Have you noticed how the past gets further away every time you get older?

I was reading the programme book for Constitution and Henry Gee remarks that EE 'Doc' Smith wrote his classic Lensman novels eighty years ago.

Now, I know they were old.  I read them in my youth when one of my father's friends left his copy of 'Triplanetary' behind by accident and thus hooked me on the entire series.  I remember being quite surprised to discover that this epic space opera was published many years before Lord of the Rings.  But it wasn't eighty years old, back then!

Incidentally, it's always interesting to see which of the novels of your childhood are still worth reading when you grow up.  Sadly, the Lensmen novels failed the test.  They still had all the space battles, but I couldn't survive more than a chapter of the cardboard characters before I passed the books on to someone else.

Heinlein, on the other hand, passes with flying colours.  His juvenile (YA) novels have held up remarkably well.  Even the weakest (Farmer in the Sky) is just about worth reading to the end, and the best (Citizen of the Galaxy) is still a favourite.  'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress' remains my favourite of all his books.  It sits between the period when he was writing young adult novels and when he became obsessed with sex and his own childhood. (All 'Wizard of Ox' and Depression America).