The Best Book Ever Written Anywhere By Anybody Ever Period!
Posted: Monday, October 10, 2011
by Al Case
http://www.alcasebooks.com/
Oh lard, the best book ever written, Eh? Well, That’s easy. Better than Common Sense, better than Gods of Eden, better than those stupid books they make you read in school...the Lensmen Series.
I was 15, dragged on vacation, and had nothing to do. I was staying at my uncle’s house, and he was a bit loony. Had a heart attack, so the doctor told him to go running...so he ran in circles in his attic a half hour every day. Looney.
That is not to say he wasn’t smart--don’t worry about the book, I’m getting there--‘cause he was smart. Took Larry Evans to the mat. Who was Larry Evans? US Chess champion back then.
Anyway, this looney, who played world class chess and ran in his attic had another interest, he liked to read, and he specifically liked to read...sci fi.
In his attic, shoved to the side (so he could run) crammed into book shelves, he had magazines with odd names. Astounding, Amazing, Fantastic...sci fi. They were falling apart because they had been made out of raw trees. Pulp stuff, you know? And he had thousands and gazillions of the things.
Anyway, bored out of my mind, I went up to the attic and looked for a good book to read. Nothing but those old pulps, and I had read most of those, so I decided to go hunting. I crawled behind the book shelves and burrowed into the Forgotten Zone. Books that had not been read in decades, shoved out of sight and out of mind.
I dug through the boxes, tossing mags and hard bounds to the sides. Heck, no pictures, no cartoons, how boring!
And then, in the very last box, at the very bottom (I swear, it really was the last book in the whole place), I lifted out a hard bound. Funny looking picture of a spaceman with motorcycle goggles on the front. ‘The Grey Lensman.’
I hefted it. Weighed like a good read, so I took it. And for those of you who scoff, it has always been my theory that the heaviest books are the best reads, and they usually are.
I opened the book, and was gone. Page one, chapter one, word one...gone.
Interplanetary intrigue. Villains from beyond space and time. Mental powers that...YOU COULD LEAVE YOUR BODY? YOU COULD FREAKIN’ LEAVE YOUR BODY? And still see everything? And see more? And have vast mental battles with alien beings with different shaped minds who wanted to put doorstops in your oblong medulla?
Oh, man. I was really gone.
That year, when I got back to school, I would stay up late and read and reread the lensmen series. Yep, series...there was six of the books!
I was near flunking out in English and history and all those piddling subjects, and the science teacher couldn’t get me to look up ‘dinosaur,’ and I couldn’t stay awake in school because...I had been up till five in the morning reading and rereading the Lensmen series!
That was my education, not cutting open frogs in biology, but wondering whether Worsel, a snake imbedded with a fantastic mind enhancing device, could come to grips with the Overlords of Delgon.
And, wondering whether Tregonsee, a barrel of oil with tentacles, could manage to harvest the deadliest drug in the world...for the good guys!
And, whether it was really possible to fuse your mind with a like mind and increase your powers ten fold.
Years later, though I barely got out of high school, I managed to survive in college (at least for a while). Calculus, you see, reminded me of the higher mathematics necessary to Lensman training.
And, in physics, I seemed a natural, because learning how to measure the universe is simple stuff when you’ve mastered inertialess flight well enough to navigate galaxies.
And, when I began studying the martial arts, I understood flux theories of energy well enough to understand chi energy, and all because I had been privy to the science of how to fight on the outside of a spaceship when there is no gravity. (Hook your feet under the hand grips, assume a horse stance, and swing that space ax!)
So, favorite book of all time? The Lensmen series by E. E. Smith, Phd. Not only is it an intergalactic adventure, a romp through history, a revelation of cultural motivations...but it is good enough to make a boy learn, and want to learn more.
I was 15, dragged on vacation, and had nothing to do. I was staying at my uncle’s house, and he was a bit loony. Had a heart attack, so the doctor told him to go running...so he ran in circles in his attic a half hour every day. Looney.
Anyway, this looney, who played world class chess and ran in his attic had another interest, he liked to read, and he specifically liked to read...sci fi.
In his attic, shoved to the side (so he could run) crammed into book shelves, he had magazines with odd names. Astounding, Amazing, Fantastic...sci fi. They were falling apart because they had been made out of raw trees. Pulp stuff, you know? And he had thousands and gazillions of the things.
Anyway, bored out of my mind, I went up to the attic and looked for a good book to read. Nothing but those old pulps, and I had read most of those, so I decided to go hunting. I crawled behind the book shelves and burrowed into the Forgotten Zone. Books that had not been read in decades, shoved out of sight and out of mind.
I dug through the boxes, tossing mags and hard bounds to the sides. Heck, no pictures, no cartoons, how boring!
And then, in the very last box, at the very bottom (I swear, it really was the last book in the whole place), I lifted out a hard bound. Funny looking picture of a spaceman with motorcycle goggles on the front. ‘The Grey Lensman.’
I hefted it. Weighed like a good read, so I took it. And for those of you who scoff, it has always been my theory that the heaviest books are the best reads, and they usually are.
I opened the book, and was gone. Page one, chapter one, word one...gone.
Interplanetary intrigue. Villains from beyond space and time. Mental powers that...YOU COULD LEAVE YOUR BODY? YOU COULD FREAKIN’ LEAVE YOUR BODY? And still see everything? And see more? And have vast mental battles with alien beings with different shaped minds who wanted to put doorstops in your oblong medulla?
Oh, man. I was really gone.
That year, when I got back to school, I would stay up late and read and reread the lensmen series. Yep, series...there was six of the books!
I was near flunking out in English and history and all those piddling subjects, and the science teacher couldn’t get me to look up ‘dinosaur,’ and I couldn’t stay awake in school because...I had been up till five in the morning reading and rereading the Lensmen series!
That was my education, not cutting open frogs in biology, but wondering whether Worsel, a snake imbedded with a fantastic mind enhancing device, could come to grips with the Overlords of Delgon.
And, wondering whether Tregonsee, a barrel of oil with tentacles, could manage to harvest the deadliest drug in the world...for the good guys!
And, whether it was really possible to fuse your mind with a like mind and increase your powers ten fold.
Years later, though I barely got out of high school, I managed to survive in college (at least for a while). Calculus, you see, reminded me of the higher mathematics necessary to Lensman training.
And, in physics, I seemed a natural, because learning how to measure the universe is simple stuff when you’ve mastered inertialess flight well enough to navigate galaxies.
And, when I began studying the martial arts, I understood flux theories of energy well enough to understand chi energy, and all because I had been privy to the science of how to fight on the outside of a spaceship when there is no gravity. (Hook your feet under the hand grips, assume a horse stance, and swing that space ax!)
So, favorite book of all time? The Lensmen series by E. E. Smith, Phd. Not only is it an intergalactic adventure, a romp through history, a revelation of cultural motivations...but it is good enough to make a boy learn, and want to learn more.
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Top-level comments on this article: (5 total)Enthusiasm for any reading is great- I enjoyed your enthusiasm
Nothing can beat a good book or series. Nice article. You should write a short book review on 'The Grey Lensman'. It sounds like it would be interesting to read.
"Those stupid books they make you read..." - I love it! Obviously whatever you "missed out" at school because of your fascination with the Lensman series didn't do you any harm! It sounds like a series that should be made into a film or 6. The first one could start with this article.Hey Jennifer, I actually worked on a script for this, but the guy who owned the rights had not a clue, and that is why it has never sent he light of day. People who read the lensman series know that this is the most impactful sic fi ever written. Thanks for the kind words, good to talk to you again. Al
astro travel this is what psyhics do to be there to get a fix on crimes or crime scenes but when you leave your body you are unprotected this was on paranormal and A&E
Your writing is superb! I could not stop. When I began, I wasn't even interested. When I finished, I read it again. Your style is almost hypnotic . . . pulling me forward. There's a rhythm, like walking down a hall or crossing a parking lot, that I keep feeling as I read this article. And it's just funny enough to make me smile but not disrupt the pace. I have to read more of your stuff!Good Lord, thank you.
Google 'Al Case Lobo Love'
or get the free copy here.
http://www.monstermartialarts.com/1evolobol.pdf
(If link doesn't come through contact me.)
Again,
thanks.
Al
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