I Read Books: The Skylark of Space
He teams up with M Reynolds Crane, his friend and tennis partner who is extremely rich, and they build a spaceship. Unfortunately the lab next door had Marc DuQuesne, cold-blooded and razor smart, who uses his contacts with the corrupt World Steel to try and gain a monopoly on “X”. He builds his own spaceship and kidnaps Seaton’s fiancé. This goes wrong, but fortunately Seaton has put an “object compass” – a low powered attractor – on DuQuesne so they track him down, but end up lost in space and short of copper.
After a couple of wacky adventures they end up on a planet of green skinned* nudists, rescue the crown prince of one warring nation from another, discover that everyone is honourable and good and healthy because they practice very strict eugenics, save the good nation and get married (Crane has acquired a love interest).
They get their copper and return to Earth, DuQuesne escaping by parachute before they can hand him over to the authorities.
Like many old, pulp adventure stories this has the virtue of pace of ideas. The first ten or twelve chapters where Seaton discovers X and builds a spaceship, and DuQuesne plots, go quickly enough, but once in space it reaches breakneck speed as the various ships get caught by dead stars, find themselves on planets full of monsters and finally get caught up in a war. This isn’t to say that it’s all good, but at least if you aren’t onboard with the men talking about how well the women are holding up, there’s going to be a gunfight in the next few pages.
Read This: For fast paced space action with a fairly cool villain
Don’t Read This: For subtle, cleverly wrought prose
For Personal Reasons: I am entertained to learn that the original illustrator was named Charles Schneeman
* Or possibly the sunlight is green, maybe something of both?
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