Download the EPUB from Project Gutenberg
I first read this, and the sequels, and everything else E.E. “Doc” Smith wrote, at the age of 11 or so in the form of battered 70s paperback re-issues my Uncle Lee had. Loved them. The plot moved at the speed of fake science. Whole technologies were summoned at the flick of a switch, and later at the thunk of a thought. I just looked and it turns out you can read Skylark of Space on Project Gutenberg right now right here. Here are the other formats, including epubs and Kindle.
I stole this image from Golden Age Comic Book Stories, a great blog of great art that I follow, and you should too if you like this.
Skylark of Space was originally serialized in 1928. Back then it looks like “rays” were the go-to concept for doing unexplainable shit. I guess this is following on from X-rays, alpha-rays, gamma-rays, as well as radio waves. Cyclotrons, synchrotrons, all the -trons, were getting bigger and stronger all the time. Rays were mysterious natural phenomena humans could make for themselves. The future was wide open and there was an entire Greek alphabet to extrapolate along. It required no great intellect to realize that there must exist a specific ray to do anything you want, you just need to find it.
The mechanical age was merging with the electrical age. The atomic age was gestating in the belly of the cyclotrons, but was still almost twenty years away.
Rays were invisible ballistics. Infinite magazines of lead free bullets, perfect guns, perfect cannons, and much more. “Rays” were immaterial, but they affected the material world, blasting holes, pushing ships, pulling ships, manipulation from a distance without physical contact. Not unlike radio.
We had to give up on rays right as the atomic age began. We learned rays resulted in radiation, and radiation was deadly. Good-bye rays, good-bye plot device.
But now we have AI because, you know, computers can do anything. I prefer rays.
