Star Wars casts
a long shadow across science fiction and fantasy. For most people in
living memory, it is THE example of the power of Space Opera on
audiences. But George Lucas stands on the shoulders of another giant:
Alex Raymond, the creator of Flash Gordon, and Raymond stands on the
biggest shoulders in all of Space Opera, a humble food engineer
specializing in donut mixes from Sheboygan, Michigan, named Edward
Elmer “Doc” Smith (1890-1965).
Living
in Washington DC after graduating college in 1914 with two chemical
engineering degrees, he began writing what would become the very
first Space Opera story in 1915, initially co-writing it with Lee
Hawkins Garby, the wife of one of his college friends, who agreed to
help write some of the romance plot. Working on-and-off on it while
he pursued his doctorate, he would finish The Skylark of
Space in 1920. After submitting
it to various publications for eight years, editor Hugo Gernsback
eventually bought the story and began serializing it in the August
1928 issue of Amazing Stories.
It was a success, which would spawn three sequels and a hardcover
edition (that was significantly edited from the serial) being
published in1946.
The Skylark of Space
begins innocently enough as an example of the older Victorian
“Edisonade” story, where a brilliant and brave young inventor
uses his discovery to save the day. Richard “Dick” Seaton is the
heroic inventor in question, and on the very first page he discovers
that a newly discovered metal (named X), when electrolyzed with
copper, releases tremendous energy, which can either be explosive or
propulsive. Seaton, along with his best friend Martin Crane (who is a
less brilliant scientist, but has more money and business sense) and
Seaton's fiance Dorothy Vaneman, experiment with what they can do
with the metal, first building a flight harness, and then a
spaceship.
Catching
wind of them is Marc “Blackie” DuQuesne, a ruthless, but equally
brilliant scientific mind in the employ of the sinister World Steel
Corporation, a gigantic globalist company infamous for criminal
activity that can never be proven in a court of law. DuQuesne steals
a sample of X, which begins a quiet arms race that turns into a space
race. DuQuesne ends up kidnapping Dorothy, and in the ensuing
struggle, she kicks a lever and DuQuesne's prototype ship is launched
into deep space.
Seaton
and Crane immediately take off after in their own ship, the Skylark,
and then it gets nuts.
Suffice
it to say that there's another of DuQuesne's kidnapping victims,
Margaret Spencer, that Crane gets to fall in love with, and a
showdown on a Barsoom-like alien world where the Skylark is ramming
through enemy airships like a giant pinball as the wild wonders of
Space Opera take swashbuckling shape.
Solution
X is pure bullshit, of course, but Smith's scientific background
helps the verisimilitude immensely. The protagonists are all
scientists or in relationships with scientists. They approach
problems like scientists do, and conduct numerous trial-and-error
experiments before finding solutions. It just so happens that
sometimes the solution is gunning down a bunch of hostile aliens with
a weird Darwinian religion that are trying to destroy your ship. Goes
with the territory.
DuQuesne
is a remarkable villain, and easily one of the best in the history of
science fiction. Charismatic, darkly handsome, and brutally honest
about his methods and aims, he is clearly a villain, but also a man
of reason. He's the farthest thing from stupid, and completely
willing to team up with his enemies in order to survive. Doctor Doom
written at his best reflects more than a bit of Blackie DuQuesne.
Come
to think of it, the “quartet of scientists exploring bizarre
worlds” comes back in two major Jack Kirby co-creations, DC's The
Challengers of the Unknown, and Marvel's The Fantastic Four. I have
no idea what kind of influence Doc Smith might have had on Kirby, but
the comics legend was around 11 years old when Skylark
was first published, which puts him in the right era to be exposed to
it. But that's just speculation.
Smith's
real brilliance lies in escalation. The story consistently and
satisfyingly ratchets up in tension and scale of conflict in a way
where the characters are running for their lives from giant
not-dinosaurs on a savage planet because they needed to dig up some X
so they wouldn't run out of fuel, and it makes perfect sense why
they're there.
“Escalation”
is the word that applies to Doc Smith. The Skylark sequels grow in
increasingly big directions. His other major series, Lensman, would
go even bigger, to the point of weaponizing objects so large that
Emperor Palpatine would blush.
But
all of that would start here, in The Skylark of Space.
Its important as an important work in the evolution of science
fiction, but even more importantly, its damn good fun.
Recommended.
