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Grey Lensman

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Ed Emshwiller, cover art for "Skylark of Valeron", by Doc E.E. Smith, 1963

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The Pulp Scifi Lost Media Holy Grail

Somewhere, in the hands of the Jeannie and Clarissa MacDougal-Smith Estate in Clearwater, Florida, there is a yellowed, dusty manuscript that is the finale and final chapter of the most ambitious science fiction series of all time, which remains totally unseen and unpublished, because it was too incendiary for the morals of the Victorian public of the 1940s.

I’m talking about E.E. Smith’s Lensman space opera series. The first massive, ambitious space opera series written over several books, the Lensman novels are huge books of apocalyptically massive grandeur. Their biggest contribution to popular culture is the visual of space marines in power armor, which dates back to his Valerians, giants raised on a hostile high-gravity world. But Lensman was filled with tremendous imagery. His stories have things like the Ultra-Spacial Tube, which transports an armada of millions of starships of Galactic Civilization from one galaxy to another…if they survive. The mental battles in this series have parried mind blows that end up killing hundreds of bystanders. There is Helmuth, Speaker for Boskone, a pirate leader and supreme strategist with glowing blue skin who may be one of the most terrifying, strategic, and intellectual villains in science fiction. The Hell Hole in Space, from which no living thing ever returns. Creatures like the dragon-like Velantians, the torture chambers of the Overlords of Delgon, and the supremely demonic Eich, malevolent geniuses who breathe freezing poison gases. The finale involved millions of Lensmen all over the galaxy activating their lens devices to merge their minds into a single supreme mentality for a final battle.

Lensman was up for the “Best Series” Hugo, but ended up losing to Foundation…barely. Smith not only predicted the future, but did so in his own time: Admiral Nimitz wrote a letter to Astounding where he acknowledged that the US Navy read Smith and used his idea of the Directrix at the Battle of Medon (which liberated that world in the Second Galaxy) inspired the “Combat Information Centers” used during the Battle of Midway in World War II.

At the end of the “final” book, Children of the Lens, Christopher Kinnison wrote a flask of force, which he addressed to whoever would resolve the new crisis that faces Galactic Civilization:

“To you who have scanned this report, further greetings. Since I who compiled it am only a youth, a Guardian only by title, and hence unable to visualize even approximately the either the time or the necessity for the opening of this flash of force, I have no idea as to the bodily shape or the mental attainment of you, to whom it has now been made available. You already know that civilization Is again threatened seriously. You probably know something of the basic nature of this threat. When studying this tape, you have become informed that the situation is sufficiently grave to force certain selected minds prematurely into the third level of Lensmanship. One of us will be en rapport with you as soon as you have assimilated the facts, connotations, and the implications of this material. Prepare your mind for contact.”

And that’s where the series ends, and has since Children was published in the 1940s. We are never clear who it is who finds Christopher Kinnison’s Flask of Force.

One thing is absolutely clear: a manuscript for the finale of the Lensman series exists. It has been written. One man, Robert A. Heinlein, friend of E.E. Smith, has read it (Heinlein was such a huge fan of Smith that he even put a Lensman in his stories, “the Cat Who Walks Through Walls” and “Number of the Beast”). Heinlein said that it is “unpublishable by the standards of the time.” This is a fascinating comment that implies that Smith held back publishing the final Lensman because of social standards. Which leads one to believe that it may have incendiary content a 1940s audience would not make sense of.

(By the way, in case you’re wondering, this series IS where my avatar picture comes from, of Gray Lensman Kimball Kinnison.)

Smith’s widow (deeply protective of his legacy) is alive, and his children are alive. It is almost assured that they have the manuscript in their possession somewhere, as they take care of Smith’s papers carefully and thoroughly.

The finale of one of the biggest series in scifi history’s waited 80 years to be published, and I hope I live to see it in my lifetime.

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