Greatly Belated Book Reviews: Triplanetary

Been meaning to do this one all week.

There are actually two versions of this, as far as I can tell-there's the original serialized version, and the revised version that included strengthened tie-ins to the Lensman series. And guess what? Apparently, the first version is public domain.

What does that mean? It means it's perhaps the best piece of space opera you'll ever find in the public domain.

Having read that version, I can affirm-it's great stuff. (Assuming you like space opera. If you're reading this blog, chances are you might. I talk about it often enough.)

First up in my talk about Triplanetary is the planet Nevia. Not one of the planets of the title (boringly, the three planets are actually just Earth [usually called Tellus in the body of the text], Venus, and Mars), Nevia is an alien world which ends up at war with the Triplanetary government early on. And it is quite an impressive little bit of world-building.

Nevia is a planet with only a relative handful of small islands serving as land. The primary civilization there (the primary Nevian civilization, and the group to which I will be referring when I say "Nevians") is made up of a sort of weird amphibian creature, a quadruped species with a be-tentacled head and four eyes that allows it equivalently delicate manipulation to humans. There are actually at least two other reasonably intelligent species on the planet, as well. The first of these is a species of fish which are much smarter than other fish, but are bred as food and slaves by the Nevians. (Don't judge them-dogs are much smarter than fish, and we breed them as slaves [excuse me, work dogs] and food too. I mean, not we universally, we as the human race in broad scope. They still eat dogs in China, and the chow dog is actually named for its original purpose. The story doesn't say just how smart these fish really are.) The other species is another species of fish which lives in the deep waters where the Nevians can't live unprotected-and they're smarter than the other fish, too. In fact, when the Nevians conquered them, they eventually learned how to replicate Nevian technology, and kicked them out hard once they had. Thus, Nevia is in a constant state of war between the deep fish and the Nevians.

Particularly, I would assume that the primary advantage of the deep fish is that they lived on the deep ocean floor, where they had easier access to the most important commodity on Nevia-iron. Iron is rare on Nevia (at least, on its surface-any rocky planet really ought to have an iron core, but then again, this is space opera, so whatever), and the Nevians have a very limited supply of it. Two pounds are immensely valuable, and ten are practically a king's ransom.

Why do they need iron so badly? It isn't because it's a valuable building material; in fact, the Nevians are rather contemptuous of Triplanetary's use of it, remarking that "these creatures obviously aren't even as intelligent as the higher fishes." (OUCH.) No, the Nevians discovered ages ago that it was actually an extremely efficient energy source-by converting it into a different allotropic state (the science looks like bunk now, but at least Smith used scientific terms), they can convert it directly into energy. And that, my friends, is a valuable resource indeed.

Of course, Triplanetary's real trick as a novel is that, until you're a chapter or two in, you really have no idea that the Nevians are about to descend in a horribly brutal invasion on the forces of Triplanetary. Instead, we're presented with a battle between Gray Roger the pirate king and the forces of the Triplanetary navy. The navy, while suffering heavy losses, takes out Roger's fleet and moves on towards his planetoid base at the precise moment the first Nevian expeditionary ship shows up in the midst of the battle. (Roger, by the way, had a lot of sophisticated technology, including a kind of cloak, robots, and the most powerful defensive forcefield that appears in the book; in the revised version, it apparently was revealed that he was secretly one of the monstrous creatures from the devil-planet Eddore. Or whatever.) The Nevians, despite having only ten pounds of iron at their disposal, minus what they burned on the long trip, effortlessly melt down the Triplanetary fleet (plus, frighteningly, the blood of the crews) into allotropic iron sludge and vacuum it up; they have a bit more trouble taking care of Roger's planetoid, but not to the point of actually getting in trouble; since they just picked up a huge load of iron, they probably could have gone on to defeat every ship in the solar system without breaking a sweat. Fortunately, after they had done this and picked up a few specimens of the odd little creatures, they went back home, knowing that their valuable cargo would encourage a second Nevian expedition to muster iron for the second ship. And so it did.

When they get home, they immediately plunge into a battle with the fishes of the deep, who had just developed a new weapon for their big underwater fortresses that presented a challenge to the iron-deprived Nevians; the load of iron that Nerado, the captain, gave to the defenders let them drive off the attack in a single massive counterstroke.

Meanwhile, it turned out that the data that Triplanetary central intelligence got from observing the three-way one-sided battle gave it the information it needed to finish a secret project it had been having trouble with-a "super-ship" that was to be the first faster than light vessel used by Triplanetary. (This is where someone invents "Doc" Smith's slightly infamous inertialess drive.) This vast ship, the Boise, is equipped with Roger's super-forcefield, faster than light drives, an iron reactor, and tons of other stuff just in time to fight the second Nevian ship. (Literally, within hours of when it shows up.) The two ships, of which the Boise is actually the stronger, have quite a tussle, and the Nevian ship turns tail and runs. While trying to catch it, the Boise discovers that Roger escaped his planetoid base, and finishes him off (Roger had also developed the iron reactor in the time since he had met the Nevians-boy, folks are really innovative in Triplanetary, aren't they?) with the help of a brand-new weapon invented on the spot, the only thing in the book which can penetrate Roger's forcefields when iron reactors are powering them. Then, they find the escaped "specimens" of the Nevians, one of whom had been a super-secret agent, hence the escape, and after rescuing them run down the second Nevian ship and kill it with the help of the shield-buster thing (the Nevians also had Roger's shield).

Then, they tussle with Nerado and the first Nevian ship, but can't pin him down because he's cleverer than the other, unnamed captain; so they drop a really, really big bomb on Nevia (to be fair, on the unknown weapon that was on Nevia's surface, the readying of which was causing Nerado to stall for time). Nerado immediately called for a ceasefire, admitting that humans were possibly every bit as advanced as the Nevians themselves (quite a compliment, even from the fair-minded Nerado), and further suggesting an alliance.

Now, here's the really awesome touch: Triplanetary accepts the alliance. And Triplanetary and Nevia are best friends forever after this. It turns out that, while Nevia was more advanced at making war because of their sophisticated physics knowledge, there was plenty of stuff that humans knew about that Nevians didn't have a clue about. And of course, there's all that iron, which they were pretty eager to get their tentacles on, as well.

It certainly wasn't that important that the Nevians had destroyed a big chunk of Triplanetary's fleet and levelled Pittsburgh, or that Triplanetary's secret agent had gassed a city or two to death and the Boise dropped a bomb on Nevia described as the kind of thing you never use if you care about the planet you're dropping it on, was it?

-Signing off.