Skylark of Valeron

Skylark #3

by E.E. "Doc" Smith

STAR WANDERER

As the mighty spaceship Skylark roved the intergalactic void, scientist Richard Seaton and his companions uncovered a world of disembodied intelligences. A world of four dimensions where time was insanely distorted and matter obeyed no terrestrial laws...where three-dimensional intellects were barely sufficient to thwart invisible mentalities!

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Space Opera, Classics, Literature, Pulp, Science Fiction Fantasy

206 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1934

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

[Adrian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Series Solo Read 2024
So as I said with the previous episode of this saga, sometimes when you are in the roes of a difficult time (for us that is our current house move), you sometimes just need an enjoyable easy read. And "Doc" Smith's Skylark series are just that. Enjoyable , fun and if you like Space Opera, then it is the standard by which all later books are judged by, despite being 80 years old.

A fun romp around our Galaxy and then when they have to spin themselves into the fourth dimension to escape, they eventually emerge many galaxies from home.

Well worth reading, especially on a rainy day, cuddled up to a cat !

Series Solo Read 2019

Another great but dated space-opera classic from the man who invented the genre.

In this episode of the Seaton and Crane and the good guys versus the baddies of the universe, we learn something really shocking that has ramifications all through this book.

Seaton and Crane plus their wives are stranded in deep space between galaxies and reduced to travelling in the tiny Skylark Two into the fourth dimension. Eventually Seaton finds a planet of pseudo humans in a distant galaxy, helps them out against some chlorine breathing amoeba and builds his next gen of spaceship on their planet to help him and the other 3 intrepid travellers to travel the inter galaxy wastes to return to the Milky Way.

Yes it is simple, yes it is certainly dated but all of that said it is a romping good story and so 4 stars it has to be. I look forward to the final episode in the series.

[prcardi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Storyline: 1/5
Characters: 1/5
Writing Style: 2/5
World: 2/5

Smith really wasn't a novelist. I can see how these would have been a lot of fun as magazine installments for adolescent boys in the time between the World Wars. The technological speculation would have been amazing, the adventures awe-inspiring, and the vicarious feeling of heroism and doing-good-for-the-universe satisfying. This and its predecessors do, however, embody just about every flaw cynics and critics make about the science fiction genre: stultifying writing, alpha male heroes, weak willed damsels-in-distress, technobabble, showy technology and action in place of detail, depth, or meaning. The future of science fiction is written here, though. Science fiction would continue to be enamored with technology. Technobabble gets more and more plausible. We still love a damsel and hero, though we generally like them to be a little more like us - complicated, flawed, hopeful. A few setbacks along the way make our hero's struggle more believable. However hokey Seaton et al might be today, the road map to our science fiction present is written in E.E. Doc Smith's Skylark of Valeron. It just took us a long while to make out the details.

[Roddy Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Valeron' takes us more or less straight on from the end of the last volume, although we see the denouement from the perspective of Duquesne, who has captured a Fenachrone war-vessel and is hiding among their fleet. Thus, he witnesses the destruction of the entire Fenachrone race. While Seaton and his chums are racing off to pursue the final Fenachrone ship (which is attempting to flee to another galaxy) Duquesne returns to Earth and takes control of the planet.
We then rejoin Seaton, Martin, Dorothy and Margaret as they continue their adventures. Having destroyed the last of the Fenachrone, they then encounter the pure intellectuals, beings composed of energy and, in order to escape them, rotate themselves into the Fourth Dimension.
They are there captured by a fourth-dimensional civilisation. Unable to communicate, they are forced to escape. Seaton manages to rotate them back into our universe in the nick of time but finds that they are so far from their own galaxy, they are lost.
In a nearby galaxy however, they discover the planet Valeron, peopled by nice white humanoid types and currently under siege by the Chlorans, green amoeboid type beasties from a neighbouring planet.
Smith is pretty much repeating plotlines continuously but does so, it has to be said, in a very entertaining manner, despite his rather casual attitude to genocide, which he is happy to carry out with gay abandon in most of his work. He also quite cleverly interweaves what appears to be logical scientific theory and laws of physics with complete techno-nonsense, such as the convenient headsets that one can don to assimilate all the knowledge and expertise of a friendly scientist chum.
It's juvenile hokum that is typical of - but generally far superior to - most of the contemporaneous work that was being published in the mid Nineteen Thirties.

The tale was first serialised in 'Astounding' in 1934 and published as a novel in 1949.

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, the main villains from the last book didn't die after all! They're in this book and they take over Earth but the protagonists are too busy dealing with super aliens to deal with the main villains until the last few pages of the book where things are wrapped up disappointingly too quickly. The last book in this series looks like it will be better with the protagonist and the villain teaming up against a greater threat. But I'm going to take a little break before getting into that one.

[Jeffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a quaint book. One written just prior to the Science Fiction revolution that occurred at the end of the Thirties and brought us Asimov and Heinlein, "hard science" fiction and a hint of things to come. How a food engineer (donuts) could have had his finger on the pulse enough to predict uranium based power production and computers is beyond me. He even has the fairly modern concept of the Singularity (implemented by humans instead of computers, however). Unfortunately for him, everything changed. He chose scientific terms that didn't win minds like order instead of dimension. The two protagonist scientists bring along their helpless uneducated house wives on the adventure, which while providing a nice opportunity for the author to stop and explain the unexplainable is still an annoying trope that could have been avoided by making them a bit more evenly yoked. Genocide is still a viable option in his universe, and I could help but cringe when he uses the phrase "uber alles" at one point in the book. For some reason, I felt that much of this particular problem was redeemed by his final statements exhibiting hope that mankind could stop hating each other for being different.

In the end I enjoyed it, mostly because I was able to get myself in the right mindset to read the book.

[Neil Willcox · Rating 3 out of 5]

This, the third in the Skylark series (previously reviewed by me the first novel, The Skylark of Space , and also the second, the confusingly named Skylark Three ) opens to reveal that Richard Seaton’s Nemesis, Marc C DuQuesne did not die at the hands of the Fenachrone supermen in Skylark Three*, but instead was able to steal a battleship from them before their planet was destroyed. DuQuesne then goes to Norlamin, lies to the locals, and claims to be an employee of Seaton and Crane, whereupon they give him a very powerful spaceship with all the technology from the previous book. DuQuesne then conquers the Earth, and becomes very popular by abolishing war and crime, and creating full employment by building a defence system for the planet.

But what are Seaton and Crane up to? They were deep in intergalactic space chasing the Fenachrone at the end of Skylark Three; their velocity is so great that it’s easier to visit a new galaxy than turn around and come back. They encounter mental beings of no physical form, the “Intellectuals,” who decide they want to recruit Seaton. To escape Seaton and company rotate Skylark Two (Skylark Three’s lifeboat) into the fourth dimension.

The fourth dimension is an extremely wacky place. You can reach past the outside of sealed objects (Seaton uses a tin of tobacco to demonstrate). More annoyingly the four-dimensional beings use shock tridents that reach inside the humans’ bodies and grasp nerve junction to control them. Also the three dimensional matter is much denser than the local stuff; the land appears to be flat; light comes from the surroundings and vanishes leaving the night pitch black. Finally time is all messed up; they’re only supposed to be there for one ten thousandth of a second yet it feels much longer.

When they come out they find themselves very lost, not recognising the nearby galaxies. Seaton realises that he will have to, at the very least, rebuild his Fifth-Order Projector to find their way home, and probably go further and build a Sixth-Order one (which operates on the frequency of thought). Fortunately his time in the fourth dimension has given him some ideas on how to do that, which is just as well as he needs to come up with something to deal with the Intellectuals. However he needs a stable planet and a nearby white dwarf star (for the heat/pressure to make a neutronium lens).

They find such a planet, Valeron, only it has recently gone through a close pass with another star leading to the death of most of the inhabitants (humans), and has also acquired a new planetary neighbour whose atmosphere is made up of chlorin** (sic). Unfortunately the inhabitants of this planet “Chlora” are amoebas who promptly lay siege to Valeron. Just as things are getting a bit hairy for the defenders Seaton and the Skylark arrive and save the day.

Seaton goes on to build what he wants to call Skylark Four (to get the accuracy they want it would need measuring circles four light years across, but that turns out to be impractical so it’s a sphere only one thousand km across) but Dorothy, his wife, insists it has a better name so it becomes Skylark of Valeron. Now to deal with the Intellectuals, and also DuQuesne, the very popular total ruler of Earth.

Read This: For more space adventures; the fourth dimension sequence in particular is full of cool ideas.
Don’t Read This: If building bigger ships and greater technology is boring.

* The book, not the ship. DuQuesne never boards Skylark Three (the ship).
** Word tried to autocorrect this to chlorinE. And just now lower cased that E. Well done, but not in this case.

[Steve Prentice · Rating 3 out of 5]

These books by Smith fascinate me because they clearly display the positive and negative elements of what to me constitute a good science fiction novel.

Let us acknowledge at the start that Smith's plots are pretty elaborate and are interesting. This is what attracts. Furthermore, considering when the Skylark books were written they have enormous historical interest. They were written before there was any space travel, before the atomic bomb and atomic energy were discovered (though it was obviously a theoretical concept of the science of the time) and before the 'modern synthesis' in biology which established evolutionary theory as a fundamental scientific theory. Smith was therefore writing without the knowledge that we now have and Smith's imagination runs riot.

The problem with these books are their many downsides. There is no character development in any of the novels. All the characters and alien races (those on other worlds) are one dimensional - they are either good or they are bad. One dimensionality also extends to the men and the women; the men are the exclusive movers and shakers in Smith's world while the women cook and sew and flutter their eyelashes at the science their men are involved in (though this is a sign of the times the books were written).

The extent of the science 'discoveries' (in Smith's fantasy) is also ludicrous. His heroes discover and move into production fantastic new discoveries on a weekly basis and the result is the implementation of technologies that are unquestionably scientifically impossible (for example travelling many orders of magnitude greater than the speed of light). I suspect that Smith (himself a chemist) was devoted to the notion, again prevalent at the time I think, that science was the mechanism for improving everything and that atomic energy would free the world from the shackles of the then existing technologies.

And this brings me to psychology. In both the Skylark series and the Lensman series Smith evokes thought as the supreme trait that human beings (the men anyway) or any other species can express. Thought in Smith's worlds are turned into physical manifestations via the Lenses in the Lensman series and as a 'mental force' in the Skylark series. This also fascinates me because it was probably good science in its day.

This belief is rooted in the Freudian concept of people possessing 'psychic energy', which is energy of a form different to the chemical energy that, for example, powers our cells. Freud, of course, was a contemporary of Smith.

This, however, is the Cartesian error writ large. There is no such thing as 'psychic energy' as a discrete force. The brain uses chemical energy (oxidising glucose) according to the laws of physics and chemistry in the way that all of our other cells function and so all of Smith's venturing into this mental world is (entertaining) nonsense.

Because Smith was writing before many of our modern day 'truths' (which are themselves of course subject to revision over time) what was probably a mix of fantasy and 'sound' science has become little more than pure fantasy with little to no basis in science at all. To me this gives Smith's novels a sort of H. G. Wells feel to them (although I think Wells' novels were better) but to me, no matter how good the plot, Smith's novels are effectively science fantasy and for me, this does distract from the stories.

I have one more book by Smith to read to complete the set and I look forward to it to see where Smith's imagination takes us (as I say, the plots are usually interesting). But I have no illusions. Based on this novel and all the others I have read, the final novel will not be a classic science FICTION novel.

[Frank Carver · Rating 3 out of 5]

And on to the third book in the the four-book “Skylark” series. I started reading it straight after “Skylark Three”. Much as expected from the previous two books, the formula is essentially the same: inciting event, training/tooling montage, embark on adventure, yikes, things are worse than expected, lucky escape, power-up, return, revenge.

This time, mere space travel is not enough, Seaton and chums find themselves “rotated” into the “fourth dimension” which leads to probably the weakest part of the book. Smith obviously wanted his heroes to face a completely unknown adventure, but I think he bites off more than he can chew, and has to back off from the trippy weirdness to tell what is essentially a “white man in the jungle” tale of a superior being facing and defeating hordes of weaker natives.

Once the fourth-dimensional digression is over, the story takes a more familiar turn. Lost in space, the crew find a planet (Valeron) of wise and peaceful humans being attacked by powerful but “hideous” chlorine-breathing aliens. The subtext here, though, is that the wise humans are actually the scientific elite, only surviving after a (conveniently unavoidable) cull of the great bulk of the population. This, in Smith’s eyes makes a society of only the best and brightest, able to take a purely rational approach to even the worst of challenges.

The skylarkers arrive in the nick of time and uplift the local humans with unheard-of (but instantly understood, naturally) scientific and technological advances through which the “Chlorans” are defeated. The now happy locals don’t quite go so far as to elect Seaton as Overlord as happened in the previous books, but do dedicate their planetary resources to build him an even more giant spaceship and a way to “phone home”.

Supposed antagonist DuQuesne is still in the picture, but Smith has to work pretty hard to keep him relevant. He begins by stealing the technology which peaked in the previous book, then uses it in a somewhat pointless “king of the world” scheme. It’s all a puppet-show, really, as by the time Seaton meanders home he is so buff that all of DuQuesne’s efforts were a complete waste of time.

Despite all the 1920s trappings inherited from the earlier books, things are changing as Smith enters the 30s. This is the first of his books to include anything even remotely resembling the computers which actually revolutionised life a few decades later.. His multi-kilometre-diameter spacecraft is mostly comprised of a giant “brain”, which he admits can think and act much faster than any human. Also, despite the fascist. eugenic, notes of the Valeronians and the characters interactions with other races, there are some cases where proto-god Seaton stops short of genocide

[Randy D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Skylark of Valeron is the third novel of the original Skylark Series. It is basically a continuation of The Skylark of Space and Skylark Three as Seaton and the gang continue their adventure in interstellar space. As was the case in his first two novels, “Doc” leans heavily on the science in his science fiction books. I understand why he does so as the Skylark Series was written back when aviation was a fledgling enterprise and space travel was pure science fiction. When The Skylark of Space was initially published in 1928, it would be another thirty-four years before John Glenn would orbit the Earth.

The Skylark of Valeron continues in this literary vein with a discussion of projection beams and time travel into the fourth dimension, all the while incorporating the usual literary devices such as exotic planetary settings, characterization involving the humanoid and non-humanoid residents of these planets, and plot development involving these two literary devices. Last but not least, conflict and suspense abound throughout the story.

Almost god-like feats are presented in The Skylark of Valeron as Seaton actually moves the Planet Chlora back to its original orbit around its original sun, thus saving the Planet Valeron from utter destruction at the hands of the Chlorans. As Seaton told his fellow travelers, “This is heavy stuff.” And it is “heavy stuff” ... it's almost “too heavy” to believe ... but, it is literary entertainment, and it is science fiction … we don’t have to believe it to enjoy reading it.

As the book unfolds, Seaton and his crew have one more problem to solve, which in reality is a huge dilemma … they are fighting evil, itself, personified by a group of spiritual beings called, “the Intellectuals.” Seaton and his crew are now cruising outer space in a brand new and immense, spherical spacecraft almost 621 miles in diameter; its size is greater than some known asteroids. It is powered by harnessing the free floating cosmic energy throughout the universe and is controlled by artificial intelligence; each crewmember can wear an electronic device akin to a leather football helmet, prevalent in that sport when this story was initially written, and control the spacecraft. And this newest model of spacecraft has a new name ... The Skylark of Valeron. Seaton and his friends now find themselves cruising the outer reaches of the universe in “Cadillac style.”

Our heroes eventually solved their problem, and in doing so, solved their dilemma; the Intellectuals, the root of all evil throughout the universe, were captured and placed in sort of a “cosmic jail” secured there by a very effective force field. And, a newly condemned prisoner, Seaton's arch enemy, Dr. Marc DuQuesne soon joined them as his former colleague transformed this perpetrator of evil into pure intelligence so he could join this diabolical group. As DuQuesne’s judge, Seaton gave his arch enemy and his new cohorts a choice … life without parole for their crimes committed against humanity or instant death. They chose the former, which consisted of an interstellar ride lasting throughout eternity.

With that being said, the forces of good (Seaton and his friends) triumphed over the forces of evil (the Intellectuals, the Chlorans, the Fenachrones, and DuQuesne) ... or did they? Seaton and the other characters of this series were not God ... they were only human ... or versions thereof. Only God can ultimately triumph over the forces of evil ... by working through His agents, until His Son, Jesus Christ returns and destroys evil for all of eternity.

There is one remaining story in this series ... a story that was written thirty years after The Skylark of Valeron. If Doc Smith, who was able to continue the theme of this story contained within these three books, which were published within a six-year time frame, can pick up where he left off after all those many years, thus carrying this theme into a finale titled Skylark DuQuesne ... then he was a pretty good writer. I’ll see if he accomplished what he set out to do, and in so doing, if he was able to bring about a successful conclusion to the Skylark Series, thirty-seven years after he sold his first story, The Skylark of Space to "Amazing Stories" in 1928.

Finally, Doc Smith ended The Skylark of Valeron on somewhat of a philosophical note; the author illustrates the difference between “science fiction” and “regular fiction.” What sets the two “fictions” apart is the virtual reality of the two genres; to understand the difference between the two “fictions,” it is imperative the reader overlook the “science” and determine the story's true meaning. Most “science fiction” stories deal not only with fantastic, futuristic technologies, they deal with the “nuts and bolts” of being human in every sense that adage augments. This literary concept was superbly illustrated in the famous Star Trek series. The authors of science fiction can get away with this form of literary commentary because they are writing of a future place and time, but yet, their stories contain contemporary issues, interwoven into their science fiction literary vehicles. Doc Smith accomplished this version of political commentary through his character, Dorothy Seaton. She states that maybe the new world government, which was created on Earth, would make us all get along with each other. Seaton agreed and said he thought it would be a success as the people of our Earth “are not too dumb to learn.” It’s apparent that Smith greatly misjudged the people of Earth or the “terrestrials” as he referred to them in his books … five years after The Skylark of Valeron was written, a German dictator invaded a sovereign European nation, and World War II became front page news for the next 2,175 days.

What Doc Smith’s character said in the closing words of this story's epilogue was his political opinion; he was a learned scientist holding a Ph.D, albeit in a completely different field of study, but perhaps Doc had taken a few political science and theology classes as an undergraduate. The logical solution to man's inability to garner peace and tranquility would be some form of world government, but with mankind being the way it is, the noble concept of world government will never work. Using the vernacular slang of Smith’s day and time, world government could be considered as “pie in the sky” or a “pipe dream.” But, according to Richard and Dorothy Seaton, through the author of this series, Edward E. “Doc” Smith, it is a noble cause worth pursuing. However, with that being said, the people of Earth are a fallen entity and will not experience a successful world government until evil has been eradicated. Mankind cannot, and will never accomplish that noble cause; the only “person” who can accomplish that noble cause, and usher in world peace is Jesus Christ, who is a part of the Trinity of God.

So, in conclusion, I'll give The Skylark of Valeron a five-star rating because of the opinions of Richard and Dorothy Seaton, as voiced by their author, Edward E. “Doc” Smith. World government is a noble cause that produces a desired result; although it is an exercise in futility, it is a cause that mankind must strive to achieve. *****

 

[C. John Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review to come. Review has come.

This is the third of the Skylark series, as the book entitled Skylark Three was in fact the second book. The book starts off from near the end of the last book, with the events leading up to Blackie DuQuesne's death. Accept it was all a ruse and he, along with his companion, survived. Not only that but he takes over a Fenechrone Battleship. Of course this is what we expect to happen. Meanwhile Seaton decides to visit the second galaxy before returning home. There he involves himself in a war between two planets, sends one of them back to the galaxy it came from, encounters the pure intellectuals again, goes into the fourth dimension to escape them, returns to our dimension and heads home to another confrontation with DuQuesne. Oh yes, he also builds a bigger Skylark, the Skylark of Valeron of the title. He also manages to increase his knowledge, and builds a gadget that can get all he wants done in a fraction of the time it would normally take him. Busy fellow, isn't he.
Did I enjoy this book. Yes, my rating probably answered that one for me. Admittedly it did feel rushed at times (Earth is conquered in one chapter) but Smith was cramming a lot into this. As far as he knew this was to be the last Skylark novel and I daresay he wanted to bring matters to a close with no loose ends. No there is not a lot of character development with the focus being more on action and exploration, but this is common for SF of the period. The primary readers were younger and they didn't really care for character development and such, and with Smith's work they generally got what they wanted, at least at this time.
One last thing. I really liked the last scene. Richard Seaton and his wife, Dorothy also known as Dot, are sitting in their living room in front of a fire talking. There is mention of a Seaton Jr. being on the way. All in all a nice little cozy domestic scene, indicating the series is over, like I surmised. It is a fitting way to end this as it emphasizes that despite everything that has happened over the course of these three novels, at heart Richard Seaton is really just a normal human, even if he is referred to by several alien races as "The Overlord".

[Barry Haworth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Continuing on the Skylark series, Skylark of Valeron picks up where the previous book (Skylark Three) leaves off. The previous book finished with the defeat of the last of the evil Fenachrone in the depths of intergalactic space, but before Seaton and his companions can turn their ship for home they encounter another enemy, the pure intelligences know as the Intellectuals, one of whom had been encountered briefly in the first book of the series. To escape from them they have to make a detour into the fourth dimension, find a fresh planet in a distant galaxy that needs rescuing from yet another, even more evil alien race, then build their biggest and most advanced spaceship yet to return to their home galaxy and capture the Intellectuals, then return to Earth to deal with his arch enemy DuQuesne who, though seemingly killed off in the previous book turns out not to be dead after all and who has taken over the Earth in Seaton's absence.

All good clean Space Opera tropes from the man who invented Space Opera. Reading this one again I can see why I have never read this one since I was a teenager, even though I had fond memories of it. There is a lot of spectacle but no real substance to the story. Good escapism, but little else to recommend it.

[Rex Libris · Rating 4 out of 5]

After helping several peaceful races eliminate a particularly bad bunch from their corner of the galaxy, Seaton, Crane, and their waves are out zipping around in their latest version of the Skylark. In these travels being of pure intellect find them and want to experiment on the four, but they escape by slipping into the 4th dimension.

The people in the 4h dimension are not any nicer, but Seaton et al manage to escape, but not before they learn all about 6th order rays and mechanics. With this knowledge of 6th order things, they end up on Valeron where the build a new Skylark complete with a super-powered 6th order mechanical brain.

Meanwhile, it turns out their human arch-nemesis Dusquesne is not dead. He cons Seaton's friends out of a lot of technology, and returns to Earth to become its overlord.

However, armed with the giant 6th order brain, Seaton cleans up the galaxy and puts Dusquesne and the nasty pure intellects in a time bubble where there will not bother anyone for a long, long time.

[Kenneth · Rating 5 out of 5]

More campy space opera from its first practitioner. Great escape reading for me in my college years. The third of Smith's Skylark novels, it takes up where the last one leaves off. The villain "Blackie" DuQuesne returns to earth on a captured Fenachrone ship and takes over. Meanwhile, Richard Seaton and Martin Crane with their wives encounter beings who are purely intellectual, composed of energy, and to escape them, they fling themselves into the fourth dimension where they are captured, but eventually escape back into our dimension but they discover they are lost in another galaxy. They discover the planet Valeron, which is threatened by the Chlorans from a nearby planet. Here we go again!

[John Latona · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not 100% sure why. But this felt like a book written in WW2. There are a lot of warlike races, and Seaton is starting to get a bit Rah Rah.

The power creep is funny, too. Skylark 3 blows up. Don't worry, we got the skylark of valeron built in 2 pages. Still fun enough, must be taken as stylistic.

Also, why even have the women here. They only exist to give the men an excuse not to commit genocide and to show that the men are desirable.

I do like the play with time and space. The sci-fi elements are very fun.

[Daren Callow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whilst this is considered a classic of Sci-Fi, and probably blew people's minds in 1930, it hasn't aged all that well. The scientific bits are perfectly fine and so contain some excitement, but the morals and treatment of women (who are allowed to only be musicians, as science is a men-only world) are pretty terrible.

[Royden Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

In part, this review seems unnecessary - if you read the second book, you will likely read this regardless. It is pretty much a direct continuation of 'Skylark Three'. I found it interesting, then, to find out that they were originally serialized four years apart in different magazines (Astounding in 1934 for Valeron, Amazing in 1930 for Three).

[Al Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

Done, this book is becoming very dated, sadly. EE "Doc" Smith's character dialog and attitudes is and has been dated for quite a while. I remember reading this many years and enjoyed it then. This time thru I was just hanging on to be done.

[Shelly Nobert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pleasant read. I enjoyed these when I was in high school. They take me back pleasantly. I wish more young people would re a d them.

I enjoyed these books when I was in high school. I wish more youngsters could also enjoy them. Good reading!

[AG Fishman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic space opera.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

NeilWill makes a very post on post on this book. The 4th D stuff is really cool.

[Fred · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story
Original space opera.
Grand insight into nature of space and time.

[Bill Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

A terrific romp through space with strange aliens and excitement galore - truly a master work of space opera. Great reading!

[James]

Skylark of Valeron, The, by Smith, E.E. Doc

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

There is so much wrong with this book that I don't have words for - just bad.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A return to form after the previous book was incredibly boring and tedious. This returns to some fun adventure with DuQuesne returning to prominent status as a villain and continuing to prove that he might be a benevolent despot? Like, Smith’s morality is that he approves of authoritarianism if it’s the good guys who want democracy in the end. He seems old fashioned even for the time. Other highlights include the fourth dimension section in the middle and horrors of freezing time. I get why this lasted.

[GD · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was even a little better than the second one, which was a vast improvement over the first one. I don't think E.E. Smith is ever going to be remembered for dialogue or pace or believability or overall balance. About a quarter or a third of this book was a pointless adventure into the 4th dimension, which, though very unnecessary to the story, was really entertaining. Then there followed more intergalactic wars with weapons of ever-increasing size and ability. The speeds with which space ships move around this far into the series are just hysterical, but there's something so addictive and fun in reading about them. Just like watching overdone Japanese stuff, think Kamen Rider, the enemy and the weapons to fight the enemy just get bigger and bigger and bigger. So fucking fun.

[Darth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love these campy old naive space operas.
The hero's are all but infallible, the villains are always foiled, and there isnt any harsh reality cutting in on your story.

Of course if this was written in the last 40 years I might find all that irritating instead of gitchy - but I have a soft spot for old timey sci-fi, and it is fun to read the books where George Lucas took 60% of Star Wars out of - that is between the Skylark series and the Lensmen series.

If you want your mind expanded, read something else - if you want to zoom across the galaxies and into the 4th dimension - these are AWESOME

[Caleb Wachter · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Skylark of Valeron was a huge accomplishment for Seaton & Co., and it seems kind of like the end of this book is going to be it for the story. The entire thing ramps up, there's a strange expedition out of our space-time, and it all wraps up wonderfully well as the scope and scale of the story increases by orders of magnitude with each book.

The quality of the story improves with each entry, and thankfully by the time you've gotten to this book, you've been Darwinian-ally selected for a strong ability to suspend disbelief, which is essential if you're going to enjoy this good ol' Space Opera.

[DavidO · Rating 3 out of 5]

The parts starring Duquesne were pretty interesting. When the point of view switches to the "good guys" the plot gets less interesting, while the science fiction elements get more interesting. Te good guys are so powerful and intelligent that any obstacles they have are quickly overcome, which can get a bit dull, but the way in which Smith imagines the front line of science progressing is interesting.

It took me a while to get through this audiobook, mostly because the lack of a driving plot meant I didn't feel strongly drawn to putting head phones back on and listening to this.

[John Hardy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Picked it up at Bookfest January 2023. I've wanted to like this famous and respected SF author, and have tried various titles of his, but no luck! I just don't like his books. Got about 25 pages into this, and felt a bit uncomfortable with some expressed ideas of xenophobia. Later I found out that the book starts with the arch-villain and his cronies, or minions. I didn't bother to finish it and I'm done with EE "Doc" Smith.