The MacGuffins have taken the station!

I have read George Smith's "Venus Equilateral" series, which I shall abbreviate "GOS-STL4".

To clarify - I have read the series up to 1945 [plus as of 12/20 4 AM the 1947 "coda"; that night was one of THOSE nights]. That is the edition I got. The exists a coda after the coda, like when that more-poetic Smith pulled himself back into Hyperborea; decades after quitting the field.

Also some story called "Lost Art" exists, which you gotta read elsewhere. Maybe I'll read these one day but today is not that day. I note the first appearances of Barney Carroll and James Baler; these characters do make some impact in later stories, but honestly not so much as any readers will care, because 1940s-era George Smith simply isn't good at protagonists.

James Nicoll has a précis of the whole, a fair one as pertinent to what I've seen.

In my view the MacGuffins get annoying as the series stumbles along. "The Long Way" and (I'm told) "Lost Art" involve sucking energy out of the sun (which the Martians had figured out). "The Long Way" is about patent-law. Do these storylines need this particular means around energy-production? "Beam Pirate" involves FtL inasmuch as the villains (having teamed-up) are communicating stock-tips minutes before anyone else can get at them (like Stross noted - this time without attribution). Does this storyline need FtL?

Hard-SF might be able to edit these. For my part I can't recall denying even Piper's "Omnilingual" was salvageable. Nicoll muses that "Lost Art" might itself be Piper's inspiration. Interesting that the editors didn't want it up to 1969.

I do not believe that Hard-SF can salvage courtroom drama "Special Delivery", in which the STL4 crew invent the Replicator... and the Transporter, simultaneously. [CALLED IT 12/20 4 AM: As we carry on, "Pandora's Millions" and "Mad Holiday" carry on, musing upon the social consequences of these inventions. Complete with Goldpressed Latinum, here "Identium". Also, heat-transfer teleportation.] Hard-SF must accept 3-D Printing and 267Mb/s SpaceCats and AI and, oh, Gaussian Splatting. But Smith can't envision these baby steps; he's writing in 1944. Once Smith gets to "Special Delivery" he is basically writing Star Trek prequels.

And there's the problem. He's got a wonderful science-fiction setting for exploring how near-future humans might handle intercourse in near-Earth space. But he's used it to explore science-fiction tropes, as well. Choose the one... or choose the other and blow up your setting.

Smith seemed to know that, given he'd lost interest after 1947 - at least. He shifted to writing other stuff.

BACKDATE 12/20