An improvement on the original Skylark of Space story, as Seaton and his pals go on a Grand Tour of the Green System forming an alliance of planets to battle the Fenachrone. The science is pure fantasy but Smith has a ball describing and bringing together the various alien races. ( )

Not any worse than his others, I guess I just got tired. ( )

The fate of humankind heads south in Skylark Three, but Seaton saves the day, and the galaxy, in spectacular fashion.

Osnome is attacked by a neighboring planet, Urvania, and Dunark travels to Earth seeking Seaton's help. The Seatons and Cranes all accompany Dunark to Osnome. En route they encounter a threat even greater than the Urvanians--a spaceship of the Fenachrone, who intend to conquer the entire galaxy, exterminating all intelligent life as they go. The alien spaceship attacks, but Seaton counters by enclosing his spaceship in a zone of force, a defensive bubble that is impervious to the forces wielded by the Fenachrone. Seaton is clever to wait until the Fenachrone stop their attack (which he cannot observe from within the zone), then to use the zone of force itself as a weapon to slice the Fenachrone spaceship into two, then three, then into many teeny, tiny pieces.

Seaton unites Urvanian and Osnomian against the Fenachrone and searches the Green System for an ancient race with an advanced technology that can work through the zone of force, an advance that can defeat the Fenachrone. He finds the Norlaminians and they are indeed ancient, advanced, and have the required technology in a nascent form, awaiting the power of the element "x" to unleash it. As the Norlaminians put it, it is graven on the Sphere that the Fenachrone shall pass.

DuQuesne tries to overcome Seaton's advantage, but can only hit bloop singles while Seaton repeatedly hits the ball out of the park. Out of sight of Seaton, DuQuesne steals an Osnomian spaceship, happens upon the Fenachrone spaceship destroyed by Seaton, captures a survivor and parlays that into stealing, first a Fenachrone scout ship, then a battleship, both stationed in defense of the Fenachrone planet. All tricky stuff, but DuQuesne succeeds only to see Seaton destroy the Fenachrone planet right in front of him, from a distance half-way across the galaxy. DuQuesne quietly retreats, hoping Seaton doesn't notice him.
* * *
Synchronicity continues with a vengeance in [Skylark Three]. Seaton invents the zone of force just in time to use against the Fenachrone. He leap-frogs centuries of slow technological development with his intuition that the Norlaminians must both exist and possess the solution he needs, based on the flimsiest evidence--an age-old fairy tale told on Osnome. Seaton leverages the theoretical knowledge of the Norlaminians to develop the next round of weaponry that reaches the Fenachrone planet just as the Fenachrone receive notice of the threat posed by Seaton's zone of force.

The Kondalians and Norlaminians present contrasts in character to the Seaton party of Earth. The Kondalians are extremely warlike and cannot be trusted, unaided, with the forces unleashed by Seaton. The Norlaminians are peaceful to the extent of having no instinct for self-preservation. They are unable to use their immense depth of knowledge, unaided, to think their way through to a solution to the Fenachrone threat, but are willing to help Seaton. Seaton himself is a bridge between these two extremes. He can create the weapons and deploy them against individual Fenachrone warships, but cannot pull the trigger to destroy the entire Fenachrone planet. He has to leave that to Dunark, who has no qualms in doing so.

Somewhere along the way the Norlaminians have lost their emotional grasp of life. Perhaps because they do not begin their life's work until they are already old, until they have "learned how to think", that is, until they have left their youthful exuberance behind. Seaton shows them how a young man can think and Dorothy shows them the creative emotion they no longer possess when she plays Romantic-period music for them on her violin. Sadly, the Norlaminians can only think to analyze the harmonics of the music more completely. They are trapped in the reasoning world of the Enlightenment.

The Norlaminian's forces are focused by a lens of neutronium, obtained from a nearby white dwarf star and encased in a container formed from the faidon, the eternal jewel which gives off an inner light and is impervious to any mechanical or chemical assay ([The Skylark of Space]). The faidon may be an oblique homage to the Phaedo (Phaidon) of Plato, another tip of the hat to the undying spirit of mankind.

Seaton wins the day with his beneficence and spirit of cooperation. DuQuesne can't begin to catch up using his larcenous approach. Round two to Seaton. ( )

See Skylark of Space. ( )

Skylark Three (published serially in 1930 and in book form in 1948) by E. E. "Doc" Smith is the second in the Skylark series, and continues the adventures of the strong, smart and honorable Dick Seaton, his strong, smart, and honorable (and rich) friend Martin Crane, and their wives as they fly around the universe, help alien planets, try to thwart the evil DuQuesne, and ultimately battle for the survival of life as we know it. Naturally they manage to do all this without too much adjusting of their moral compasses, quibbling amongst themselves, or meeting any aliens they can't either see eye to eye with or obliterate.

Smith writes great science, although the scientific sections in this one sometimes get a little lengthy and confusing. Not as much romance (since everyone is already married) and really not that many battles either since much of the book is spent on compiling the best scientific minds from a group of widely dispersed planets in order to defeat a powerful foe from another galaxy. Fun devices that take the place of the all-powerful Lens in the Lensman series include an "educator" which is sort of a freaky-Frankenstein device that lets you transfer knowledge, thoughts and experiences from one brain to another. Selectively. And also from dead brains! So you know that is going to come in handy. They also develop a Projector that lets you see, hear, and physically appear in any location in the universe. Add that to your educator and you have the perfect tool both for collaboration and total upheaval. Plus there are water people who live on a watery planet and have webbed hands and feet!

[full review here: http://spacebeer.blogspot.com/2008/04/skylark-three-1943.html ] ( )