Aw shit, I finished the Lensman series last year! But what if I still want to read about the Lensman universe? What's a girl to do?Why she just picks up a handy copy of E. E. "Doc" Smith's Masters of the Vortex, another action-packed tale set in the universe of the Lens, but without Kim Kinnison and our other favorites from the series (thanks, once again, to the lovely Choo for the book loan). The stories were originally published in the early 40s, and the hardcover came out in 1960 (a pretty detailed description of the publication process can be found here if you're interested).
In Masters of the Vortex our hero (Neal "Storm" Cloud) actually isn't a Lensman, instead he is a nuclear engineer with an amazingly mathematical mind. Cloud's family is tragically killed in a freak accident by a "flying vortex of atomic destruction" -- one of many vortices that have been a side-effect of the wide-spread use of nuclear energy and are terrorizing planets around the universe. Devastated by the loss of his family, Cloud takes a leave of absence from the Galactic Patrol, only to be struck with an idea for "blowing out" a vortex and stopping its path of destruction. It is rather technical (and Smith is soooo good at writing the technical stuff in a fun way), but the general idea is that Cloud's brain works so fast that he can calculate exactly where the center of the vortex will be at a moment in time and then hit it with a bomb that is set at the exact strength to dissipate the charge and save the world.
As you might expect, this works, and it makes Cloud a very popular guy.
Cloud's new job as the universe's one and only vortex blaster takes him from planet to planet where he and his (totally awesome) crew (of aliens) battle wits against drug dealers and freaky life forms, and where his heart eventually begins to heal and his eyes turn toward his sexy, super smart, and self-taught psychic co-worker.
This book is a very fun read and stands alone from the other Lens books (so no need to read them first if you haven't already).
[And rock out with the back cover here -- Runaway Vortex!!]
1 comment:
if you ever obtain the universes of e. e. smith, by ron ellik and bill evans, i would be simply delighted to borrow it from you. it's basically all the concordances they could find. supposedly the isbn is 0911682031.
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