Triplanetary

Lensman Series, Book 1

By: E.E. Smith

Narrated by: Alastair Cameron

Although Triplanetary by Edward E. Smith was first published in a magazine prior to the creation of Smith's Lensman series in 1938, it was eventually expanded and reworked to cover the period of the storyline before the first Lensman novel.

Written in two parts, Triplanetary introduces the concept of two warring alien races: the Arisians and the Eddorians, whose battles on Earth are unknown to the human race, and in fact the humans are unaware that the Arisians have been secretly and selectively breeding the humans to use as weapons for these battles. From the time of Rome to World War II, the author takes the listener on a lightning-fast journey through Earth's history as the warzone for aliens. The two specially bred lines of humans, the Kinnison and the MacDougall, are described and their importance in the novel is implied. In the second part of the novel, Smith tells the story of humankind healing after the battles with the help of the Arisians. With Arisian technology, the humans are finally able to travel through space. Together with the humans on Mars and Venus, Earth's humans form what they call the Triplanetary League which must stand together as enemies on Jupiter threaten to crush the new alliance.

©2016 A.R.N. Publications (P)2016 A.R.N. Publications

Space Opera... meh

Good enough. Lots of explosions, few ideas. Pretty generic. Heard about it all my life and glad I listened, but not blown away.

Dated, but that's its charm.

Considering that this book was written before Sputnik and before transistors, it's astounding that E.E Smith managed what he did.
If you approach this like an old radio serial, you will not be disappointed. I think the Lensman can best be described as "Flash Gordon done right", or better yet "Flash Gordon written by someone intelligent."

But this is a product of the 50s, and although the author is obviously *extremely* enlightened for a denizen of that decade, there are a few cultural holdovers that might be troublesome for some readers. Nothing overt, nothing insultive, but I did roll my eyes at times at a few perspectives. Fortunately I never cringed. This is high praise; I cringe a lot. LOL

But in the end, this was a lot of fun. I had friends who read this back in high school, and I am truly disappointed I waited another 35 years before finally picking it up. This is a great example of a foundation of modern science fiction.

thank you for the new narrator

I've been waiting and hoping, for years to listen to my all time favorite series narrated by someone that treats it with respect and not as a japanese cartoon. I look forward to the release of the other books in this series.

A decent reading with some flawed pronunciations

I was glad to listen to this beloved story again, but Mr. Cameron’s reading could have used a little more research and preparation. On the one hand, his particular British accent brings a quaintness to the reading which somehow fits the classic space opera atmosphere of story. On the other hand, his portrayals of American accents in general, and his mispronunciations of some American place names in particular, was distracting. The most glaring error is the name of the Tellurian super ship “Boise”, named after the capital and most populous city in Idaho. He pronounces it “boys”, but it’s properly pronounced “boy-see”. Also, I wish the world would learn that Spokane rhymes with “can” and not “cane”. And before anyone says anything about their spellings, a Briton of all the people in the world should know that place names can sound very different from what you would expect from the way they are spelled.

By the way, while it’s by no means necessary for enjoying his stories, it’s fun to know that Doc Smith was from the Inland Northwest, and he sprinkles references like these into many of his stories. They are literary Easter eggs for those who know the region.

Classic story, weak reader

Reader is too monotone. Voices have good characterization in that you can tell the people apart, but the dialog is low on emotion, and the non-dialog narration is utterly monotone.