Reception
Frederik Pohl says of the book, "With the exception of the works of H. G. Wells, possibly those of Jules Verne — and almost no other writer — it has inspired more imitators and done more to change the nature of all the science fiction written after it than almost any other single work." Mike Ashley called it "the seminal space opera." Despite its influence, its critical reputation is, at best, mixed; Groff Conklin's review of the 1950 edition noted that "This tale is the sort of thing that only insatiable fans will enjoy, being . . . uncommonly amateur and awkward." Damon Knight, however, praised the novel for its "fast, lean plot, an air of excitement, . . . four characters who are comfortingly bigger than life the feeling that adventures are waiting everywhere," concluding that "In The Skylark, everything is big and simple."
Read more about this topic: The Skylark Of Space
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)