Lensman

'Two thousand million years ago or so two galaxies were colliding, or, rather, were passing through each other.'
Thus begins the 7-book series that got the space opera genre going. The 'Lensverse' chronicles the war between two races of immense power: the Arisians and the Eddorians, and the tools they use to fight: Civilisation and its worlds for Arisia, and Boskone and its worlds for the Eddorians.

Written before technologies like transistors were invented, the Lensman books nevertheless kept to science that was (more or less) theoretically possible at the time, but taken to its extreme: mobile shielded planets, millions-strong fleets of inertialess warships, beam weapons that made the ether itself 'seethe and boil', Sunbeams that converted an entire solar system into a vacuum tube, and the infamous Nth Space planet that threatened to destroy the entire universe in zero time.

And then there is the Lens. A circular disk based on a platinum-iridium alloy bracelet and pulsing with polychromatic light, the Lens is the key to Civilisation's eventual victory. With it, the best minds of all its planets become telepaths of great power - they become Lensmen, capable of using their minds to defeat the enemy. Of all the technologies in the series, this is the crucial one - the sheer destructive power of the Sunbeam does not measure up to the potential of the Lens if used by a mind truly capable of thinking.

The first book, 'Triplanetary', deals to a large extent with the prehistory of the conflict: of the Eddorian arrival into this universe and of the beginning of Arisian preparations against them. Focusing on Earth's history, it goes from the destruction of Atlantis to Nero's burning of Rome, through the First, Second and Third World Wars, and finally to the era of the Triplanetary League, the interplanetary police force that protects Tellus (Earth), Venus and Mars from pirates and the like.

The second book, 'First Lensman', focuses around the head of the Triplanetary League, Virgil Samms, and his old friend Roderick 'the Rock' Kinnison. Facing the three (linked) evils of drugs, political corruption and piracy, they are eventually persuaded to visit Arisia by the peculiar genius Nels Bergenholm, who also invents the inertialess drive for them. By the end of the book the political corruption on Tellus has been securely dealt with - but the other two are still problems.

The third book, 'Galactic Patrol', shifts an indefinite amount of time into the future. Civilisation and the Galactic Patrol (Samms' creation that superseded the Triplanetary League) have spread throughout much of the Galaxy, but ultra-fast, ultra-powerful pirate ships have brought interstellar trade to a standstill. Enter Kimball Kinnison, newly graduated Lensman, who along with his Valerian friend Peter VanBuskirk and the crew of the Britannia, succeeds in capturing one of the pirate vessels, and after a long roundabout trip (involving the discovery of the dragon-like Velantians and the defeat of the Overlords of Delgon) brings the technology back to Tellus, thus evening out the scales. As if that wasn't enough, Helmuth, the head of Boskone in this Galaxy, is also defeated.

After 'Galactic Patrol' comes 'Grey Lensman', when Kim Kinnison earns his Greys - the plain grey uniform that marks him out as an Unattached Lensman - responsible to no law, no authority, but his own calling. As well as becoming a Second Stage Lensman and gaining the sense of perception (telepathic sight, in other words), he tracks Boskone down to the Second Galaxy, gathers various scientists together to develop a negasphere of planetary antimass, and thus helps the Galactic Patrol exterminate more of its enemies.

The fifth book, 'Second Stage Lensman', follows Kinnison and the three other Second Stage Lensmen (Nadreck of Palain VII, Worsel of Velantia, and Tregonsee of Rigel IV) take on what they believe to be the upper echelons of Boskone. Kinnison infiltrates them to become the Tyrant of Thrale - ruler of much of the Second Galaxy - and kills Prime Minister Fossten in a mental duel (Fossten was in fact Gharlane of Eddore, the second most powerful Eddorian; little did Kinnison realise this - or that the massed might of Arisia was behind him), and thus brings most of the Second Galaxy under the aegis of Civilisation.

The sixth book, 'Children of the Lens', Civilisation appears to have won - or has it? Now Galactic Co-Ordinator of the Second Galaxy, Kinnison watches as planet after planet suffers mass hysteria for no apparent reason. Whilst Nadreck tracks down and kills the cold-blooded creature responsible, Kinnison takes a back seat as his 5 children - Christopher, Kathryn, Camilla, Constance and Karen - all of them more powerful than the best Arisian minds - lead the fight against Eddore and its immediate subordinates, the inhabitants of the dread planet Ploor. Whilst Ploor is utterly annihilated and its star turned into a supernova by Nth Space planets (shielded by the Arisians so as to prevent space-time collapsing around them), the Arisians muster the mental might of every available Lensman in both Galaxies - and they number in the millions. Lead by the 5 Kinnison kids (i.e., the Children of the Lens), they exterminate the Eddorians using their combined mental might, thus finally ending a war that started aeons before.

The seventh book, 'Masters of the Vortex', takes place at roughly the same time as Second Stage Lensman, although the timeline is a little odd. Atomic vortices are threatening planets across the First Galaxy, homing in on atomic powerplants and burning away, poisoning the atmosphere and eating away at the planet - potentially until nothing is left. Enter Neal 'Storm' Cloud, the man with a quantum supercomputer for a brain - and his ship, the Vortex Blaster. Hunting down the vortices, Cloud eventually discovers he has impressive telepathic abilities - possibly even close to the level of the Children of the Lens (although they are never mentioned). Using these, he eventually discovers the source of the loose atomic vortices - the Cahuitans, a race of pure-energy beings who reproduce using the vortices - and promptly accomodates them into Civilisation by offering to build them their very own power plants to destroy.

Record 1174 - universe - Last update 16 Jul 2007, 23:28:17

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