The capsule tells it all: Edward E. Smith, Ph.D. may not have invented space opera, but he was the one who was identified with the subgenre. Despite Lucas’s denials, “Star Wars” owes a lot of Doc Smith’s Lensmen saga.
Smith was all that weird. He just wrote space adventures and didn’t care about getting the science right (he ignored relativity).
By the way, Smith was a Ph.D. all right – in food sciences. One of his biggest achievements was finding a better way to get sugar to stick to donuts, so he may have been the greatest benefactor among SF writers.
detop – the writer are forgotten because their books aren’t in print except by small presses. It looks like the last editions of Doc Smith were over twenty years ago, and the only current edition of Hal Clement’s classic “Mission of Gravity” was published in the UK (though NESFA Press has an omnibus of his other novels available). Cordwainer Smith suffers by being a short story writer, and one with a relatively small output. One reason for this is taxes – ask a pro writer about Thor Power Tools sometime.
I guess this shows my age, but the only ones mentioned I know are the older ones: Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, Clement, Delany, Farmer, etc. I remember reading Clement in junior high, and thought he was great. In particular their was one about beings from a hot planet for whom tobacco vaporized into a poisonous substance.
I got Philip Jose Farmer. Riverworld was a great concept, as was a series he wrote on “man made” pocket universes. (That series just went on too long for me.) But some of his short stories were just plain wrong. I remember one about a transvestite, morals detective, who was flipped out because his sister caught him screwing the family dog, so he killed both of them. He ends up feeling even more guilty for killing the dog, and breaks down and becomes one.
Heinlein was friends with and a fan of “Doc” Smith. The Lensman series is probably his best known work, he also wrote the “Skylark of Space” series (and some other works, there’s been a series of stuff that was “completed” after he died which is supposed to be utterly unreadable). The books float in and out of print, but are pretty entertaining. They don’t hold up as well as stuff by Heinlein, Clarke, et. al, but Doc Savage fans should find the Skylark series enjoyable. (Frederick Pohl also is a big fan as well, IIRC.)
I’m: Isaac Asimov
One of the most prolific writers in history, on any imaginable subject. Cared little for art but created lasting and memorable tales.
Too bad I can’t remember the last book of his I read…
It says I’m: Arthur C. Clarke.
Well known for nonfiction science writing and for early promotion of the effort toward space travel, his fiction was often grand and visionary.
I’m OK with that.
