On 13/12/2010 15:09, Kathryn Huxtable wrote:
> On 2010-12-12 23:53:57 -0600, jjs{at}xmission.com said:
>
>> On 12/12/2010 9:45 AM, Kathryn Huxtable wrote:
>>> On 2010-12-10 21:14:36 -0600, Andrew Swallow said:
>>>
>>
>>
>>> I really love the Lensman series, but I consider it a guilty pleasure.
>>> The books are horribly dated and Smith's writing is, frankly, not that
>>> good.
>>
>> I have only read Triplanetary. I found it hard to get through. "not
>> that good" doesn't begin to cover it. "Horribly
dated" is accurate
>> however.
>>
>> It exhibited consistency on a level I have only seen in Plan 9 from
>> Outer Space.
>>
>>> I'd buy them again if they were available for the Kindle. (I have mass
>>> market copies from the 1970s and trade paperbacks from Old Earth Books
>>> that I purchased sometime this century.)
>>>
>>> While I would certainly go see a movie production of the series, it just
>>> seems a bit odd as a project to do. I have a hard time believing that
>>> anyone raised after about 1980 could get into them.
>>
>> I was raised way before 1980 and still found Triplanetary so dated
>> that finishing it could only be described as a struggle.
>
> Well, Triplanetary was shoehorned into the Lensman series after the
> fact. The main Lensman series are _Galactic Patrol_, _Gray Lensman_,
> _Second Stage Lensmen_, and _Children of the Lens_. These are what, I
> gather, JMS has been adapting. The writing is better in them than in
> Triplanetary.
>
> Yes, the writing will not affect the adaptation, but many other things
> in the background are dated. I suppose that they're not essential and
> can be changed in a screenplay, but the whole multi-generational battle
> between "freedom" and "dictatorship" might not
play that well. Then
> again, it might.

The Cold War went on for generations.  The 9/11 war has passed nine years.

Andrew Swallow
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