Introduction to Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers

Back a little more than four decades ago, when I was a callow young student at the University of Chicago, I had an English professor who arbitrarily declared that there was a Writers’ Heaven, and that the man who wrote the words “A rose-red city half as old as Time” was guaranteed admission there (and probably really good tee times at the local golf course) just for having stuck those nine words together in that particular order.

Well, let me tell you—if there is a Humorists’ Heaven, Harry Harrison is guaranteed a spot there, and he did it with seven words less that my professor’s choice. The words are “Employment Counselors,” they need to be read in context, and they’re waiting for you up ahead in Chapter 12.

But before you come to them, you’ve got a lot of good old-fashioned star smashing parody to read (and a lot afterward, too). I don’t want to single out Doc Smith, since this can be seen as a loving parody of the entire space opera genre, especially as it existed in the pre-Campbell days of science fiction, but in truth it seems like Harry is holding Doc’s beloved, if somewhat creaky, Skylark of Space up to a funhouse mirror after smearing it with cheddar cheese. (Don’t ask; you’ll understand soon enough.)

This takes place back in the days when two guys with a monkey wrench, a hammer, a couple of nails, a few bucks, and a high-school science textbook could cobble together a spaceship in their back yard.

And in them thar days, no spaceship took off without a plucky stowaway of the female persuasion, since we knew we were going to encounter a bunch of mad scientists and potential galactic emperors and sex-starved (and somewhat misguided) aliens in the adventures to come, and no one really cared if Chuck or Jerry (you’ll meet them in just another page or two) were one grope away from a Fate Worse Than Death, whereas pretty perky Sally…

This is the kind of book that has to be done with love, because it would be all too easy to do it with contempt for the kind of science fiction it’s having fun with. It’s clear that Harry loves the Good Old Days and the Good Old Stuff and wants you to enjoy them too, as filtered through his sense of fun and the ridiculous.

There are a lot of wonderful short science fiction parodies. Some years back I edited a book of them—Shaggy B.E.M. Stories—and to this day I couldn’t begin to tell you which is the best of them. It depends on your mood and your taste and probably the time of day.

But I will state unequivocally that Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers is the finest book-length parody of science fiction the field has yet produced.

So enough of me. It’s time to join Chuck and Jerry and (*sigh*) pert perky Sally aboard the Pleasantville Eagle as they flit across the galaxy, unveil the Loathesome Lortonoi, and learn the Secret of the Salami. It’s quite a trip.