Berkeley, 1983. $2.50, ISBN 0-425-06244-9, 198 pages, paperback

”Doc” Smith, one of the giants of sci-fi, wrote this in 1965, the year he died. Due to a fortuitous photocopying by friend and informal editor Lloyd Eshbach, it had been sent to Fred Pohl. Resurrected from a back closet, this sequel to Subspace Explorers was rescued from oblivion and published in 1983.

Although I had read the Lensman, Skylark, and d’Alembert series, this one I had not, nor Subspace Explorers. But with a 50-cent price and fond memories of cavorting around the galaxy with “Doc,” I picked it up.

The book is vintage “Doc,” tinged with all the pulp characteristics of the era. The parallel universes exist, separated by a subspace area, and the psionics that propel ships through hyperspace try to cross into subspace. Sure enough, our peace-loving humans drop into the middle of a civil war.

I suspect that if you’ve never read the pulps, you’ll probably not like this type of book. Good guys are good, bad guys are bad, and psionic powers are amazing. With 100 years of sci-fi behind us, we’re a little jaded, but for 1965, this is wild sci-fi…and all paced into 198 pages.

Every author eventually has a last novel. This one is vintage “Doc” Smith.

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