This is the last of the Skylark books, and in true Smith style the scale is grander than ever. Seaton and Duquesne, who have long been enemies, must pool their resources and work togeather against the most formidable opponent either has ever seen - not a hostile ship, or ruler, or even a planet, but an entire galaxy militarized by the Chlorians! This has all the qualities readers have come to identify as E.E. "Doc" Smith - powerful weapons, powerful enemies, and unstoppable heros, but in this novel the character of Duquesne assumes more complexity than any other Smith character I can recall. He is definitely the most interesting - a criminal, power hungry, brilliant, yet at the same time he will never break his word, even when it could mean achieving his goals. Cold and heartless, logical to a degree unapproached by any other human character Smith wrote save Fernidad Stone, yet possessing no hatred for even his archrival, Seaton. This book is very highly recommended!

E.E. "Doc" Smith wrote space opera better than anyone before or sense. Leave your sense of disbelief behind and hop aboard the "Skylark" series! Personally, I liked "Skylark" better than Smith's other top series ("Lensmen") because it was just plain more darned fun, less pretentious, more focussed on heroic heroes and dastardly villans, not so much on cosmic concepts etc. In both series, Smith tries to top his previous book with even greater heroics (blow up a planet? a star? a galaxy?) which can lead to a problem in the later volumes. In "Valeron" Smith tries adding the fourth dimension (which makes his one-dimension characters two-dimensional, almost) which ends up being a lot of fun.

Don't read this expecting anything as deep as, say, "Star Wars" but do have fun!

(But I suggest reading the other books in the series first, starting with "The Skylark of Space"

I read this book and the following series about seven years ago, but still find myself reflecting on it all the time. I'm not really even sure why; I think it may be because the story is just really neat (sorry I can't think of a big-word term, but I think neat describes it perfectly). The main character is so perfect, masculine, and brilliant, that it's practically laughable, but for some reason, he's a hero that I'd really like to get to know. The book is a bit sexist as well - the women are smart and capable, but are nothing compared to the men. Nevertheless, all of this aside, it's just a great, entertaining story. Really good for people who are interested in a "perfect hero" sort of story.

i first read the skylark and lensmen books in 1959, i was 19 years old. i have saved them and reread them every 8 to 10 years and i enjoy them as much today as i did 43 years ago.

Brilliant scientist Richard Seaton builds the first (many times) faster than light spaceship and travels the universe with a band of friends. Along the way he saves a race of aliens, helps decimate another, rescues his girlfriend and thwarts the misdoings of his arch rival Marc DuQuesne.

This is the first E.E. Smith book I've read and I must say that for the type of book that it is, The Skylark of Space isn't too bad. Think old school comic books. It has high adventure, a smart/strong/handsome protagonist, a loyal sidekick, gee whiz technology, an extremely evil bad guy, and pretty girls. For a large part of the book, the story is fairly interesting. Smith moves the action along quickly and provides a respectable amount of tension to the drama. Even though I knew everything would turn out fine in the end, I still wanted to know how Smith would accomplish it. At a short 159 pages, it was a quick and fun diversion.

The Skylark of Space is not, however, without issues. Many of them are given: flat, completely unreal characters, rigid gender roles, featherweight science, wildly campy. I won't fault the book for these sorts of things. It's a product of its time that targeted a specific audience.

What I do want to point out is that Smith treats war very lightly. Although this book was completed in 1920, Smith revised it in 1958. It's surprising to me that even though Smith had seen the effects of two world wars, mass destruction of life is a very casual act in his book.

For those of you who aren't already huge Doc Smith fans, you'll probably enjoy this book if you know what you're getting into. Understand that it doesn't hold up very well under careful (or even casual) scrutiny. But, for what it is, Smith wrote a great book.

... There Was Doc Smith. "The Skylark of Space" was first written somewhere around the turn of the century. Some modifications were done to it before its publication in 1928, and in the 1950s Doc did some updating, but the vast majority of the story remains unchanged. "Skylark" was a revolutionary story of its time, featuring super-science, far-ranging adventure (it may be the very first story to take place beyond the bounds of the Solar System), and (for its genre) well-developed characters. Dated in many ways by today's standards, "The Skylark of Space" is still a hell of a yarn, and the spiritual ancestor of every great space adventure written since. Buy it and read it. It's a piece of SF history.

I first discovered E E 'Doc' Smith through a tatty second hand copy of this book. That introduced me to the more famous Lensman series (an influance on various modern day sci-fi, from Star Wars to Babylon 5). I read my tatty copy until it fell apart in my hands some years ago.

Anyone who loves a good heroic yarn will love this book. I totally recommend you try and find a copy. (If I don't find it first!)

Well, I'd have to disagree with the previous review -- I certainly wouldn't call these books _modern_ by any means -- charmingly dated, is more like it. With such things as "traveling through the ether" it's hard to take it seriously even without a great deal of knowledge of modern science. But they're great escapism, a lot of fun if you want light enjoyable reading and not a heavy story. Along the Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon lines. However, brace yourself for rampant sexism, and if you get too annoyed, check the date on the book and realize he was doing pretty well for the time period! I think if there's one thing that does really grate on me, though, it's Smith's tendency to heap on the superlatives -- once he invents the Best Thing Ever (tm) he then has to go and top it. After seeing this done repeatedly, it gets a little old.

Doc EE Smith's books are a series of tales about otherworld planets and a special guard force that keeps them civilized. These guard forces are like Superman with morals. They are gentlemen and the girls are ladies, in shimmering polyester resin suits! They are as modern as anything written now but the men still open doors for the ladies. There are spies and double-spies, and plenty of science fiction engineering. These stories are for the intelligent, science fiction loving, gadget oriented person. They invent all sorts of special 007 tools and use them against all the wrong in the universe. Truly a special series of stories, that you won't be afraid to let your older children read