E.E. “Doc” Smith

Edward Elmer “Doc” Smith, Ph.D (1890-1965) was an American author of science fiction novels, and often considered the father of the space opera subgenre. In addition to being a novelist, Smith was also a food engineer. He wrote the Lensman, Skylark and Family d’Alembert series. Smith preferred to use technologies in his fiction that were feasible, saying “the more highly improbable a concept is — short of being contrary to mathematics whose fundamental operations involve no neglect of infinitesimals — the better I like it”.