First Lensman by E E Doc Smith

No human being had ever landed on the hidden planet of Arisia. A mysterious barrier, hanging unseen in space, turned back all ships. Then the word came to Earth, inexplicably but compellingly: GO TO ARISIA! Virgil Samms, founder of the Galactic Patrol, went - and came back with the Lens, the strange device that gave its wearer powers no man had ever possessed before. Samms knew that the price of this power would be high. But even he had no idea of the ultimate cost - nor of the strange destiny that awaited the First Lensman. First Lensman is the second self-contained novel in E. E. 'Doc' Smith's epic Lensman series, one of the all-time classics of adventurous, galaxy-spanning science fiction.