E. Doc Smith - Father of the American Cosmooper

The future writer was born with Fred J. Smith, the former whale, who worked in shipping on the Great Lakes, and Caroline Mills Smith, Housewives, May 2, 1890 in the small town of Shebogan, Wisconsin. He was the second of five children.

Both parents were British origin and convinced by the Presbyterians. They christened the boy Edward Elmer and in the same year moved to the Spokan, Washington, where his father took contracts for carpentry and carpentry. However, the work did not go, and after a series of meager years, Fred settled on a farm in 160 acres on the Pend-D'ore river in Northern Aidaho, growing potatoes for bars-restaurants of the Great Northern Railway.

The young Ed, like Abraham Lincoln, fell the forest in winter, drained swamps, worked on sawmills and rafted wood trunks down the river. He studied at a secondary school in Spokan, and he began to attend a high school in a river's raver, eight kilometers from the house where the children considered him a stranger and he had to “wash into powder” of other boys at school to achieve a normal attitude to himself, not to mention friendship.

Perhaps Edward would not have received any education if it were not for a furious dispute with his father, who arose when Ed turned eighteen years old, regarding the intricacies of fertilizer of the potato field manure. Young Smith rushed off to the spa for a short time, where he worked as a conductor on the horse.

Edward Elmer, his two brothers and two sisters were very close to each other. The elder brother Daniel joined him in the city where he was bridge. The profit from this enterprise, as well as the material assistance of the sister Rachel, helped Edward go to the preparatory school at the University of Aidaho.

After the first year, Smith decided that he wanted to become an engineer-builder. At the age of nineteen years, he helped to pave the railway north from Balton (Montana) to Canada, but seven months of his life in the wild changed his ideas about civil engineering. He went to work in the mine to earn enough money and return to the university.

One night, Edward woke up in his room on the fourth floor of the boarding house and found that his bed was on. With one convulsive jump, he jumped out the window with the sash and everything else. Smith broke five ribs and leg, seriously damaged his wrist: he could not use it for a year, and it hurt another ten years. There was no question of physical work now, and he returned home.

But here relatives played a role again: the brothers and sisters helped to pay for their studies.

Specializing in the field of chemical engineering, Edward received an “excellent” rating in all 160 disciplines and earned the highest academic rating. Before graduating from the university, he successfully passed an exam for the position of a younger chemist in Washington (District of Colombia), and went to work at the US standards bureau.

But before the trip to the capital, there was another unfinished business, about which Smith was supposed to take care of leaving. When he studied at the graduation course, the room neighbor - Allan McDugall - showed him the photos of his sister, Jeanne Craig McDugall, who lived in Boyce, Aidaho. Stunned by girlish beauty, Edward began correspondence with her. He went to Washington, on the way, looking in Boyce, where he first met with Zhanna. As it turned out, she worked as a fashion model (therefore, the photos were excellent). They were engaged to ten minutes after the first meeting.

Working in the US Bureau in Washington (District of Colombia), Smith helped establish tolerances for the weight of commercial oil. In the laboratory located on the nose of the ship, he set standards for oysters in New England, earned marine illness. By the fall of 1915, Edward had accumulated enough money to marry and bring his wife to Washington. It seemed that his ambitious desire to receive a doctoral degree should be sacrificed for the maintenance of the family, but this did not happen. Zhanna went to work as a stenographer to help her husband, and in 1919 Edward received a docto of science at the University of George Washington.

Smith's writer's career began in the smoking room in 1915. There was a hot, wet night, and a discussion flared up with his former classmate, also a doctor of sciences Karl D. Garbie, about what the temperature in outer space. Those present expressed their thoughts on this issue. In the evening, Karl told about this conversation to his wife, Lee Hawkins Garbie. She considered the idea of ​​the intriguing and invited Smith to write a story on her basis. Edward doubted because he felt that the story should include a love line, and he could hardly cope with this part of the plot. Lee proposed cooperation in which Smith would be engaged in science and the development of the plot, and would provide her with a love line.

Smith agreed almost immediately, he liked fantastic literature. He read everything published by Herbert Wells, Jules Verne, Ryder Haggard, Edgar Allan PO and Edgar Rais Burrose. In addition, Edward was fond of poetry, philosophy, ancient and medieval history, as well as English literature.

Garbie and Smith worked hard on Roman during 1915 and 1916, having finished about a third. Then the interest faded, and the work froze.

By the end of the First World War, Smith became the main chemist in FW Stock and Sons. He held this position until 1936. Its specialization was the area of ​​confectionery mixtures, the recipe of which is considered as a section of the chemistry of grain crops.

One evening at the end of 1919, when Jeanne was tired of sitting with the child and she, deciding to have fun a little, went to the cinema, Smith took an unfinished novel and continued from the place where he was interrupted. He kept Harbie in the know his successes, but he wrote the rest of the story himself, including the very love line. In the spring of 1920, the finished work began to walk on publishers.

The sequence of failures has become destructive for the Ego Smith. The book publishers throughout the country, looking at the manuscript, rejected it. Whenever a new magazine appeared, Smith with hope sent a work there. Finally, once he bought Amazing Stories in a newspaper kiosk, read several pages, rushed home, took the manuscript and again sent it by mail.

The editor O'Konor Sloan answered with great enthusiasm and offered a low fee - $ 75 per novel of 90 thousand words. Smith agreed (although in all these years he spent much more on postal expenses), but by the time the novel appeared, Amazing Stories had a conscience, and from there they sent a check for $ 125. He shared the revenue with Mrs. Garbie, and The Skylark of Space was signed by two names. The first part of the novel has not yet entered the sale, as Slown had already written a letter asking for continuation. Mrs. Garbie was not interested in further participation, so Smith began on his own. The Lark Three ( Skylark Three ) was a continuation of the first novel. At the same time, Edward becomes known among fans of science fiction as Doc Smith (because the publications of his works were signed indicating the scientific degree - Ph. D.).

Smith in his works created a new direction in science fiction, later named Space Opera . The grandiose battles of the opposing forces with the rays of death and protective power screens, spaceships of several kilometers long and an incredible many bizarre aliens who justified the novel subtitles-“the history of the galactic cruise that opened the universal civilization,” became the visiting card of this scientific and fantastic genre.

American historiographers have recognized and still recognize E. E. Dock Smith the title of Cosmo -Poper Creator, since he was the first to describe interstellar flights in his works. However, as proved by the Russian writer and journalist Anton Pervushin, in the Soviet Union in 1924 (that is, four years before Smith), the novel of the now almost forgotten fantasy of Viktor Goncharov “Interplanetary Traveler” was published, which also describes interstellar travels. Therefore, Smith can be recognized only in the American Cosmooper.

Meanwhile, the stories about the larks were brought to the end, as Smith planned, and now he began the fact that, in his opinion, was supposed to lay the foundation of the new series. “ Spacehounds of IPC ” appeared in the July issue of Amazing Stories for 1931 even before letters of readers with the praises of the “Lark Three” praises. It was an exciting, creative story depicting cosmic battles, scientific discoveries and unique alien races. Interestingly, Edward Elmer predicted an ion engine for spacecraft decades before Herman Obert proposed it in the electronic radio magazine in the early 1950s.

Further, Smith wrote “ Triplanetary ) - a novel about the unification of the worlds of the Earth, Mars and Venus, who attacked the Eddorian race from a distant star. From a scientific point of view, he introduced the concept of a “uninterrupted” drive to achieve super-light speeds, which, according to Sam Muscovite, historian of American fiction, is considered the best device that has ever been proposed to overcome limiting the speed of light.

The device of such engines is manifested in a slightly more complex form in a number of novels by A. E. Van Vogt, including “shales”, “weapons shops of the Isher empire” and “world zol-a”, and is also implied in the novel “The Second foundation” and the stories of Isaac Azimov. These are only two of many authors who show that Smith influenced not only images, but also on the plot structure of modern science fiction.

Another series was the Saga about the Linzmen, in which Smith later included the novel “Tropplaneti”, adding six chapters when the novel was reprinted in a solid cover. Linzmen are a group of men and women from many inhabited worlds, the physical and mental achievements of which are so high that they can be safely attributed to the highest race.

Partly due to the fact that the serialization of the novel “ Gray Lensman” in the journal Astounding Science-Fiction began in October 1939, Edward Elmer Smith was invited as an honorary guest to the second universal science fiction convention, which took place in Chicago on September 1 and 2, 1940, 1940, 1940, 1940, 1940 years.

However, the successes in the field of fantastic literature interspersed with failures in everyday life. The Second World War began. Now any company selling products, which included sugar and flour, did not need a specialist in the recipe and the least who would receive a percentage of profit. Smith was without work. He tried to write something new, but could not concentrate and lived on savings.

Unable to find a job after Pearl Harbor, Smith decided to sign up for the army. At the age of 51, of course, he could not be sent to the front, so he was determined to the artillery plant in Kingsbury (Indiana), where he worked on explosives and shells. He was fired in 1944 for refusing to send shells to the front, which, he believed, did not correspond to the required technical norm, so Edward Elmer ended the last year of the war as a metallurgist in the company for industrial equipment Allis-Mhalmers.

In 1945, he returned to his main chemical specialization in the production of confectionery mixtures in JW Allen, Chicago, and worked there until his resignation in 1957. Having settled for a new job at the end of World War II, Smith began creating the last novel of the series - “Children of Linza” ( Children of the Lens ). It can be safely argued that the features of the three children of Smith - Roderik, are faithful to Gene and Clarissa - were manifested in the external and psychological characteristics of the main characters of the novel.

A surge in the opening of book publishing firms specializing exclusively in science fiction that arose after the Second World War may be a large extent connected with the success of Smith's books, which were published back in the 1930s.

The Space Lark in 1928 gave the world a star science fiction to the world. The Galactic Patrol ( Galactic Patrol ) in 1937 combined stars into the community. Eachward Elmer dared to be himself each time and, as a result, changed the vector of the development of fantastic literature.

Smith's books were sold very well, but among fantasy lovers, they were already considered with great condescension as classic and a little outdated. Isaac Azimov believed, and in principle, it was difficult to disagree with his opinion that “ E. E. Smith was one of the most beloved fans of the fantasy writers, but remained in one place. His first stories for ten years ahead of our time, and the latter - by ten years lagged . ”

At 73, E. E. Smith retired and lived in a trailer in Florida.

At the XXI World Congress of Science Fiction in Washington (District of Colombia), the homeland of the “Space Lark”, on September 1, 1963, the first fand (organization of science fiction lovers) included E. E. Doc Smith to the Hall of Fame for his significant contribution to science fiction.

Edward Elmer Smith died of a heart attack on August 31, 1965.

Two months later, in October 1965, the last novel by Smith “Lark Dukens” ( Skylak Duquesne ), which completed the space cycle, appeared in IF magazine.

Alexander Rechkin