Doomed Lensmen
Series: Lensman fan fiction
Reviewed date: 2004 Jan 6
80 pages
Sybly White is a pen name of Lee Gold
Doomed Lensmen investigates what might have happened after the conclusion of E. E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman series. I don't recall if Doomed Lensmen is an authorized story or not, but seeing as it's published online I'm guessing it's not. But in any case, it picks up where the Lensman series left off.
Doomed Lensmen isn't written as great literature; it's written in the same style as the Lensman books, and basically the whole point is to have fun in the Lensman universe. And boy oh boy, do we have fun. It's been some years since I last read the Lensman series, but this novella is so much fun I almost squealed out loud several times. It's certainly not a perfect book. It's not great literature, it's not extremely well-written (but then, neither were the Lensman books) and it's certainly not believable by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a blast.
Basically, if you're a fan of E. E. "Doc" Smith and of the Lensman series in particular, read this story. If not, this story will mean nothing to you.
I must warn you, you have to have read pretty much all of E. E. "Doc" Smith's works, not just the Lensman series, in order to fully enjoy Doomed Lensmen. Although Doomed Lensmen is set in the Lensman universe, the author throws in plenty of references to other books. You must at least have read the Lensman series, Masters of the Vortex, the Skylark series, and probably Spacehounds of IPC to fully enjoy Doomed Lensmen.
One more thing I should mention: this is a novella, and it's short. It took me between and hour and two hours to read it. So if you read it and don't like it, you haven't wasted much time. But please please don't ruin it and read it before you've read the books I mentioned above. Does the word "spoilers" mean anything to you? Just follow my advice and things will all work out.