Lensman

The first installment in the groundbreaking Lensman series, one of the greatest space opera sagas of all time. Nevia, located many light years from the Earth's sun, is running out of iron, the primary source of energy for the planet's dominant amphibious race. Armed with technology that can extract iron atoms from anything it encounters - rock, machinery, man-made structures, even human blood - the Nevians set their sights on a rich lode of the precious element: the planet Earth. Descending on its unsuspecting target, the Nevian space-ship destroys the city of Pittsburgh and its defenseless inhabitants before heading home with three human specimens in its hold. Among them is Conway Costigan, an undercover intelligence operative for the Triplanetary Patrol. From deep within the bowels of the enemy ship, Costigan must do the impossible: find a way to defeat the Nevians before every man, woman, and child on Earth is annihilated. Known as the "father of space opera," E. E. "Doc" Smith imagined remarkable future worlds and breathtaking intergalactic battles before the heyday of Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov, and decades before Star Wars and Star Trek became part of the popular culture. His best-known work, the Lensman series, was one of five finalists for the Hugo Award for Best All-Time Series.

Kimball Kinnison is one of the greatest Lensman to ever live. Galactic Patrol follows his early career and his rise to prominence. The Boskonians are the most feared pirates in the galaxy. Their ships are much faster than almost anything the Galactic Patrol posses. The one exception is their new experimental ship the Britannia. Built to be the fastest ship in space, she has abandoned the traditional ray armament of a star ship for weapons much older - explosive artillery. Her mission is to capture a Boskonian ship intact so that the Lensman my find the secret to the Boskonin phenomenal speed. The experimental nature of the Britannia's weapon means that she would be useless to a man experienced only in using the standard weapons of the time, so she is given to the inexperienced Kinnison to command and a legend is born!

Kimball Kinnison, the greatest Lensman of his day, is on a mission to destroy the dreaded space pirates known as the Boskone. The Boskonians are set on complete conquest of the civilized worlds. Their strongholds are shielded from the Lensman by impenetrable thought screens. Kinnison is up to the task, but what he doesn't know is that Boskone's influence reaches all way into his beloved Galactic Patrol. Will he discover this before it's too late. A grand adventure from the father of Space Opera.

Book 5 of the Lensman series. Kimball Kinnison and Clarissa MacDougall, two of finest lensman to ever live, plan to get married, but first they must come up with a plan to keep Earth safe from the Boskonians. It will take all the Lensmans' skills and training to keep humanity safe. A rollicking Space opera!

Book 6 of the Lensman series. Galactic Co-ordinator Kimball Kinnison finished his second cup of Tellurian coffee, got up from the breakfast table, and prowled about in black abstraction. Twenty-odd years had changed him but little. He weighed the same, or a few pounds less; although a little of his mass had shifted downward from his mighty chest and shoulders. His hair was still brown, his stern face was only faintly lined. He was mature, with a conscious maturity which no young man can know. Epic space opera awates.

Neal "Storm" Cloud failed his Lensman exam, But life has a strange way of making heroes of even those who sometimes fail. Cloud's family is tragically killed when a misguided attempt to blow out a vortex lands one of the fragments right on his house. Devastated by the loss of his family, Cloud takes a leave of absence from the Radiation Lab where he works studying the vortices. As he drives he is struck with an idea for "blowing out" a vortex. It is slightly technical (Smith explains it so it can be easily followed), 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 how big an explosive is needed, then hit it with a bomb that is set at the exact strength to actually extinguish the vortex instead of blowing it apart and making more vortices. As it continues the book tells of Cloud's new job as the universe's one and only vortex blaster. This job takes him from planet to planet where he blows out vortices, matches wits against drug dealers and gangsters, meets new life forms, and acquires a crew for his small scout ship. His adventures are many and varied, and the lifeforms he meets are strange and interesting.