Lucky Starr series
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Lucky Starr is the hero of a series of books by Isaac Asimov, using the pen name "Paul French". Intended for juveniles, the books were written in the middle of the Cold War and the series shows traces of this, both in educational intent and in the nature of the social forces involved. The series is famous for introducing the "Force-Blade," which may have inspired the Lightsaber from the Star Wars films.
During the 1950s, Asimov decided to write a series of science fiction novels expressly intended for young-adult audiences. Originally, his publisher expected that the novels could be adapted into a long-running television series, something like The Lone Ranger had been for radio. Fearing that his stories would be adapted into the "uniformly awful" programming he saw flooding the television channels,[1] he decided to publish the Lucky Starr books under the pseudonym "Paul French". When plans for the television series fell through, Asimov decided to abandon the pretence; he brought the Three Laws of Robotics into Lucky Starr and the Moons of Jupiter, "which was a dead giveaway to Paul French's identity for even the most casual reader".[2]
Eventually, Asimov used his own name in later editions. Some cover pages bear his name only, while others credit "Isaac Asimov writing as Paul French".
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[edit] Publishing history
- David Starr, Space Ranger (1952)
- Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids (1953)
- Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus (1954)
- Lucky Starr and the Big Sun of Mercury (1956)
- Lucky Starr and the Moons of Jupiter (1957)
- Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn (1958)
Although the hero's given name was "David" (chosen in honor of his own son), Asimov felt this lacked pizazz, and the later books used his nickname "Lucky".
These novels have a long and varied publishing history. They came out in hardcover with Doubleday in its first edition. Bantam was the latest, in 1993, to bring out the series in 3 volumes, publishing pairs of titles together. In 2001 the Science Fiction Book Club came out with all six novels at the same time in one volume under the title The Complete Adventures of Lucky Starr.
The British editions of all six novels omitted the prefixes altogether and were simply titled Space Ranger, Oceans of Venus, etc. The first book was translated to French in 1954 under the title Sur la planète rouge ("On the Red Planet") with the original pseudonym, Paul French. It was published in the famous "Anticipation" science fiction imprint of Fleuve noir. It was later adapted as a comic book twice, in 1975 and 1992. [1]
[edit] Cover art
Cover artists have illustrated Lucky's actions in an impressively professional manner over and over again but the editors have not been always kind or competent: In the Signet edition of the 1970s they mixed images intended for one volume in the series with another.
| Lucky Starr Series Book Covers | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Image:LuckyStarr1.jpg Book 1 |  Book 2 |
 Book 3 |
Image:LuckyStarr4.jpg Book 4 | Image:LuckyStarr5.jpg Book 5 |  Book 6 |
[edit] Science content
Asimov wrote the series near the beginning of the Cold War, when many concerned scientists, engineers and educators in the United States felt that their country, and what they considered to be the "Free World", was falling behind the Communists and the Eastern Bloc in scientific research and engineering developments. In this context, it was important that the youth of the country be given a solid scientific start, and the adventures of David Starr were as a result rather didactic in nature, despite all the action involved.
He carefully introduced astronomical and physical concepts which the scientific knowledge of the time supported. In later editions, he added a preface pointing out that new scientific discoveries have rendered some locations and concepts obsolete: Mercury does not only present one side to the Sun, and Venus is not covered by a global ocean, for example. The books offer more action scenes than Asimov's usual quota, but they are still filled with the scientific and sociological concerns Asimov used in all of his other fiction.
[edit] References
- Fawcett 1982 ISBN 0-449-23461-4
- Science fiction Book club (6 in 1) ISBN 0-7394-1941-2
- Bantam (2 in 1) ISBN 0-553-29166-1
- ^ Asimov, Isaac (1979). In Memory Yet Green. Doubleday, 620. ISBN 0-380-75432-0.
- ^ Asimov, Isaac (1980). In Joy Still Felt. Doubleday, 61. ISBN 0-385-15544-1.
