DrNefario
1/23/2015
Galactic Patrol is a bad book. It's badly written, unengaging and inconsistent. The hero is basically a superman, who has only one real setback in the long course of the book.
The only nice thing I can really say about it is that it inspired a generation of much better writers, which makes it a good place to start my fifty-year chronological odyssey through the Defining Works of SF list.
I think to get anything from it you have to let it fire the imagination to an extent that enables you to overlook the clunky prose. You have to be young enough and fresh enough that the words on the page matter less than the pictures in your head. I'm almost sad that that's not me any more.
It does do some interesting speculation about the inertialess drive. If only it could do it with an interesting story and competent prose. I've given it 1.5/5.