Children of the Lens (novel)

Children of the Lens
Dust-jacket from the first edition
Author(s)	Edward E. Smith, Ph.D.
Illustrator	Ric Binkley
Cover artist	Ric Binkley
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Lensman series
Genre(s)	Science fiction novel
Publisher	Fantasy Press
Publication date	1954
Media type	Print (Hardback)
Pages	293 pp
ISBN	NA
OCLC Number	1225830
Preceded by	Second Stage Lensmen

Children of the Lens is a science fiction novel by author Edward E. Smith, Ph.D.. It was first published in book form in 1954 by Fantasy Press in an edition of 4,874 copies. It is the last book in Smith's Lensman series. The novel was originally serialized in the magazine Astounding beginning in 1947. Astounding editor John W. Campbell Jr. was reportedly reluctant to publish the novel, finding it antiquated, but was convinced to run it by a well-known sf fan named Edward Wood.^[1]

The Children of the Lens are the culmination of the Arisian breeding program, and are to be their weapons in the final assault on Eddore. This book introduces the five Kinnison children. Born with the abilities that Second Stage Lensmen possess only through years of intensive training, they become the Third Stage Lensmen with abilities that even the Arisians don't fully understand. Here, battles between massive fleets and super-weapons no longer have the main role. The battles may be just as intense, but most are more low keyed, with brains and subtle maneuvering being more important than who has the biggest fleets and most powerful weapons.

Plot synopsis

Children of the Lens is the sixth and final book in the classic Lensman series. This story takes place twenty years after the close of Second Stage Lensmen, and focuses on the five children of Kimball and Clarissa Kinnison: a boy and two pairs of fraternal twin girls. As Kimball and Clarissa are both Lensmen, their offspring are dubbed the "Children of the Lens". They are also, it turns out, the ultimate product of a two billion year long Arisian breeding program that has molded them into "third level" minds with such potential power that not even the Arisians themselves fully understand their capabilities.

The story of the "Children" is intertwined with the story of the five Second Stage Lensmen: Kimball, Worsel, Nadreck, Tregonsee, and Clarissa (who becomes a Second Stage Lensman {Lenswoman?} during this story). Spurred into action by a series of seeming untraceable terrorist attacks, and other unexplainable events in both the First and Second Galaxy, Kimball asks the other Second Stage Lensmen to help him trace down the source of the troubles. Each of these Lensmen, of course, rushes to his aid and each pursues the task from a different angle. Each of the Second Stage Lensmen is more or less covertly assisted by one of the Children. An interesting twist on the previous books is that the Second Stage Lensmen pretty much do all the same things they did before: Kimball is energetic and direct, Nadreck is cautious and thorough, Clarissa gets sent to Lyrane II again (she is the only Lensman who has any chance at all of influencing the matriarchs), and so on. Despite acting in ways similar to means they used in their successful missions in the earlier books, the Second Stage Lensmen seem unable to get a grip on the problems this time. We get to view events, at least partly, from the vantage point of the youthful "Third Stage" Lensmen who are helping them. Eventually, one at a time, each of the Children realizes that they need additional training, and travel to Arisia to meet with Mentor and obtain "Third Stage" training, after which each is able to help their Lensman complete his self-assigned mission, which leads all of them to essentially the same conclusion: the hitherto unknown planet of Ploor is the location of the race controlling the remnants of Boskone.

As with the other books in the series, the technology in this book far surpasses the technology of the previous books. Whereas in earlier books free planets were set astride target planets and used like giant “nut-crackers” or negative energy "negaspheres" were the ultimate in weaponry, unique items constructed with great difficulty, in Children of the Lens these weapons are deployed in the hundreds by both sides. Eddore finally develops its own version of the Lens, permitting the creation of "Black Lensmen" who, because of the basic flaws in the way the Eddorians deal with their subject races, turn out to be a surprisingly ineffective and are dismissed as not being a major threat. The hyperspace tubes, rare in earlier books, are now the standard way to insert an invading fleet into enemy territory. Not only are the massive fleets of Civilization equipped with "primary" and "secondary" beam weapons, they now have super-atomic (total conversion of mass to energy) bombs, also deployed by the thousands. The Patrol eventually revisits (see Ch. 17, Second Stage Lensmen) the strange tachyonic alternate universe called "Nth space", where nothing goes slower than light. There they render two superluminal planets "free" to use as the ultimate weapons in destroying both Ploor and its sun. Soon two Patrol hyperspace tubes open, one aimed at Ploor and another one aimed at its sun. The Ploorians are confident that their world's defences are powerful enough to handle anything the Patrol can throw at them. Then two planets traveling faster than light erupt from the ends of the tubes and strike the planet and its sun. Even Mentor is unsure of what actually happened then, but the Ploorian solar system simply ceased to exist.

After the destruction of Ploor, Mentor of Arisia alerts the Children of the threat of Eddore (and only the Children, this knowledge is apparently too dangerous for any minds below the third level of development to handle), pointing out that unless they are dealt with quickly, they too will figure out the secret of obtaining superluminal planet busters and destroy Arisia, Earth, and Klovia in short order. The Eddorians must be destroyed immediately.

Mentor sends out a call to every living Lensman and using the combined mental energy of all the Lensmen in two galaxies, the entire Arisian race, and the Children of the Lens they prepare to launch a mental bolt against the Eddorians. The Children have learned to form a 5-fold super-mind called “The Unit”. This was what the long Arisian breeding program was trying to achieve. “The Unit” is so advanced that even the Arisians don't know what it is capable of doing.

The mental bolt with the massed power of every Lensman, every Arisian, and the Children of the Lens, behind it and guided by “The Unit” strikes, and penetrates, Eddore's defenses. With the failure of those defenses, the ancient enemies of Civilization are defeated and cease to exist. The long struggle against the Eddore is finally over. At this point, Mentor reveals that the Arisians are passing on to the next plane of existence, their job as the guardians of Civilization finished. They have succeeded in developing a race far better than they to protect the galaxies, the Kinnison children. With this statement, the voice of Mentor, the last Arisian, fades and they are gone.

Finally, in an epilogue, Kit Kinnison leaves a message in a time capsule for a future Civilization, presumably under threat from a new enemy, but so far in the future that the events of the long struggle between Civilization and Boskone may have been forgotten. This message tells the story of the war against Boskone and tells how to contact the Children of the Lens. This ends the story of the Children of the Lens and it is a satisfying conclusion to one of the seminal works of science fiction.

Reception

While Galaxy reviewer Groff Conklin faulted the novel for its "style varying from the irritating to the infantile" and "its characters [not] much more than cardboard cutouts," he acknowledged that the Lensman series, "a sort of overblown fairy tales for modern juveniles," was "a pretty solid achievement."^[2] Anthony Boucher, saying that he found Smith's works unreadable, nevertheless noted that "I know a number of rational people who insist that they represent the acme of hypergalactic adventure."^[3] P. Schuyler Miller noted that even though "by this time superlatives have exhausted superlatives in the intergalactic slugging match between Good and Evil." Smith managed to remain convincing to his readers.^[4]

Sequels

In “Larger Than Life,” a tribute to E.E. Smith written by Robert A. Heinlein, and included in his Expanded Universe, Heinlein wrote:

The Lensman [series] was left unfinished. There was to have been at least a seventh volume. As always, Doc had worked it out in great detail, but never (so far as I know) wrote it down because it was unpublishable then. But he told me the ending orally and in private.

I shan't repeat it, it is not my story. Possibly somewhere there is a manuscript, I hope so! All I will say is that the ending develops by inescapable logic from clues in Children of the Lens.

In Children of the Lens it is made clear that as a result of the Arisian breeding program that resulted in the Children of the Lens they can no longer be considered Homo Sapiens. Their lifespan is at least thousands of years, if not longer. Their minds are superior to even the Arisians and they have powers that even the Arisians could never fully understand. In these five, all bad traits, all defects, all possible genetic problems, have been removed by the Arisian breeding project. The five Children of the Lens are the only existing members of their species. In the story one of the Kinnison girls was thinking about marriage and children, and thinking that she could never have the slightest interest in any man not at least the equal of her father. She also dreamed of finding a mate that was her equal. An aside in the narrative brought up the facts that although she didn't realize it yet, there already existed a man that was her equal in every way, referring to her brother!

So now we have the clues to the unpublishable seventh book. The Children of the Lens are no longer Homo Sapiens so they probably can't have children with humans. The new species consists of only one male and four females. They are free of all bad physical and mental traits and defects, including genetic defects. And psychologically, they are not attracted to anyone not at least their equal. The answer the “inescapable logic” in Heinlein's statement above seems to lead us to is that they will have to interbreed with each other if this new species is to continue past their lifetimes. Since Children of the Lens was published in the fifties it is easy to see why this story line would be considered unpublishable! ^[5]

Publication history

• 1947, USA, Astounding, Pub date November 1947, serialized magazine publication in 4 parts
• 1954, USA, Fantasy Press, Pub date 1953, Hardback
• 1961, Germany, Zimmermann, Pub Date 1961, Hardback, as Das Erbe der Lens
• 1966, USA, Pyramid Books, Pub date 1966, Paperback
• 1997, UK, Ripping Publishing ISBN 1-899884-21-1, Pub date August 1997, Paperback
• 1998, USA, Old Earth Books ISBN 1-882968-14-X, Pub date December 1998, Paperback

References

1. ^ Mike Resnick, Always A Fan, Wildside Press, 2009, p.131-32
2. ^ "Galaxy's 5 Star Shelf", Galaxy Science Fiction, March 1955, p.123
3. ^ "Recommended Reading," F&SF, January 1955, p.96.
4. ^ "The Reference Library", Astounding Science Fiction, May 1955, p.142
5. ^ The Universes of E.E. Smith, Advent:Publishers, 1066, p.104

• Chalker, Jack L.; Mark Owings (1998). The Science-Fantasy Publishers: A Bibliographic History, 1923-1998. Westminster, MD and Baltimore: Mirage Press, Ltd.. pp. 239–240. 
• Brown, Charles N.; William G. Contento. "The Locus Index to Science Fiction (1984-1998)". http://www.locusmag.com/index/b442.htm#A6442. Retrieved 2008-03-05. 
• Tuck, Donald H. (1978). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent. pp. 397. ISBN 0-911682-22-8. 
• Ellik, Ron and Bill Evans (1966). The Universes of E.E. Smith. Chicago: Advent:Publishers. ISBN 0911682031. 

External links

• Children of the Lens (novel) publication history at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database