Gray Lensman is the next book in E.E. "Doc" Smith's famous Lensman series! This one continues the adventures of the inimitable Kimball Kinnison, actually starting by retelling the ending of the previous book (which I noted was abrupt and not particularly good) with a bit more flair!
If you're looking for something drastically new, you won't find it here, but overall I enjoyed this book very much and if you've enjoyed any of the Lensman books already, you'll find more of it here.
This book pokes at a lot of fun and interesting--and sometimes even thought-provoking--ideas:
- Scale: Space travel in Lensman is just like driving a car, only replace miles with parsecs (it's only a factor of 19,000,000,000!)
Also note: Smith uses the old style million-milliard-billion names here, rather than the more modern million-billion-trillion - More goofy future slang!
- Some cool new uses and tricks with the Lens
- The pain of ordering men to their deaths (something the books have steered clear of until now, but handled with a Heinleinian tone)
- A second galaxy, and what that means
- Fun engineering: layered silver bus bars, perfect insulators, and more
- Kinnison disguises--four in this book!
- Contact between the Arisians and Boskonians
- Attempts to corrupt the Lens
- Negative matter weapons
"It might be more comprehensible, although we must admit that any scientist likes to speak with precision, which he cannot do in the ordinary language of the layman."
The plot has Kim jumping from one crazy situation to the next, including a miners' resort town, weird space vortexes, strange planets, enemy bases, and more.
We get to see some more crazy medical tech, too.
There's even a little bit more of the somewhat clumsy romance with Clarissa MacDougall, including a point of reciting some Kipling.
All in all, I enjoyed it quite a bit, despite the flaws it has in common with the other books in the series (see my other reviews).
Highly recommended if you like actiony, pulpy sci-fi.
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