Classic Science Fiction discussion

Not surprising that a engineer would have a hand in writing the first space opera. Being one, I know we daydream a lot and try to make more of what is commonplace.

This book, written in the 1920s, is not one to read for its worldview or technology, but more, I would say, for how it set the foundations for the genre. Start with a technological idea, place it a social framework, add some characters that readers can relate to, and explore the idea as fully as possible within this structure. This concept was applied by many an SF writer, only to be later improved upon by the paradigm approach represented by books such as Dune and Neuromancer.

The original version, published in Astounding in 1928, is transcribed at Project Gutenberg.
Modern reviewers have commented on the book's racist, sexist, misogynistic leanings. But consider the era when it was written.

I read EE Doc Smith back in the 70s, at one point I had the whole lensman series. I gave the books away when I left uni because I didn't have room to transport them, and never felt the urge to re-read.
The problem I had about his books was the speed of escalation. The good guy would come up with a bright idea and the bad guy would cap it with his own idea. Then the good guy would come up with something better and so it would go on.
In itself this is fine, but three books down the line they're using suns as forges and it's starting to get a little silly.
Trying to be constructive, I'd say that, yes, he did have a lot of good ideas and could write a good story. But he was perhaps too keen on the engineering and his characters are perhaps a little two dimensional. Certainly he is an author the SF fan should read.

I read and enjoyed this book I suppose 40 or 50 years ago, because my father --a serious early sf fan --had a lot of E.E. Smith. I had also, I think reread it since but not lately. Starting to reread it last night, I was struck by what seems like a major inconsistency, and I wonder if any other readers had a response to it. Seaton's discovery of unlimited power has 2 essential ingredients, the X metal and the whatisitron (various nicknames --this may not be quite accurate), a machine whose radiation sets off the reaction of the X metal with copper.
Seaton and his partner Crane very carefully legally buy the supply of X metal from the lab where he works by getting it condemned as junk and auctioned off for 10 cents. But the whatisitron was invented by the future villain Duquesne working in the room next to Seaton's at the same (apparently government) lab.
Presumably it is either Duquesne's property or the government's. Duquesne's own model he apparently retains, and there is no suggestion Seaton studies it. Yet shortly afterward Seaton has his own working model whatisitron, having apparently stolen Duquesne's concept with no explanation or justification and reproduced the machine. Moreover,
the evil Worldco boss who does not want to pay Duquesne's price for the process has his goons steal some X and sets up his own anonymous scientist with, it seems, his own unexplained whatisitron in a little town in West Virginia, where the scientist blows up the whole town. Obviously his whatisitron may have been flawed, but it clearly came close enough to working to release the power of X + copper. So there are two completely unexplained duplicate whatisitrons
in the opening chapters.