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• The Skylark of Space
• By E.E. "Doc" Smith
• Berkley Books
• $2.50/$2.75 Canada
• Paperback, March 1984
• Originally Published 1928
• ISBN: 0-425-06561-8

The Story

Richard Seaton's perfect life just got complicated. Yes, he's handsome and brilliant, with a beautiful high-society fiancee in Dorothy Vaneman, but all he cares about now is the bizarre, unknown metal he found in a consignment of government scrap -- a metal that stimulates total conversion of copper into pure energy.

And no one believes him!

Make that almost no one. Seaton's best friend, the dashing millionaire M. Reynolds Crane, is convinced that the wonder metal, "X," is the key to space travel. Crane and Seaton start building a spaceship. Someone else also believes in X: Seaton's colleague, the cold genius Marc "Blackie" DuQuesne. DuQuesne is certain only he or Seaton can unlock X's lucrative secrets; therefore, Seaton must be eliminated.

DuQuesne builds his own ship and sabotages Seaton's. His plan is to kidnap Dorothy, forcing Seaton to follow and be killed in the faulty ship. But Seaton and Crane discover the sabotage and covertly build a better ship. Worse for DuQuesne, Dorothy fights back, kicking her kidnapper into the controls. DuQuesne's ship rockets uncontrolled into deep space.

Seaton and Crane follow at fantastic speed, discovering DuQuesne and his captives trapped in the gravity well of a dead star. Combining intellects, Seaton and DuQuesne save the others, including another victim named Margaret.

Thus Crane, long plagued by golddiggers, finds love among the stars.

After a series of adventures in search of copper, the Skylark lands on Osnome, a world shared by the treacherous Mardonalians and the physically and mentally evolved Kondalians. At first deceived by the Mardonalians, the humans are rescued by a prince of Kondal. Once in his land, the humans sense a kinship with this noble race, and realize they must help destroy the Mardonalian menace.

X Marks the Spot

The whiff of social Darwinism exuded by some pre-World War II science fiction is overpowering in Skylark. It may seem a natural extrapolation: If advanced societies and technologies are part of the dream, why not advanced humans, as improved and purified as their cities and spaceships? In Kondal, Smith explores the logical conclusions. Only the most evolved may contribute to society; the weak and feebleminded are executed. The heroes, though from Earth, blend right in, being superb physical specimens and superlative intellects; the Kondalians marvel that a disordered (democratic) world could have produced them. The visit to Kondal is steeped in a charming luster -- it's easy to forget that today's Captain Kirks would pull the plug on a world that disposed of its unfortunates.

Skylark is, after all, a gripping yarn. First published in Amazing magazine in 1928 (the book came out in 1946), it's considered the original space opera -- that frothy confection filled with square-jawed pilots and doughty damsels. In this prototype, though, there's more than might be found in lesser imitations. Seaton retains interest throughout despite being profoundly idealized; and there's a quirky appeal to the heartless DuQuesne, his physical and mental equal. No Ming of Mongo, Seaton's nemesis has more complicated motives than simple malevolence.

Space Opera Physics

There's even some interesting science. Though X seems unlikely to turn up in tomorrow's chemistry textbooks, Smith displays a thoughtful attitude toward the challenges of space travel. And the dead star DuQuesne encounters sure sounds like a black hole, though this concept didn't gain currency until later.

Full of ebullience and pure faith in human ingenuity, The Skylark of Space is a fun read, and a classic example of brisk and visceral storytelling.

Smith may be better known for the Lensman series, which -- in giving the galaxy a unifying past, present, and future -- was on the leading edge of the '50s and '60s proliferation of universal timelines.