The Skylark of Valeron by E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith

Book Details

The Skylark of Valeron (1934-5) brings to a conclusion the classic Skylark trilogy by E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith. While DuQuesne has survived to become Master of the Earth, the Seatons and the Cranes must run for their lives into the fourth dimension— from which none have ever returned.

The Skylark of Valeron – Which contains new thought-variant conceptions
Prologue
I. Doctor Duquesne’s Ruse
II. Plan XB218
III. Duquesne Captures A Battleship
IV. A World Is Destroyed

Part Two – Part Two of the greatest story of the Skylark series. Carrying on the Skylark tradition.
V. Thought—a Sixth-Order Wave
VI. Mind Versus Matter
VII. Duquesne Visits Norlamin

Part Three – Part Three of the great story of titanic combat between Seaton and DuQuesne
VIII. Into The Fourth Dimension
IX. Master Of Earth
X. Captured!
XI. Hyper-Land
XII. Escape

Part Four – The fourth part of the epic of far galaxies and spaceways
XIII. Reunion
XIV. The Return To Space
XV. Wanted—a Planet

Part Five – Part Five—the story of Valeron, and the hideous enemy that assaulted its civilization
XVI. Valeron
XVII. Within The Chloran Dome
XVIII. Quedrin Radnor Retaliates
XIX. Valeron Versus Chlora

Part Six – Part Six—Seaton strikes back, and builds the mightiest Skylark of all!
XX. To The Rescue
XXI. The First Universe Is Mapped

Part Seven–  Conclusion
XXII. Dunark Takes A Hand
XXIII. Trapping The Intellectuals
XXIV. The Long, Long Ride
Epilogue

Edward Elmer Smith Ph.D. (1890-1965) earned two degrees in Chemical Engineering from the University of Idaho. He lived in Washington D.C. where he became a chemist for the National Bureau of Standards, developing standards for butter and oysters. He is sometimes called the father of space opera.

The Skylark of Valeron was first published in seven parts in Astounding Stories in 1934 and 1935.

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Excerpt: The Skylark of Valeron

Prologue

“MOTHER-R-R!” A sturdy, auburn-haired urchin of twelve —Richard Ballinger Seaton the fourteen hundred and seventy-first— turned to the queenly young matron who was his mother as the viewing area before them went blank “You said that as soon as I was old enough you would let me see the rest of the ‘Exploits of Seaton One.’ Now grandfather’s the chief of the Galactic Council, and I’m twelve, and I’m old enough.”

“Perhaps you are, son.” Into the beautiful eyes of the young woman came that indefinable, indescribable something; the knowledge that her oldest was no longer a baby. “Tell me the story as it is run for the holiday, and I shall see.”

“Richard Ballinger Seaton the First was a Ph. D. in chemistry,” the boy began. “He lived in the city of Washington, in what was then the United States of America. He was born—”

“Never mind dates and such things, sonny. It would take too long to give all the details. I just want to make sure that you really understand the story —conditions were so different then from what they are now.”

“Well, Seaton One discovered Rovolon, which he called ‘X’ metal at first. He found out that it would turn copper into energy, and he and Martin Reynolds Crane One built the very first space ship that was ever known. But the World Steel Corporation wanted all the Rovolon that Seaton had found; so Dr. DuQuesne, a chemist of theirs, and a kind of a spy named Perkins, tried to steal it away from him. They got a little of it, but it exploded some copper and killed a lot of people.

“When Seaton heard about the explosion he found out that some of his Rovolon was gone, and they hired some detectives and had an awful time. A lot more people were killed, and a Japanese assistant of Crane’s, named Shiro. was almost killed, too. Then they went to work and invented a lot of new instruments, such as a compass that pointed at any one thing forever; and attractors and repellers and rays and screens and explosives and lots of things that are good yet.

“This DuQuesne tried for a long time to get the Rovolon and couldn’t, so they built a space ship from Seaton’s plans that they stole, and he carried off Dorothy Vaneman and Margaret Spencer, the girls that Seaton One and Crane One were going to marry—and they did marry them, afterward, too. Well, Dorothy kicked Perkins in the stomach, and the space ship ran away and kept on going until it got caught by the attraction of the Dark Mass that the First of Energy has always had so much trouble with, and while they were falling toward it that Perkins went crazy and tried to kill Margaret, but DuQuesne killed him instead, and then Seaton One caught up with them and rescued them and—”

“Just a minute, son; there is no great hurry. How did Seaton One get way out there?”

“Well, they had their big new space ship, the Skylark of Space, all built by then, and Seaton One had an object-compass set on DuQuesne, because he’d been watching him a long time since he’d been making lots of trouble for him. So Seaton One and Crane One followed the object-compass and found them and rescued them all but Perkins, because he was dead already.

“They had an awful time getting away from the Dark Mass, but they did it, but they were about out of copper, so they had to hunt up a planet that had some. They landed on one that dinosaurs and things like that lived on, and got a lot more Rovolon, but didn’t find any copper, so they hunted up more planets. One had poison gas instead of air, and another had people that were pure intellectuals, so that they had bodies whenever they wanted to, but not all the time. They pretty nearly dematerialized Seaton One and all the rest of them, and we’re awfully glad they didn’t.

“Well, anyway, they got away, but they had an awful time, and after a while they saw the green suns of the Central System. There’s lots of copper there, you know; so much that Grandfather Seaton wouldn’t let me swim in the ocean last year when we were there because it was copper solution and it would have made me sick. They went to Osnome first, one of the inside worlds, and landed in a country named Mardonale.

“They were bad people and wanted to kill Seaton One and steal his ship, and they had already captured Dunark. the Kofedix or crown prince of the other nation, Kondal. Then Dunark helped Seaton One get away, and they all went home with Dunark, But the Skylark was pretty nearly ruined in the battle they had getting away from Mardonale, so Seaton One and Dunark built it over out of arenak, which was much better than the funny, soft steel they used to use in the old days. Of course, arenak doesn’t amount to much beside the inoson we have now, but even Seaton One didn’t know anything about inoson then.

“Then they got married. Seaton married Dorothy, and they’re our great-great—fourteen hundred and seventy times—grandparents. Crane married Margaret, and they’re awfully famous, too. And Shiro is, too, especially in Asiatica. Well, anyway, after they got married they had a fight with a monster Karlon, and were just going to start back here for Tellus when the whole Mardonalian fleet attacked Kondal. The Skylark Two beat them all, and DuQuesne helped, too, and then of course Dunark’s father was Karfedix or emperor of the whole planet of Osnome, and he made Seaton One the overlord. Then they came back home. Seaton One and Crane One didn’t know just what to do with DuQuesne, but he jumped out of Skylark Two in a parachute and got away.”

Excerpt From: E.E. Smith. “The Skylark of Valeron.”