- Smith, Edward E.
Children of the Lens.
Baltimore: Old Earth Books, [1947–1948, 1954] 1998.
ISBN 1-882968-14-X.
-
This is the sixth and final installment of the
Lensman
series, following
Triplanetary
(June 2004),
First Lensman
(February 2005),
Galactic Patrol
(March 2005),
Gray Lensman
(August 2005),
and
Second Stage Lensmen
(April 2006).
Children of the Lens appeared in serial form in
Astounding Science Fiction from November 1947 through
February 1948. This book is a facsimile of the illustrated 1954
Fantasy Press edition, which was revised from the magazine edition.
(Masters of the Vortex
[originally titled The Vortex Blaster] is
set in the Lensman universe, but is not part of the
Galactic Patrol saga; it's a fine yarn, and
I look forward to re-reading it, but the main story
ends here.)
Twenty years have passed since the events chronicled
in Second Stage Lensmen, and the five
children—son Christopher, and the two pairs
of fraternal twin daughters Kathryn, Karen,
Camilla, and Constance—of Gray Lensman Kimball Kinnison
and his wife Clarissa, the sole female
Lens… er…person in the universe
are growing to maturity. The ultimate products of a
selective breeding program masterminded over millennia
by the super-sages of planet Arisia, they have, since
childhood, had the power to link their minds directly
even to the forbidding intelligences of the Second Stage
Lensmen.
Despite the cataclysmic events which concluded
Second Stage Lensmen, mayhem in the
galaxies continues, and as this story progresses
it becomes clear to the Children of the Lens that
they, and the entire Galactic Patrol, have been
forged for the final battle between good and evil
which plays out in these pages. But all is not
coruscating, actinic
detonations and battles of
super minds; Doc Smith leavens the story with
humour, and even has some fun at his own expense
when he has the versatile Kimball Kinnison write a
space opera potboiler,
“Its terrible xmex-like snout locked on. Its
zymolosely polydactile tongue crunched out,
crashed down, rasped across. Slurp!
Slurp! … Fools! Did they
think that the airlessness of absolute space, the
heatlessness of absolute zero, the
yieldlessness of absolute neutronium could
stop QADGOP THE MERCOTAN?” (p. 37).
This concludes my fourth lifetime traverse of this epic, and
it never, ever disappoints. Since I first read it more than
thirty years ago, I have considered Children of the
Lens one of the very best works of science fiction
ever, and this latest reading reinforces that conviction. It
is, of course, the pinnacle of a story spanning billions of
years, hundreds of billions of planets, innumerable species, a
multitude of parallel universes, absolute good and
unadulterated evil, and more than 1500 pages, so if you
jump into the story near the end, you're likely to end up
perplexed, not enthralled. It's best either to start at the
beginning with Triplanetary or, if you'd rather
skip the two slower-paced “prequels”, with Volume
3, Galactic Patrol, which was the first written
and can stand alone.
April 2007 