Question

[james_davis_nicoll]

Which is the correct order to read the Lensmen books in? The ones that were published first first, with the two prequels last, or in internal chronological order?

Comments

[oh6]

I'll just mention that going from First Lensman to Galactic Patrol was enough of a jolt that I gave up on the series.

[sraun]

The first time I read them was in internal chronological order, and it worked fine for me.

[wild_irises]

Internal chronological order, at age 11.

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

The order they were published. Do not read Triplanetary first.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Why do you recommend against reading Triplanetary first, it seemed an excellent introduction.

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

It reveals too much that only slowly comes out if you read the books in publication order.

EDIT: thinking more of First Lensman.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Internochronological. Absolutely read Triplanetary first.

[http://users.livejournal.com/krin_o_o_/]

The order in which you can find them

[inkylj.livejournal.com]

Normally I'm a fan of reading in publication order, but the Lensman books have almost nothing where a prequel retroactively casts the other books in a new light. Furthermore, the theme/drive of the books seems to be about the scale of things constantly getting bigger, so reading in chronological order is the best way to preserve that too.

In terms of plot spoilers, I'm not sure about other editions, but in the ones I have the older-published books now have a forward that summarizes "the story so far...", so 1) they spoil the prequels to some extent if you haven't read them and 2) reading the prequels first doesn't spoil anything new about the existence of the Eddorians or anything.

So I vote for chronological.

[tww1fa]

I've always preferred reading them in internal chronological order. Unlike the Narnia books where I always read tLtWatW first.

[matthew-g.livejournal.com]

I would advocate for internal chronological, because they do tend to go 'Bigger, Stronger!'

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Absolutely, although not on quite the same grandiose scale as the Skylark books.

[lovelyangel.livejournal.com]

I also vote internal chronological

[davidgoldfarb.livejournal.com]

Publication order, then First Lensman. Skip Triplanetary entirely.

[martin-wisse.livejournal.com]

Publication order is always best order.

[mastadge.livejournal.com]

Unless it doesn't match composition order!

[le-trombone.livejournal.com]

Unless the author has stated there was some grand design that he or she tipped over by mistake, there's never really a reason to read out of publication order. The composition will be implicit in the writing.

Caveat: I've only read one E. E. Smith book, The Skylark of Space, so while I presume Smith didn't pull a fast one, others may correct me on this.

Caveat two: I frequently don't care about order -- I can hold dependencies in my memory just fine -- so I frequently don't follow my own advice (but I don't read in internal chronological order either).

[andrewducker]

The intro to Triplanetary that gives you the sweeping backdrop to the series, then skip to Galactic Patrol and read on from there to Children Of The Lens, then stop.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Definitely ignore Masters of the Vortex -- minor work, no connection to rest of series other than shared universe.

[andrewducker]

I agree. I was very disappointed. The series builds to a crescendo, and then follows up with something fairly pointless.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Actually I quite like that progression of bigger - stronger - mindbogglingly huge - ooh, domestic!

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Oh, I disagree. It's arguably the best of the lot (though nothing like them; so I can see people who love the universe-saving action of the main series not being much interested in this side story just barely grafted on to the same universe).

Certainly one shouldn't view it as part of the series, though.

Smith is so hard into love at first site and perfect soul-mates and such bilge that it's really nice to see him basing a story around a person losing his perfect soul-mate and recovering to the point of loving again. Even if he never quite explicitly says his initial attitude was bilge, it's healthy.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Internal chronology.

Also, I'd like to complain about this poll: no radio buttons. Also, cats.

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

There are cats in "Masters of the Vortex".

[dbdatvic.livejournal.com]

Do catgirls count as cats?

--Dave, or as bats?

[seawasp]

Whichever one you want to read them in. I first read them entirely out of order (Second-Stage Lensman first, since it was given to me).

Traditionally, the order would be Galactic Patrol, Gray Lensmen, Second-Stage Lensmen, Children of the Lens, reading Triplanetary, First Lensman, and, if you wanted, Masters of the Vortex/The Vortex Blasters afterward. If you don't know anything about the story, and you have one of the editions without the Forward of Spoilers, this allows you to read it and undergo The Reveal as it happens to the main character, Kimball Kinnison.

I happen to like Triplanetary, and since most of the copies of the other books included a long forward that gave away The Big Secrets, I prefer to read it in internal chronological order -- Triplanetary, First Lensman, and then Galactic Patrol and the others. (Masters of the Vortex is in the same universe but mostly doesn't intersect; it's rather like The Horse and his Boy in the Narnia series, occurring sometime in between SSL and CotL)

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

What editions lack the Forward of Spoilers, though? Is there any book publication without it?

[joenotcharles.livejournal.com]

Now that we're warned about the spoilers in the Forward, it's easy enough to skip over it.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

Now I'm wondering if Robert Forward wrote any forewords. And if he included spoilers.

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

And let us not forget Randall Garrett's Backstage Lensman.

"Beams, rods, cones, stilettos, icepicks, corkscrews, knives, forks, and spoons of energy raved against the screens of the Dentless."

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

The problem is, even the hardcovers (first book publication) give away the things that were surprises in the original publication order. So unless somebody intends to read them in magazine text, original reading order isn't too easy to achieve.

I've had people bounce hard off Triplanetary who might not have been hopeless if they had started elsewhere. The Atlantis story and the WWII story aren't very good, the Rome story is quirky (though I love it), and the long final story "Triplanetary" is also not very good, and not very tightly tied to the Lensman universe (originally published before the Lensman universe started).

There are reports of people starting any random place and becoming fans, but of course one success at a weird approach doesn't prove much; some people are just fated to love Doc Smith :-).

So, I would probably recommend starting with Galactic Patrol, which is the order I read it in (largely by coincidence).

I could see an argument for starting with First Lensman, but quite a lot of my fondness for that book comes from seeing Smith create backstories for lots of things we'd gotten used to in the other books, and I'm not confident it would work wonderfully as an introduction.

It's so long since I first read them....

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

The WWII story is supposed to be something that really happened to Doc.

[avram]

Tear out all the pages, shuffle them, read the result, and assemble it into the proper order in your mind with your superior apprehension of the Cosmic All, like a true Arisian.

[jamoche]

A truly competent mind only needs a single page in order to visualize the entire universe of which the page is a part.

[jsburbidge.livejournal.com]

The original text of Second Stage Lensmen was significantly modified for book publication, so it now gives away things which were not given away in the originals until Children of the Lens.

I could see either reading the core four books first followed by the frame in Triplanetary and all of First Lensmen; or on current series order. FWIW, I began with FL and SSL, which I took out of the library together, and it din not impair my enjoyment.

[lurkingcanadian.livejournal.com]

If I may extrapolate from my own experience, the best way to read the Lensmen books is to start before your brain reaches the age of reason.

I wanted to like them, I really did, but the parsecs-per-hour spacecraft, boarding axes, using planets as a big old Newton pendulum...I just couldn't make it.

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

Publication order*, and if you haven't read "Galactic Patrol" before you're fourteen, it's too late.

(*you aren't going to find a copy of the pre-retconned magazine serial of "Triplanetary", so don't worry about that ...)

[dbdatvic.livejournal.com]

Not even on Project Gutenberg?

--Dave