astounding magazine starting late 1941, just prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. War was raging in Europe and China and the world was looking for a good guy strong man to clean things up. The Lensman series had the evil Boskones from another Galaxy trying to take control Planets and Galaxy controlled by the Lensman and benevolent Arisians. A perfect backdrop for what was happening in the real world.
The answer is mass annihilation of the enemy with acceptable, to the Lensman, collateral damage. Remember, the twentieth century was the bloodiest on record with two World Wars, genocide, gulags and bombing of civilians. More civilians were killed than combatants in conflicts. Given what was happening in the real world the Lensman universe was not out of place.
For me, "Second Stage Lensman" is incentive to read more Pulp sci-fi and Doc Smith.
October 21, 2019
I wanted to reread this series for its nostalgic value having read the books many years ago and remembering how much I had enjoyed them.
At first I was a little disappointed but as the series has developed, I have come to realise just how good the whole story is, which is why I have given this book 4 stars rather than the 3 I gave to the previous 4 volumes.
Smith writes entertaining and clever science fiction. For modern readers it is necessary to overcome how dated the science and technology is, and to recognise that the books are concerned overwhelmingly with a war between 2 empires, a war that is glorified in typical 1950s style of heroes being purely good and brave and handsome to boot, but the plot does have layers of depth which makes the story increasingly interesting as you move through the volumes.
Having read this book, there is just the final volume to read, and I admit that ... I am looking forward to it!
At first I was a little disappointed but as the series has developed, I have come to realise just how good the whole story is, which is why I have given this book 4 stars rather than the 3 I gave to the previous 4 volumes.
Smith writes entertaining and clever science fiction. For modern readers it is necessary to overcome how dated the science and technology is, and to recognise that the books are concerned overwhelmingly with a war between 2 empires, a war that is glorified in typical 1950s style of heroes being purely good and brave and handsome to boot, but the plot does have layers of depth which makes the story increasingly interesting as you move through the volumes.
Having read this book, there is just the final volume to read, and I admit that ... I am looking forward to it!
May 18, 2018
ok this is the books i was reading the series for(hugo nomination). Some of the things i write here are for the series as much as this book, but I wanted to write my thoughts down.
This book (and series) is the height of the pulp era. its entertainment with all fluff there are only black hats and white hats, the science is all just for show. The Over the top galaxy spanning story (if relatively small cast) and metaphors and descriptive text really payoff.
The series suffers from mild racism and sexism that are typical of books from this time period. we do finally get a female lensman character and a matriarchal world run by woman that does not immediately lead off to exploitation, but the sexism is still there.
This is actually the best of the series so far it gets 5th star because I'm comparing it to other books in this time frame and is a great example of period pulp.
This book (and series) is the height of the pulp era. its entertainment with all fluff there are only black hats and white hats, the science is all just for show. The Over the top galaxy spanning story (if relatively small cast) and metaphors and descriptive text really payoff.
The series suffers from mild racism and sexism that are typical of books from this time period. we do finally get a female lensman character and a matriarchal world run by woman that does not immediately lead off to exploitation, but the sexism is still there.
This is actually the best of the series so far it gets 5th star because I'm comparing it to other books in this time frame and is a great example of period pulp.
February 16, 2020
At the end of the previous book, the Patrol thinks they have eliminated the Boskone organization that would enslave all of the universe under its evil will. Unfortunately, it was not the case that the organization was eliminated. The head of Boskone had two parallel command structures that knew nothing about one another, and the second command structure was still fully functioning and up to know good.
While Boskone did have the second structure functioning, it was severely weakened from having the other structure destroyed. The Patrol, rather than sit back and build up it forces from that war, decided to take the offensive and take out the second structure immediately. The story is thus the campaign to do just this.
While Boskone did have the second structure functioning, it was severely weakened from having the other structure destroyed. The Patrol, rather than sit back and build up it forces from that war, decided to take the offensive and take out the second structure immediately. The story is thus the campaign to do just this.
July 30, 2017
Great book, too many typographical errors
Second Stage Lensmen, along with the rest of the Lensman series is space opera at its best. I've read and re-read it many times since I was a young teenager.
Unfortunately, this edition is riddled with typographical errors and transcription mistakes to the extent that it distracts from the story. It's obvious that no effort was made to proofread the transcription before publication. These errors are the reason I did not give it 5 stars.
Second Stage Lensmen, along with the rest of the Lensman series is space opera at its best. I've read and re-read it many times since I was a young teenager.
Unfortunately, this edition is riddled with typographical errors and transcription mistakes to the extent that it distracts from the story. It's obvious that no effort was made to proofread the transcription before publication. These errors are the reason I did not give it 5 stars.
January 8, 2019
First read this and the whole Lensman series in the Seventies, and every so often have re-read them. Don’t bother with so called book 7 - Masters of The Vortex - as it’s not part of the main narrative and only very vaguely related.
Books 1 to 6 though are cheesy, space opera through and through, sheer popcorn entertainment with sweeping galaxy wide plots and the clunkiest dialogue and prose this side of Alpha Centauri.
Don’t read if you’re after hard-boiled sci-fi but if you just want some diversion into deep space, epic space battles and derring-do then this series will see you right.
Books 1 to 6 though are cheesy, space opera through and through, sheer popcorn entertainment with sweeping galaxy wide plots and the clunkiest dialogue and prose this side of Alpha Centauri.
Don’t read if you’re after hard-boiled sci-fi but if you just want some diversion into deep space, epic space battles and derring-do then this series will see you right.
August 23, 2011
Kimball Kinnison has finally met his match: a fiery red-headed nurse! But before they can get married, Kinnison is called away on a mission: to begin the invasion of the home galaxy of the Boskonians! Teaming up with the three other Second-Stage lensmen: Worsel, Nadreck and Tregonsee, they must tackle two planets defended to the hilt.
August 13, 2020
In this 5th book of Doc Smith's Lensman series, the Boskonians have again emerged as a threat to humanity and Kim Kinnison and the Galactic Patrol is confronting them again. And Kim now has a love interest - Clarissa MacDougall. Again, great space opera. Kim has to save the universe before he can marry Clarissa.
November 9, 2014
It took me five years and searching over 100 used book stores to find this story. It was the endpoint of E.E. "Doc" Smith's Sci-Fi Epic and it did not disappoint in its plot lines, new characters mixing with old characters, and action. If you love Space Opera, then this is a book and a series to try.
December 3, 2019
This has been a fun series. I still laugh at slide rulers coming out when calculations are needed and the fact some ships host their switchboard operators, but then wonder at the main weapon "sun ray" which grabbed energy from a sun and pinpointed it at their enemy. Sounds like a 1930's version of the Star Wars Death Star to me! The story continues to be enjoyable!
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