New old books

I've read E E. "Doc" Smith's The Skylark of Space more times than I can remember. I've kicked myself for years at passing up an opportunity to get a first edition.

A while back I bought a cheap collection of Doc Smith stories on Kindle. I've slowly been working my way thru them reading a chapter here and there between reading other things. So far they'll all been things I've read before.

Recently, I hit The Skylark of Space and it turns out to be the *magazine* version (which I believe that first edition I passed up was as well). Turns out to have significant differences from the version I'd read before.

Smith had a co-author (to add in some love interest). Many of the changes are in scenes between Seaton and his fiancee.

But others are not. There are some minor differences in how World Steel is portrayed and the things they get up to. but some significant differences are in the workings of Perkin's Cafe. Such as a telephone setup to make it hard to track goings on (which I don't think would actually work, but still).

A really big one is that World Steel and their operatives have "wireless telephones". Not a major plot point, but they are used well.

I'm only up to the point where DuQuesne and company are planning to kidnap Seaton's fiancee, so there are likely to be other differences to be found.

I'm rather enjoying this look at an old favorite.