Subspace Survivors

by E.E. "Doc" Smith

There has always been, and will always be, the problem of surviving the experience that any trained expert can handle ... when there hasn't been any first survivor to be an expert! When no one has ever gotten back to explain what happened....

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Ebooks, Short Stories, Space Opera, Audiobook

60 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 1960

About the author

Edward 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.

Reviews

[Lindsay · Rating 2 out of 5]

A light holiday read. I just wish the female characters were...better.

[Janelle]

DNF. Didn't like the story. Actually I haven't yet found anything I like by this author.

[Frank Carver · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ll admit at the start of this review that I grew up reading this kind of pulp space opera, and devoured all the main novels (such as the Skylark and Lensman series) by E E ‘Doc’ Smith, so my feeling about this one, which I had somehow never got around to reading in my youth, may be coloured by rose-tinted glasses.

Smith’s career spanned several decades, and by this book he is edging into the psychic, new age material which would characterise some of his later work. On the other hand, this one still has many of the characteristics of his earlier, pulpier, writing. And it’s populated by a parade of standard pulp archetypes. We get the super-competent and unflappable hero so common in Smith’s stories, accompanied by the almost-as-competent and slightly more emotional sidekick, a generalist boffin to wave his hands over an scientific holes, Smith’s signature unrealistic women, and a crop of low-down gangsters spoiling for some macho chest beating and a gunfight.

All of these characters find themselves adrift in unknown space after an accident aboard a luxury space liner. It’s not clear when this story is supposed to be set, but it seems everyone smokes, spaceflight is controlled by a huge board of buttons and “rheostats” (a.k.a. knobs), and nobody bats an eyelid at many of the passengers coming aboard armed.

The story starts with everything running smoothly, and we quickly meet the acrobatic heiress to an oil fortune followed by the first and second officers of the crew. The two crewmen banter about the qualities of the women aboard, and then the first officer gets one of his hunches. He always plays these hunches, so he goes to investigate the passenger area.

At this point we get one of the strangest sequences I have ever read in a sci-fi book. He enters the passenger lounge, sees a woman (who he has never met before) playing cards, she quits the game and gets up to come towards him. Then, with no preamble, they kiss, mutter a few things about premonitions and dowsing, and decide they might as well get married straight away. It’s only later that he learns her name. She’s the heiress, of course.

All of this is just setting the stage for the real story, which is about survival after the ship suffers a mysterious accident. In this respect it shares themes with some of Smith’s other work. Notably “Spacehounds of IPC”, but similar jury-rigged spaceflight sequences can be found in many of his books. By this point not only has our hero married his love-at-first-sight bride, but his randy second in command has also inexplicably married another passenger.

I enjoyed this story a bit more than I thought I would, and not entirely because of nostalgia. It has a kind of pulp naivety and comfortableness, in which you know the good guys will always triumph, science has an answer for everything, even the paranormal, and marriage is a necessary and absolute pre-requirement for making babies. The science may be twaddle, but that is part of its charm.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantasy listening

Due to eye issues and damage Alexa reads to me.
A wonderful will written fantasy Sci-Fi romantic space adventure thriller novella with interesting characters. The story line is about disaster in space and the five persons who survive. I would recommend this entertaining novella to readers of fantasy Sci-Fi adventures. Enjoy the adventure of reading 2021 😇

[Dana Shelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Golden Age

Love that old-time sci-fi! Doc Smith knows how to tell a story and make it seem as real and natural as this morning's breakfast.

[Dayo Johnson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty naff really 🙁

[Tony Ciak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun space adventure

[Stuart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fairly mediocre, really. I thought this was promising, but it really does focus more on the science than the fiction.

[Janet Jay · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing new, even then, & sorta lazy.

[Alexander · Rating 3 out of 5]

Could be a great novel, but it was killed unborn by the 'short story' format.