Although he won no major SF awards, Smith was Guest of Honour at the second World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago, in 1940. Again Kimball Kinnison and the Galactic Patrol take up battle with Boskonia. This edition is a facsimile of the 1950 Fantasy Press first edition hardcover, hard to find and expensive when found. Early novels in both series were serialised in the dominant pulp magazines of the day: Argosy, Amazing Stories, Wonder Stories and a pre-Campbell Astounding, although his most successful works were published under Campbell's editorship. Second Stage Lensmen is the fifth of six classic 'Lensman' books, long recognized as the greatest space opera ever written. From what I understand it was written first but was not originally a Lensman book - it was revised to fit in with the Lensman series later. Triplanetary gives background but is a different kind of story than the main books.
Smith is best known for the 'Skylark' and 'Lensman' series of novels, which are arguably the earliest examples of what a modern audience would recognise as Space Opera. Then Gray Lensman, Second Stage Lensman, and Children of the Lens.
He attended the University of Idaho and graduated with degrees in chemical engineering he went on to attain a PhD in the same subject, and spent his working life as a food engineer. Edward Elmer Smith was born in Wisconsin in 1890.
0 kommentar(er)
