I Read Books: Galactic Patrol

Galactic Patrol is the third in the Lensman series, though the second published, and the first to actually bear the Lensman name. Confused? See this post. Kimball Kinnison graduates from the academy, is given a Lens (see this post) and then is given the job of capturing one of the invincible pirate ships that are closing down all trade in the galaxy. He does so, discovering the secret of cosmic energy, but the pirates are on his tail.

The first half of the novel is Kinnison’s efforts to return with the data. This takes him to a variety of strange places where he meets enemies and allies. He also gets a lead on the mysterious “Helmuth, speaking for Boskone,” and comes to the conclusion that these are not so much “pirates” as an entire enemy civilisation. As might be expected the name for galactic society, represented by the galactic council and guarded by the galactic patrol, is “Civilisation” because there is no alternative.

With the patrol now able to defeat the pirates Kinnison is made an “Unattached” or “Grey” Lensman, meaning he can work on whatever he wants. He tries to infiltrate a pirate base and track down Helmuth but it goes wrong and he barely escapes, quite badly injured. He is not a good patient. His bosses make sure that the nurses are the most suitable women for him to marry including Clarissa MacDougall a red-headed gold-fleck-eyed descendant of Virgil Samms. He’s not interested in her because he’s hurt and also because she won’t feed him proper food (beefsteak).

He goes back to Arisia to learn more about the Lens and is trained in the science of the mind so he can do a variety of ridiculous psychic things, becoming a “Second Stage” Lensman. He then tries to infiltrate the pirates – now with ships the equal of the patrol – again, succeeding when they capture a hospital ship with, of course, MacDougall aboard. He rescues her and all the nurses, gets a lead on Helmuth, and infiltrates Helmuth’s base despite the thought screens. He then drugs everyone inside  and kills Helmuth just as the Patrol’s fleet arrives. THE END

Read This: For adventure fiction with good pacing and an always escalating sense of danger and scale.
Don’t Read This: If referring to an attractive woman as a knockout, a seven-sector callout, a thionite* dream is not your thing or if passages such as the following knock you out of the story:

But above all he wanted beefsteak. He thought about it days and dreamed about it nights. One night in particular he dreamed about it—an especially luscious porterhouse, fried in butter and smothered in mushrooms—only to wake up, mouth watering, literally starved, to face again the weak tea, dry toast, and, horror of horrors, this time a flabby, pallid, flaccid Poached egg! It was the last straw.**

* Thionite is the most addictive drug in the galaxy; purple and from the extremely cool and hallucinatory planet Trenco, which Kinnison visits in the course of the story. It is this compound that he uses to drug everyone in Helmuth's base.
** This actually feels pretty real; the experience of someone who works physically and eats a lot becoming ill, inactive, and having to eat invalid food.

(Crossposted on GoodReads)