Masters of Space

E. E. "Doc" Smith, E. Everett Evans
Masters of Space Cover

Tom Swift Meets Ozzie and Harriet

sdlotu
6/15/2021
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Oh my this is awful. Well, the story itself isn't that bad.

But the language.

And the patriarchalism

And the misogyny.

This story is drowning in tired, obsolete and offensive clichés, so deep that a Tom Swift book is nearly Shakespeare in comparison.

One third of the story is women behaving in the most outrageously flirtatious, seductive and submissive way possible even though they are PhD scientists and project leaders. Of course, each one is stunningly beautiful and sexy.

One third of the story is the main character trying to figure out what to do with the situation he finds himself in, and miraculously setting on the perfiect idea which everyone immediately, enthusiastically and inexplicably agrees with and supports him in.

The remaining third of the book is about a planet of abandoned androids under attack by a malevolent race of non-coporeal super beings bent on conquest of the galaxy, and the unexpected twists and turns it takes the humans to figure out how to resolve it.

if you want to see a perfect example of why the New Wave of SF was so necessary in the 1960s, you will be hard pressed to find a work more demonatrative of the depths to which SF had declined.

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