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1 internautes sur 1 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
2.0étoiles sur 5
The grand-daddy of all galactic royal rumbles!, Aoû 10 2007
Two civilizations, the Arisians and the Eddorians, old beyond imagining and evolved to the point where their mental skills alone command energy and forces that are unthinkable for lesser species such as humans from our beloved Earth or even the reptilian Nevians, battle for dominance of the universe. In "Triplanetary", Doc Smith has left no room for doubt concerning the identity of the "good guys" versus the "bad guys". The Eddorians, quintessentially and unabashedly evil, have set themselves a modest but extraordinarily clear mission - "to tear down and destroy every bulwark of what the weak and spineless adherents of Civilization consider the finest things in life - love, truth, honor, loyalty, purity, altruism, decency and so on." The Arisians, of course, represent all of those virtues which the Eddorians are so bent on removing from the Universe.
"Triplanetary" is the grand-daddy of all space opera adventure novels - a non-stop, red hot action-oriented, plot driven space battle that is a positively orgasmic geekfest of techno-babble on steroids. One need only read a single chapter to envision the origins of the special effects in modern movie and television versions of Star Trek, Babylon 5, Andromeda or Battlestar Galactica. If you like your battles hot, your villains ugly and nasty, and your heroes manly (how could a hunk named "Conway Costigan" be anything but a two-fisted, steely-eyed man's man?), then you'll probably enjoy "Triplanetary"!
On this basis alone, "Triplanetary" is probably worth reading as the acknowledged progenitor of every space war novel that was ever written. One could even make a very strong case that Steven Spielberg, Gene Roddenberry and the entire world of special effects in visual media owe much to Smith's fertile imagination!
But does "Triplanetary" deserve membership in a library of what we now call science fiction classics? I think not. There is so much wrong with "Triplanetary" on the literary side, it's really quite difficult to know where to start.
Other than cartoonish heroic stereotypes, character development is negligible. Dialogue is stilted and the romantic interludes, in particular, are so trite as to be laughable. The raging purple prose is so positively brimful of superlatives and absolutes that one wonders how any progress was made at all, any goal achieved or any enemy defeated - barriers were impassable, obstacles were insurmountable, chances of success were only one in numberless millions, beams of destruction were relentless, forces were cataclysmic, objects were immovable, tractor beams were irresistible - well, it just got tiresome because this was the nature of the entire novel. Science, even as it was known at the time, was effectively ignored and technology in the novel crossed the line from imaginative into purely fantasy.
Recommended as a fast, enjoyable read from the standpoint of understanding the roots and growth of science fiction as a genre. But the novel has not stood the test of time and is weak gruel indeed compared to many of its contemporaries.
Paul Weiss
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3.0étoiles sur 5
White Supremacy!!, Mars 4 2004
Par Un client
The white race is not only better than all other races on earth, they're actually better than all other races everywhere in the Galaxy!! Bravo for them.Fighting past that and the grade school dialogue, the stories are fast paced and quite enjoyable. It is pure pulp fiction and at times you almost have to stop reading to catch your breath. Its ok that the science isnt perfect, you have to excuse these things reading a book that's over 50 years old, and my only problems are the blatant racism and sexism that pervade throughout the series. Without those problems I would have given it 5 stars.
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3.0étoiles sur 5
Great Escapism Coupled to Some Ugly Flaws, Jui 20 2003
It is impossible for me to approach this series with anything but mixed feelings. I first read it decades ago, and it was written even earlier, between the two world wars when Captain America seemed something more than cardboard. This series hooked me on a lifelong addiction to science fiction, so I cannot view it impassively. It will always be associated with pleasant discoveries.This series arouses so much nostalgia in readers that any criticism of it risks sending my review ratings into the toilet. However, maturity compels me to critique it honestly, and the light of objectivity reveals some harsh and ugly flaws. First, the good stuff. This is an unpretentious series entirely devoted to plot. The superficiality of the characters doesn't detract. Nor do the simplistic, cartoon-like settings. The story barrels along like a runaway train, and performs admirably as escapist adventure fare. Think Buck Rogers meets Conan the Barbarian. And because it doesn't pretend to depth and doesn't employ any artifice, the simple-minded nature of the story is actually quite engaging. Moreover, the cheesy dialogue and the hammy characterizations are a lot of fun, adding to the Buck Rogers like feel. But the series is also deeply disturbing. As a product of its era, it is burdened with the baggage of its insular xenophobia. Its rah-rah jingoism is not only grating, but troubling, especially in light of the fruits that such jingoism has since borne. Mindless chauvinism may be tolerable in dime novels, but not in science fiction, a genre that has always worked to expand horizons and promote a higher awareness. Here, the setting aside, we might as well be reading a comic book. These books do not invite us to think. The good guys are obvious in the crudest sense of the word. The bad guys, even more so. And the death, genocide and mass exterminations that course through the series are all excused on the implicit understanding that bad guys deserve to die and good guys deserve to do the killing. I have heard this series referred to as a "classic of the genre" When I compare it to true classics of the genre like, 2001, Dune, Foundation, or Fahrenheit 451, where every loss is real and where death leads to anguished soul-searching, I cannot help but shudder at how utterly callow this series is. If you think of science fiction as nothing more than pulp fiction in an unconventional setting, and you are prepared to discard your moral compass, then this series is a great action flick with its requisite allotment of pyrotechnics and mega-death. The good guys [prevail] while the bad guys get squashed like bugs. But if you consider science fiction to be something more than mindless fluff, if you expect it to engage you with a higher set of ethical values and touch upon the larger themes in life, then this series is a failure. One thing is certain: despite its pioneering pedigree and its many firsts, a "classic" it most assuredly is not.
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