Date: 22 May 2011, 22:06
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The story opens just as the predecessor in this series (Gray Lensman) closes. Our Hero and His Girl are walking off together, eager to get their marital relations off to a screaming start. All of a sudden, "Stop, Youth!" It's Arisia, the planet of secretive mental masters, dropping the other shoe. There's more to do before Kim Kinnison and Clarissa MacDougall can get down to baby-making. So they go jetting off to do it. There's Lyrane, the matriarchal planet, with a few squabbling males for DNA donors. Of course, anything with women in charge must be comical and grotesque (this was written in 1953, remember) so we get a few good yuks out of that. Then there are various bad guys to demolish, in an inflationary arms race to see who can string the most superlatives together in describing their way-cool weaponry. It's improbable daring-do, hither and thither across intergalactic space. When it comes down to it, though, even the grandest space-battle of all time ends up in hand-to-hand, man-to-man combat. The ending dangles obvious sequel-bait in front of the reader. After the biggest, gaudiest wedding in the history of the universe, the Gray Lensman and Red Lensman (not Lensgirl - phew) take off for the nearest room with a door that locks. But, even though Kinnison knows all that we know at this point, he's making kissy-face while the baddest bad guys in two galaxies are still at large. Huh? Well, there's another book in the series, coming soon. In the mean time, this book provides plenty of entertainment in at least two ways. First, the swashbuckling and steady stream of victories make me wish for a rainy Saturday and a bucket of popcorn. Second, this artifact from the dawn of the Eisenhower doldrums captures the neolithic relations between men and women in those days, along with blind optimism in technology, democracy, and trickle-down economics. We now know better on all counts, so what was once the norm, then anti-feminist propaganda, can now be seen as quaintly comical.
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