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written between July 5 and October 24, 1952. (Starr had been named David, after his son, and was nicknamed Lucky in the second and subsequent books because Asimov decided David was too pedestrian for a space adventurer.) Within little more than a month Asimov began work on The Caves of Steel. |
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The third novel in the juvenile series, Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus, required some revision that Asimov thought justified. (Doubleday objected to Starr's being so close-mouthed that his loyal partner thinks he is "an utter bastard.") The final manuscript was submitted on March 17, 1953, and published in 1954. A year went by without a Lucky Starr novel. Asimov was busy with The End of Eternity and a series of science books he had begun to write for Abelard-Schuman (The Chemicals of Life, 1954; Races and People, 1955; and Inside the Atom, 1956) and for McGraw-Hill (Chemistry and Human Health, 1956). He also was busy with short stories and with the cares of a homeowner, for he and his wife had bought their first house. Lucky Starr and the Big Sun of Mercury appeared in 1956, Lucky Starr and the Moons of Jupiter in 1957, and Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn in 1958. |
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The juveniles were in the older style of the science-fiction adventure story that Jules Verne had pioneered, H.G. Wells had stooped to upon occasion (notably for a good part of The First Men in the Moon), and E. E. "Doc" Smith and John W. Campbell (in his earlier writing) had adapted to the new science-fiction magazines. The formula that evolved requires two (or sometimes more) continuing characters, usually a hero and his best friend. The hero usually is a scientist and the best friend does not understand much science but is loyal and good in a fight. A great deal of conversation takes place between the hero and his friend in which the science of the story is explained, and a certain amount of byplay is involved that substitutes for characterization and stage action, created by the difficulties the hero's friend gets into through his hot temper and rash actions. One might note a certain resemblance of the hero and his friend to the Lone Ranger and his loyal Indian sidekick, Tonto. |
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In the Asimov juveniles, the scientist hero is David "Lucky" Starr, a member of Earth's Council of Science at an astonishingly youthful age. The friend is John "Bigman" Jones, who is five feet two but strong and sensitive about his height. In the first book, Starr picks up Jones on Mars. With humanity flying about among the planets and even among the stars, science has become of constantly increasing importance, for solving both internal problems of health and energy and external problems of scientific and alien threats to Earth. So the Council of |
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