Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 14:58:51 -0500
From: "Michael Walsh" <MJW at press.jhu.edu>
To: <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Old School
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

> dicconf at radix.net 3/31/2005 1:41:42 PM >>>
>
>On Wed, 30 Mar 2005, Mike B. wrote:
>
>> At 01:04 PM 3/30/05 -0500, Lawhorn, William - BLS wrote:
>> >
>> >I'd include at least one of the Lensman and/or Skylark series.
>Have to
>> >think about it more to add more...
>> >
>> >Not familiar with them.  Of course there is too much I'm not
>familiar with.
>>
>> Both were written by "e.e. "doc" smith".  The Skylark series had 4
>books I
>> think, and the Lensman series was 5 if my memory at this hour is
>still
>> working.  Mike Walsh can confirm or deny, as he's recently re-
>published
>> them.  Mike?
>
>It might be better to say that the Skylark series proper had three
>books.
>"Skylark DuQuesne" was written much later, after EES had
>discovered about
>sex selling.

Like "Galaxy Primes"?

>  (I was amused to see what happened when an
>essentially
>clean-minded guy tried to write soft porn...)  And it included
>witchcraft
>and psionics, which weren't part of the stfnal universe of discourse
>when
>the three basic Skylark books were written.

Perhaps an Fannish Urban Legend, but I seem to recall someone saying
(speculating?) that Fred Pohl had a hand in DuQuesne.  Smith was not
well the last few years of life, I believe.

>
>Likewise, the inclusion of "Triplanetary" in the Lensman series was
>due to
>a rewrite.

Supposedly Lloyd Eshbach, having noticed that The Skylark of Space,
having gone three printings, each with a different small press in the
post war era, decided that 4 Lensman novels were nice, but more would be
better.

Lloyd was the publisher of Fantasy Press, certainly one the most
important post war small presses.

> If you read the original I doubt you can find any hint that
>Grey Roger was really Gharlane of Eddore, or that Doc Smith had in
>mind
>the intergalactic concepts that appeared in the rest of the Lensman
>series.

"It should be noted that there are textual differences between the
 serialized versions and the hardbacks; in the magazine versions,
 the Evil Eddorians aren't even known to exist until the last book."
<http://www.outel.org/decomposed/goe/LFQ1.html>

>
>-- Dick Eney
>   Certified Force for Evil.

mjw
Certified for nothing...