ospalh reviewed Triplanetary by E. E. "Doc" Smith
Review of 'Triplanetary' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
Gave up after 1½ chapters of “Triplanetary” proper, starting with the space pirates chapter.
•The writing is over the top and so not my style.
•The said-bookism is hilariously bad.
•But the clincher for me was how callously the “heros” murder their opponents. “(W)hen they were forced to fight (hand-to-hand) they went in with but one grim purpose - to kill, and to kill in the shortest possible space of time.” After the hero killed a guy by smashing his head with his boot, he doesn’t bother with hand-to-hand combat any more and just shoots and kills anybody they meet on their way to get more powerful weapons.
Back to the said-bookism. Here a list of dialogue tags, used where you should just say “said”:
•demanded
•roared
•snapped
•returned
•barked
•ordered
•continued
•declared
•gasped
•snapped
•rejoiced
•exclaimed
•gritted
Gritted? What? Did the equipment the bad guys let the prisoners keep …
Gave up after 1½ chapters of “Triplanetary” proper, starting with the space pirates chapter.
•The writing is over the top and so not my style.
•The said-bookism is hilariously bad.
•But the clincher for me was how callously the “heros” murder their opponents. “(W)hen they were forced to fight (hand-to-hand) they went in with but one grim purpose - to kill, and to kill in the shortest possible space of time.” After the hero killed a guy by smashing his head with his boot, he doesn’t bother with hand-to-hand combat any more and just shoots and kills anybody they meet on their way to get more powerful weapons.
Back to the said-bookism. Here a list of dialogue tags, used where you should just say “said”:
•demanded
•roared
•snapped
•returned
•barked
•ordered
•continued
•declared
•gasped
•snapped
•rejoiced
•exclaimed
•gritted
Gritted? What? Did the equipment the bad guys let the prisoners keep include a grit bin? Was there ice in his cell and he had slipped on it?
Also, it’s largely an idiot plot. Why TF did the captors let the heroes keep their equipment when they locked them up? Why not strip them naked and give them prison clothes?
Why? Because then they wouldn’t have been able to escape and there would have been no story after that.
Also, this Librivox version is the pure space opera. I just remembered that i tried to read the Project Gutenberg version earlier, with the setup chapters tacked on at the front. That got a much bigger “didn’t finish”. I read a page or two about colliding galaxies, went “huh?” and put it down. There’s something to be said to start in medias res, at least for a space opera.
