Derivative Works and Influence On Popular Culture
- Randall Garrett wrote a parody entitled Backstage Lensman which Dr. Smith reportedly enjoyed. Harry Harrison also parodied Smith's work in the novel, Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers.
- Garrett also included a reference to Dr. Smith in his Lord Darcy novels; the badge of the Royal Messengers resembles the Lens, and the spell to activate one was devised by a wizard named Dr Edward Elmer.
- Sir Arthur C. Clarke's space battle in Earthlight was based on the attack on the Mardonalian fortress in chapter seven of Skylark Three.
- Steve 'Slug' Russell wrote one of the first computer games, Spacewar!, with inspiration from the space battles from the Lensman series.
- The GURPS role-playing game includes a worldbook based on the Lensman series.
- There is a Japanese Lensman anime, but it is more an imitation of Star Wars than a translation of the Lensman novels. Efforts to print translations of the associated manga in the United States in the early 1990s without payment of royalties to the Smith family were successfully blocked in court by Verna Smith Trestrail with the help of several California science fiction authors and fans.
- In his biography, George Lucas reveals that the Lensman novels were a major influence on his youth. J. Michael Straczynski, creator of the science fiction television series Babylon 5, also has acknowledged the influence of the Lensman books.
- Superman-creator Jerry Siegel was impressed, at an early age, with the optimistic vision of the future presented in Skylark of Space.
- Two members of the Green Lantern Corps are named Arisia and Eddore.
- Ron Howard's Imagine Entertainment and Universal Studios are in negotiation with the Smith estate for an 18-month film rights option on the series.
Read more about this topic: E. E. Smith
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“Poor John Field!—I trust he does not read this, unless he will improve by it,—thinking to live by some derivative old-country mode in this primitive new country.... With his horizon all his own, yet he a poor man, born to be poor, with his inherited Irish poverty or poor life, his Adam’s grandmother and boggy ways, not to rise in this world, he nor his posterity, till their wading webbed bog-trotting feet get talaria to their heels.”
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