Triplanetary: Science Fiction Stories
About this ebook
Two thousand million or so years ago two galaxies were colliding; or, rather, were passing through each other. A couple of hundreds of millions of years either way do not matter, since at least that much time was required for the inter-passage. At about that same time—within the same plus-or-minus ten percent margin of error, it is believed—practically all of the suns of both those galaxies became possessed of planets.
There is much evidence to support the belief that it was not merely a coincidence that so many planets came into being at about the same time as the galactic inter-passage. Another school of thought holds that it was pure coincidence; that all suns have planets as naturally and as inevitably as cats have kittens.
Be that as it may, Arisian records are clear upon the point that before the two galaxies began to coalesce, there were never more than three solar systems present in either; and usually only one. Thus, when the sun of the planet upon which their race originated grew old and cool, the Arisians were hard put to it to preserve their culture, since they had to work against time in solving the engineering problems associated with moving a planet from an older to a younger sun.
Since nothing material was destroyed when the Eddorians were forced into the next plane of existence, their historical records also have become available. Those records—folios and tapes and playable discs of platinum alloy, resistant indefinitely even to Eddore's noxious atmosphere—agree with those of the Arisians upon this point. Immediately before the Coalescence began there was one, and only one, planetary solar system in the Second Galaxy; and, until the advent of Eddore, the Second Galaxy was entirely devoid of intelligent life.
Thus for millions upon untold millions of years the two races, each the sole intelligent life of a galaxy, perhaps of an entire space-time continuum, remained completely in ignorance of each other. Both were already ancient at the time of the Coalescence. The only other respect in which the two were similar, however, was in the possession of minds of power...
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About the author
Edward Elmer Smith PhD (also E. E. Smith, E. E. "Doc" Smith, Doc Smith, "Skylark" Smith, or—to his family—Ted) (May 2, 1890 – August 31, 1965) was an American food engineer (specializing in doughnut and pastry mixes) and early science fiction author, best known for the Lensman and Skylark series. He is sometimes called the father of space opera.
In 1919 Smith was hired as chief chemist for F. W. Stock & Sons of Hillsdale, Michigan, at one time the largest family-owned mill east of the Mississippi, working on doughnut mixes.
One evening late in 1919, after moving to Michigan, Smith was baby-sitting (presumably for Roderick) while his wife attended a movie; he resumed work on The Skylark of Space, finishing it in the spring of 1920. He submitted it to many book publishers and magazines, spending more in postage than he would eventually receive for its publication. Bob Davis, editor of Argosy, sent an encouraging rejection letter in 1922, saying that he liked the novel personally, but that it was too far out for his readers.(According to Warner, but no other source, Smith began work on the sequel, Skylark III, before the first book was accepted.) Finally, upon seeing the April 1927 issue of Amazing Stories, he submitted it to that magazine; it was accepted, initially for $75, later raised to $125. It was published as a three-part serial in the August to October 1928 issues and it was such a success that managing editor Sloane requested a sequel before the second installment had been published.
