Realistic Sounding Nonsense: "Triplanetary" E.E. "Doc" Smith

5:44 pm 11 August 2018
Triplanetary - E.E. "Doc" Smith


"Immediately before the Coalescence began there was one,and only one, planetary solar system in the Second Galaxy; and, until the advent of Eddore, the Second Galaxy was entirely devoid of intelligent life"

In "Triplanetary" by E. E. "Doc" Smith


There are only three real approaches to physics in SF:

1. Absolute hard core real physics with speculative aspects;
2. Realistic sounding nonsense;
3. Unrealistic sounding nonsense.

 

(my own English edition bought in 1999)


I am personally a fan of approach 2. This gave us stuff like "Triplanetary", "First Lensman", etc.

In response to those suggesting that dissecting the science in SF novels is redundant and possibly silly, I would argue for a dichotomy. 

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

sf Vintage SF 1995