J. W. Campbell. The Mightiest Machine (1935; reprint of 1947)

     J. W. Campbell. The Mightiest Machine (1935; reprint of 1947) A “classic hard SF” story, about the building of a faster than light drive and a galactic war that Terrans presumably win. I didn’t read that far. The SF of the 30s was heavy on “science”, mostly bad speculation based on largely misunderstood theories, theories which were themselves very tentative, that is more or less wrong. The tech talk gets rather tedious. SF has changed a lot since then. For example, one of the virtues of Star Trek was its emphasis on character; the success of the series gave SF writers permission to ignore “explanations” of how the marvellous technologies actually worked. And when the technology was one of the protagonists, it was based on a good deal more than high school bowdlerisations of physics, as in the STNG story about the crew member who was afraid to be transported. His knowledge of the principles underlying the transporter gave him the willies, justifiably so, as it turned out. Anyway, I didn’t finish Campbell’s opus. The story just didn't engage me at the level that really matters, the characters. Campbell eventually edited Astouning Stories, which later became Analog. He was a far better editor than writer. * (2005)