In 1966 at the World Science Fiction Convention an election was held to select the Best All-Time series. As we saw previously the winner was the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov, and it was no doubt a worthy choice. But the runner up was the Lensman series by Doc Smith, and if the two changed places I would be just as happy. And I am not the only one, obviously, given that 1966 vote. The Lensman series was part of my adolescence and I dreamed of strapping on my twin DeLameters and blasting the bad guys. And if that sounds a lot like strapping on twin six shooters in a Western, you are getting the idea of early Space Opera. Back in the day, Westerns were sometimes called Horse Operas so that is where the name is derived. I was not there when that vote happened as I turned 15 in 1966, but I was reading and re-reading the books then. I have two domains that are named from the series (zwilnik.com and palain.com), and on my home network my computers take names from the series. So yeah, I am a nerd.

The Lensman series proper consists of 6 books:

• Triplanetary – reviewed by the HPR Audiobook Club.
• First Lensman
• Galactic Patrol
• Grey Lensman
• Second Stage Lensman
• Children of the Lens

In addition, there is a novel set in the same universe called The Vortex Blaster, sometimes seen as Masters of the Vortex. And a friend of Smith’s (David Kyle) later published three novels, each one centered on one of the other Second Stage Lensmen. They are The Dragon Lensman, Lensman From Rigel, and Z-Lensman. Although each of these three focuses on a different main character, there is a unifying plot that unites them. They were authorized so they can be considered part of the story, though some may quibble about this. Finally, there was an authorized book by William B. Ellern called New Lensman. It is somewhat anachronistic because it introduces technologies Smith never had, such as computers. Remember that Smith started his writing career during World War I, so there are things he never foresaw. But that is not unusual. Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy didn’t have computers either. This is just one of the things you have to accept with Golden Age science fiction.

Other Media

• Lensmen: Secret of the Lens (1984) – This is a Japanese animated film which uses names and situations from the Lensmen series, combined with an homage to Star Wars. This should not surprise anyone, as Star Wars definitely draws on the Lensmen series whether or not George Lucas ever read any of it. Star Wars is Space Opera, and Space Opera has its roots here. The film is better seen as an example of anime than as a faithful recreation of Smith’s universe. You can watch the complete film on YouTube.
• Galactic Patrol Lensman – This was a TV series that ran in Japan in 1984-85, and some episodes were briefly available dubbed into English. Although authorized by the Smith estate, they were unhappy with the result. Some episodes can be viewed on YouTube in subtitled format.
• Manga – Both the Movie and the TV series were adapted into Manga, but as far as I know only in Japanese, so no English translation is available.
• Eternity Comics published several series of Lensman comics, mostly adaptations of the Japanese TV series, but they have since gone out of business.
• Ron Howard optioned the Lensman sereis in partnership with Universal, but later Universal decided to drop it.
• Philip N. Pritchard created a board game called Lensman. It depicts a conflict between the Arisians and the Eddorians on a two-dimensional map.
• Steve Jackson Games did a GURPS game called Lensman, and it is still available.

Parodies and Homages

A series as beloved as the Lensman series will get the attention of other writers.

• Randall Garrett – On my bookshelf is a volume called Takeoff! It contains a number of humorous parodies of authors like Isaac Asimov, H.P. Lovecraft, A.E. Van Vogt, etc. But of importance here is the story Backstage Lensman. Garrett showed to Smith, and Smith laughed all the way through it.
• Harry Harrison, who is noted for a number of humorous books, did a parody of space opera and Smith in particular called Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers.
• Green Lantern Corps – There is a resemblance between the two universes, and the rings vs. the lenses. The original author denied any intention, but when later writers brought in aliens named Arisia and Eddore it was pretty hard to deny.
• Robert A. Heinlein, as we mentioned previously, had sections of his novel The Number of the Beast (and later, Pursuit of the Pankera) set in the Lensman Universe.

The Setting

When Smith was writing, the mechanisms behind the formation of stars and planets was not very well understood. At the time it was possible to think that planets were very rare and hard to find. Astronomers of the time favored the Tidal Theory which said that for planets to form you had to have a close encounter between two stars. This would be a rare event. Of course we know better now, but Smith came up with an ingenious solution to address this and several problems in his plotting. He postulated that the Milky Way and another Galaxy, called either The Second Galaxy or Lundmark’s Nebula, had passed through each other edge-on, creating all of the many close encounters and filling both galaxies with lots of planets. And it wouldn’t be Space Opera if most of those planets had no life on them, specifically intelligent life. In a variation of the panspermia hypothesis, Smith decided that all of the life in this universe, or at least the two galaxies we see, derives from “spores” of life that come from the planet Arisia. For this reason, the Arisians, an incredibly old race, consider all the life forms as essentially their children. And the Arisians are undeniably good, which is importrant because for Smith good and evil have to be in stark contrast.

Then there was another race in a different universe, based on the planet Eddore. They are the absolute evil ones in this story. They have a lust for power that cannot be satisfied, and they initially battle each other for control of Eddore. But eventually they reach a point where none of them can kill any of their brethren, so they decide to go looking for an outlet for their drive to dominate. They travel from universe to universe, and when they arrive in ours with the two galaxies full of planets they decide this is the place. Millions or even billions of races to be brought under the control of Eddore. So they stop and make themselves at home.

The Arisians who are incredibly old have developed their mental powers to a very high degree, and one of their “youngsters” happens to make mental contact with an Eddorian, but what he sees there seems to make no sense to him. So he goes to the oldest and wisest Arisians, who take over. First they erase the memory of the contact from the mind of the Eddorian. They have looked into their Visualization of the Cosmic All, and determined that Eddore must be wiped out, but they also conclude the Arisians are not strong enough to do it. The Arisians decide they need to create a something more powerful than the massed minds of Arisia, their successor race, so to speak. But they cannot determine in advance which race will be the best, so they decide on a parallel development involving four races. Of course, one of those races is the Human race, based on the planet Tellus (Tellus is a Latin name for Earth). The second one is Velantia III, which is inhabited by a race of intelligent reptiles that resemble a cross between a dragon and a snake. The third is Rigel IV, inhabited by a race who do not use vision, but instead have something called the Sense of Perception, which is even better. They are very stocky and strong. The last one is Palain VII, which is a freezing cold planet like Neptune or Pluto. Palainians breathe what we would call poison, and due to their environment they have a metabolic extension into the fourth dimension. Their appearance is constantly changing because not all of their parts are in our three-dimensional space so you cannot describe what they look like, and they are very logical, sort of like Spock.

On each of these planets the Arisians set up breeding programs to produce the next stage of development, the one beyond even the Arisians. The one on Tellus is the one we know most about. Two distinct lines were established and not allowed to breed with each other until the final point was reached. Something similar probably happened on the other three planets, but we have no details about that. At a certain point it was decided that the Human race would be the ones to go to the next level, and the breeding programs stopped on the other three planets with the penultimate “people” never meeting.

The other part of the Arisian plan was the development of the Galactic Patrol. This organization was a combination of police and military that was tasked with preventing crime and opposing the enemies of Civilization, who came to be called Boskone. While this role is important, the Patrol would also have a role to play in the final showdown. And to help them do their jobs, selected beings were given a device called The Lens of Arisia. The Arisians made sure that the only beings who received the Lens were incorruptible and trustworthy, though it took some time for this to be generally accepted. And each Lens was tuned to the specific life force of the being who received it. As long as it was in contact with the skin of said being it was harmless, but remove it and it would kill anyone who touched it. This made it a very good identification since only the authorized being could safely wear it. Finally it gave the wearer telepathic powers so they could communicate with beings from other worlds.