Status
Available
Call number
Library's review
Videnskabsmanden Richard Seaton eksperimenterer med en opløsning af "X", da kobberdampbadet i lynende fart forsvinder ud ad vinduet. Hans tjener, negeren Dan, undrer sig, men ingen af dem har nogen anelse om hvad der er sket.
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Publication
Casper Nielsens forlag, 1959, 176s
Description
Classic Literature. Fiction. Literature. Science Fiction. HTML: The first entry in the wildly popular Skylark series of science fiction novels, The Skylark of Space recounts the exploits of protagonist Dick Seaton as he competes against his nemesis, Marc "Blackie" DuQuesne, to be the first to build a technologically sophisticated spacecraft based on Seaton's recent scientific discovery..
User reviews
LibraryThing member lithicbee
Reading this book, today, is the equivalent of watching an episode of Mystery Science Theater, with my mind providing the sarcastic commentary. There is a gosh-gee, me smart strong male, you clever beautiful woman feel to this that might be amusing if it was ironic, but read plain it is just
When you get towards the end of the book, you also have to contend with Seaton's seeming affability about murdering strangers on a whim (it just feels right to him), and his admiration of a race that not only kills their own weak, but anyone they perceive to be lesser than them, on their way to becoming closer to god. This is eerily prescient, coming a little more than a decade before World War II, and is just creepy to read in hindsight.
Finally, if I never hear the phrase, "You're a blinding flash and a deafening report" again, it will be none too soon.
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laughable. And some of the writing, I have to wonder, "Could Doc Smith have written that without intending it to be a joke?" Such as when Seaton is inside his spaceship, the Skylark, and puts his hand on the cental support beam inside it: "Resting one hand caressingly upon the huge member..." Maybe this wasn't a double entendre back in the day, but it just screams phallic symbol now. When you get towards the end of the book, you also have to contend with Seaton's seeming affability about murdering strangers on a whim (it just feels right to him), and his admiration of a race that not only kills their own weak, but anyone they perceive to be lesser than them, on their way to becoming closer to god. This is eerily prescient, coming a little more than a decade before World War II, and is just creepy to read in hindsight.
Finally, if I never hear the phrase, "You're a blinding flash and a deafening report" again, it will be none too soon.
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LibraryThing member clong
As you might expect, this is solidly in the dated, sexist, adolescent escapist fantasy mode. The men are handsome and brilliant, and the women are plucky (without ever going beyond needing a real man to rescue them when the going gets tough) and beautiful. The aliens are bug eyed monsters or human
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clones (dipped in green paint). The most interesting character is DuQuesne, who is brilliant, ambitious and completely amoral, yet honorable in his own perverse way. Too bad he disappears for long stretches at a time, despite being cooped up in a relatively small spaceship with the four good guys. Still, the action, especially in the last 50 pages, is reasonably entertaining, and you have to acknowledge that some of the basic ideas being addressed in this novel are still driving the imaginations of science fiction authors and readers 80 years later (e.g., Star Trek: Voyager). Show Less
LibraryThing member WilfGehlen
Doc Smith sets the stage in [The Skylark of Space] for a saga that spans the universe, that pits Dick Seaton vs. Marc DuQuesne, good vs. evil, in a struggle for the very survival of mankind.
Seaton discovers a workable space drive in the mysterious and rare element, "x", which liberates the atomic
DuQuesne plays second fiddle to no one and conspires with World Steel Corporation to sabotage Seaton's spaceship, steal all the available "x", and build his own spaceship from Seaton's plans. When they fail to steal all the "x", DuQuesne kidnaps Dorothy, Seaton's fiance, to extort the rest as ransom. She resists her captors on board DuQuesne's spaceship and, in her struggles, sets it on an uncontrolled trajectory towards the center of the galaxy. Seaton and Crane give chase, rescuing Dot, capturing DuQuesne, and finding Peg, Dot's erstwhile companion in kidnap. They go on to discover a planet chock full of "x", and another planet, Osnome, chock full of copper, which they need to fuel their return to Earth.
On Osnome they meet and befriend the green-skinned Kondalians, Prince Dunark and Princess Sitar. The Kondalians are warlike down to their primitive roots, but adhere strictly to their own code of conduct. They believe in a First Cause, giving them sufficient moral foundation for Seaton to marry Dot and Crane to marry Peg under their auspices. The Seatons and Cranes return to Earth loaded with plenty of "x" and marital bliss.
* * *
The reference by Kondalians to a First Cause suggests a kinship with human thought going back to Plato and hints at a philosophical framework for the saga about to unfold. The awe experienced by the space travelers in the presence of the unending stars leads Margaret to say, how unbelievably great this is. . .vastly greater than any perception one could get on Earth. . .and yet. . .there is something in man as great as even all this. . .
Contrasting with the causal or cosmological argument is the amazing synchronicity that we see around Seaton, beginning in a relatively small way: the discovery of "x" itself, the juxtaposition of the "whatsittron" to activate the "x", Seaton's friendship with Crane, wealthy beyond all imagination, who can fund the spaceship out of petty cash, Dorothy's "random" trajectory leading to the "x" planet and to the Green System of Osnome. Seaton is both brilliant and lucky.
Just one word on the science behind this science fiction tale. Seaton explains the faster-than-light-speed space drive in the best scientific tradition: Einstein's theory is just a theory, and theory must be adjusted to fit the observed facts!
The story of Skylark is not in the whizz-bang technology, but in the contrast in character between Seaton and DuQuesne. Seaton is the beneficent scientist, making his discoveries for the good of mankind, cooperating with other like-minded people, tolerating and even admiring the green-skinned people of Osnome. DuQuesne is in it only for himself and will go to any lengths to ensure that he wins out in the end. Given DuQuesne's disposition, Seaton was probably fortunate in not bringing him into the partnership. But DuQuesne, like the Kondalians, has his own immutable code of conduct. When, as a captive, he give his word to "act as one of the party", the Seatons and Cranes can trust their lives to him (and do).
DuQuesne's innate methods, however crafty and unrestrained, are ineffective against Seaton's genius, cooperative spirit, and good luck. Seaton wins this round.
Seaton discovers a workable space drive in the mysterious and rare element, "x", which liberates the atomic
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energy of copper while in the field generated by the "whatsittron" of DuQuesne in the laboratory next door. Evincing a peculiar blind spot, Seaton does not even think to include DuQuesne in the discovery, but goes off to develop the spaceship with his friend, M. Martin Crane.DuQuesne plays second fiddle to no one and conspires with World Steel Corporation to sabotage Seaton's spaceship, steal all the available "x", and build his own spaceship from Seaton's plans. When they fail to steal all the "x", DuQuesne kidnaps Dorothy, Seaton's fiance, to extort the rest as ransom. She resists her captors on board DuQuesne's spaceship and, in her struggles, sets it on an uncontrolled trajectory towards the center of the galaxy. Seaton and Crane give chase, rescuing Dot, capturing DuQuesne, and finding Peg, Dot's erstwhile companion in kidnap. They go on to discover a planet chock full of "x", and another planet, Osnome, chock full of copper, which they need to fuel their return to Earth.
On Osnome they meet and befriend the green-skinned Kondalians, Prince Dunark and Princess Sitar. The Kondalians are warlike down to their primitive roots, but adhere strictly to their own code of conduct. They believe in a First Cause, giving them sufficient moral foundation for Seaton to marry Dot and Crane to marry Peg under their auspices. The Seatons and Cranes return to Earth loaded with plenty of "x" and marital bliss.
* * *
The reference by Kondalians to a First Cause suggests a kinship with human thought going back to Plato and hints at a philosophical framework for the saga about to unfold. The awe experienced by the space travelers in the presence of the unending stars leads Margaret to say, how unbelievably great this is. . .vastly greater than any perception one could get on Earth. . .and yet. . .there is something in man as great as even all this. . .
Contrasting with the causal or cosmological argument is the amazing synchronicity that we see around Seaton, beginning in a relatively small way: the discovery of "x" itself, the juxtaposition of the "whatsittron" to activate the "x", Seaton's friendship with Crane, wealthy beyond all imagination, who can fund the spaceship out of petty cash, Dorothy's "random" trajectory leading to the "x" planet and to the Green System of Osnome. Seaton is both brilliant and lucky.
Just one word on the science behind this science fiction tale. Seaton explains the faster-than-light-speed space drive in the best scientific tradition: Einstein's theory is just a theory, and theory must be adjusted to fit the observed facts!
The story of Skylark is not in the whizz-bang technology, but in the contrast in character between Seaton and DuQuesne. Seaton is the beneficent scientist, making his discoveries for the good of mankind, cooperating with other like-minded people, tolerating and even admiring the green-skinned people of Osnome. DuQuesne is in it only for himself and will go to any lengths to ensure that he wins out in the end. Given DuQuesne's disposition, Seaton was probably fortunate in not bringing him into the partnership. But DuQuesne, like the Kondalians, has his own immutable code of conduct. When, as a captive, he give his word to "act as one of the party", the Seatons and Cranes can trust their lives to him (and do).
DuQuesne's innate methods, however crafty and unrestrained, are ineffective against Seaton's genius, cooperative spirit, and good luck. Seaton wins this round.
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LibraryThing member MyopicBookworm
When I was ten, this guy's books were all the rage (though to be honest, the Lensman series were more highly thought of). I guess it marks a transition from the 19th-century greats to the classic era of pulp SF: the spaceship owes much to Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, and the humanoid aliens are
"Their government is not a government at all, but stark madness, the rulers being chosen by the people themselves, who change their minds and their rulers every year or two. ... They do not seem to care, as a nation, whether anything worth while gets done or not, as long as each man has what he calls his liberty. ... The tenets of reason as we know reason simply are not applicable to many of their ideas, concepts, and actions."
But what do we make of the Kondalian culture?
"They have no hospitals for the feeble-minded or the feeble-bodied; all such are executed. ... Before the first marriage each couple, from lowest to highest, is given a mental examination. Any person whose graphs show moral turpitude is shot."
Nice.
It's a piece of SF history which I'm glad to have read, but I don't feel the need to enshrine it on my shelves any longer.
MB 8-iii-2013
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close to the Martians of Edgar Rice Burroughs, but one can see foreshadowings of the work of A. E. van Vogt and others. There is a liberal dose of superficially plausible scientific mumbo-jumbo, but the laws of physics are cavalierly broken on page one. The slang is woefully dated, the sexism not quite as bad as I remembered (the hero's girlfriend is allowed some pretty robust contributions to the action), and the gung-ho enthusiasm with which our man assists a race of ultra-Darwinian eugenics experts to bomb their neighbours to subatomic particles is not easy for an educated adult reader to swallow. My favourite bit is the passage where the Kondalian prince Dunark tries to describe Tellurian culture:"Their government is not a government at all, but stark madness, the rulers being chosen by the people themselves, who change their minds and their rulers every year or two. ... They do not seem to care, as a nation, whether anything worth while gets done or not, as long as each man has what he calls his liberty. ... The tenets of reason as we know reason simply are not applicable to many of their ideas, concepts, and actions."
But what do we make of the Kondalian culture?
"They have no hospitals for the feeble-minded or the feeble-bodied; all such are executed. ... Before the first marriage each couple, from lowest to highest, is given a mental examination. Any person whose graphs show moral turpitude is shot."
Nice.
It's a piece of SF history which I'm glad to have read, but I don't feel the need to enshrine it on my shelves any longer.
MB 8-iii-2013
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LibraryThing member kristykay22
The Skylark of Space (1928) is the first in E. E. "Doc" Smith's Skylark series. He wrote the book between 1915 and 1921 with his friend Lee Hawkins Garby, the wife of one of his college classmates, while working on his doctorate and later as a food chemist. The Skylark series is known as the first
Our handsome, smart, and honorable hero, government scientist Richard Seaton, accidentally discovers a powerful reaction when he mixes a newly discovered element X (distilled from a meteor) with some copper and some kind of unexplained force field -- when everything comes together, the copper tub in which he was experimenting with the materials shoots out of the room in a straight line, blasts a big hole through the wall, and heads for the horizon. Instead of worrying who might get hit with the super-powered tub, he does more experiments, and even though none of his lab buddies believe him, he knows he is on to something big.
Seaton sets up a business with his friend, and fellow handsome, smart and honorable guy, Martin Crane (who also happens to be a billionaire), and their first order of business (naturally) is to build a spaceship that can be powered by their element X. They are supported by the beautiful, smart and honorable fiance of Seaton, Miss Dorothy Vaneman, who provides plucky attitude, foodstuffs, and occasional violin solos.
Unfortunately, the two are hounded by the handsome, smart, and dishonorable scientist Marc DuQuesne -- a former colleague of Seaton who wants to monopolize the development of element X, and will go to any lengths to do so. After awhile Dorothy is kidnapped, another girl enters the story (don't worry, she is beautiful, smart, and honorable), and everyone one ends up billions and billions of light years from earth in an unidentified galaxy with no fuel.
That is where the fun starts.
It takes him awhile, but Smith is at his best when making up crazy new worlds and alternate near-human universes. The second half of the book is full of them, and he even throws in an exciting space battle.
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great space opera, and (as you might expect) it reads like a model of the genre.Our handsome, smart, and honorable hero, government scientist Richard Seaton, accidentally discovers a powerful reaction when he mixes a newly discovered element X (distilled from a meteor) with some copper and some kind of unexplained force field -- when everything comes together, the copper tub in which he was experimenting with the materials shoots out of the room in a straight line, blasts a big hole through the wall, and heads for the horizon. Instead of worrying who might get hit with the super-powered tub, he does more experiments, and even though none of his lab buddies believe him, he knows he is on to something big.
Seaton sets up a business with his friend, and fellow handsome, smart and honorable guy, Martin Crane (who also happens to be a billionaire), and their first order of business (naturally) is to build a spaceship that can be powered by their element X. They are supported by the beautiful, smart and honorable fiance of Seaton, Miss Dorothy Vaneman, who provides plucky attitude, foodstuffs, and occasional violin solos.
Unfortunately, the two are hounded by the handsome, smart, and dishonorable scientist Marc DuQuesne -- a former colleague of Seaton who wants to monopolize the development of element X, and will go to any lengths to do so. After awhile Dorothy is kidnapped, another girl enters the story (don't worry, she is beautiful, smart, and honorable), and everyone one ends up billions and billions of light years from earth in an unidentified galaxy with no fuel.
That is where the fun starts.
It takes him awhile, but Smith is at his best when making up crazy new worlds and alternate near-human universes. The second half of the book is full of them, and he even throws in an exciting space battle.
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LibraryThing member karamazow
Er, no. I can stand some amount of clichés, but this is driving things too far. The story is completely unlikely and impossible, without anything in the characters that makes up for it. Too dated for comfort, full-packed with all the commonplaces the genre can provide, this was no fun at all, nor
Avoid...
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did it convey any insights to the human condition (or even space travel for that matter). I can hardly remember having read anything in this realm that contained so many platitudes in so short a novel. A disappointment on all levels.Avoid...
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LibraryThing member jjmcgaffey
I like the Skylark series, even though it becomes a bit too much at the last. The first one, this one, is great. I love Dick Seaton. Each step along the way is more-or-less reasonable...and they end up way way out in space and with no idea of the way home...
LibraryThing member TadAD
Not as much fun as his Lensman series, in my opinion. They're diverting for an afternoon, but I'd recommend the other series.
LibraryThing member Radaghast
Another example of early science fiction that was popular merely because it was the only science fiction. This middle period of science fiction keeps disappointing me. This is after Wells published his greatest works, but before the Golden Age of science fiction. The 1920s with Lovecraft (more
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horror I know, but he was writing sci-fi), Burroughs and Edward E. Smith is the lowest point of sci-fi in my view. Even ten years later you are getting brilliant works like Brave New World and Out of the Silent Planet. Show Less
LibraryThing member Leischen
The birth of epic space opera marred by the melodrama of the time. Seminal, important, required but barely readable.
LibraryThing member ikeman100
Great early Space Opera by one of the genre's best writers of the first half of the 20th century. It's no wonder Frederick Pohl gave Smith such high praise. E.E. Doc Smith was one of the better writers published in the SciFi pulp magazines. He really knew how to tell an adventure story.
This was
This was
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one of his early works and he only got better with the Lensmen books. It comes across a bit dated but it was written almost a 100 years ago. Full of fun and danger. Show Less
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1928
Revised: 1958
Physical description
176 p.; 19.9 cm
Local notes
Omslag: Henry Thelander
Omslaget viser en rumstation af form som en golfbold
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
Oversat fra amerikansk "The skylark of space" af Jørgen Rothenborg
Omslaget viser en rumstation af form som en golfbold
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
Oversat fra amerikansk "The skylark of space" af Jørgen Rothenborg
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Series
Pages
176
DDC/MDS
| 813.54 |