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Page 145
Science has become a major political force on Earth, and Starr is its best roving investigator.
He roves first to Mars, then to the Asteroids, third to Venus, fourth to Mercury, fifth to Jupiter, and sixth to Saturn. It is clear that Asimov intended to visit each of the planets1 and possibly expand his arena to other star systems, but Starr (and Asimov) ran out of gas at Saturn, with Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto still to go.
Asimov's juvenile novels added little to the development of science fiction, or to Asimov's reputation, or even to the development of the science-fiction juvenile. They were largely scientific exposition with a frosting of narrative to keep the youthful reader involved between discussions. In contrast, Robert A. Heinlein's juveniles, once he developed his skills at the genre beginning with Red Planet in 1949, were so thoroughly science-fiction novels that most were serialized in adult magazines. One might speculate that the Heinlein juveniles led young readers to read more science fiction; those by Asimov, to read more science. Nevertheless, the Lucky Starr books were successful juveniles and have remained in print.
The typical Asimov juvenile opened with a scientific mystery that Starr and Jones are sent to investigate. At their best the novels develop with the skill of Asimov's mysteries: the puzzles are fascinating and the solutions are ingenious. In between, the reader is presented with a great deal of information about the nature of the universe and the laws that govern its behavior. It is ironic that the facts known about several of the planets have changed since the novels were written. In Opus 100 (1969) Asimov noted this fact with embarrassment and speculated that the novels, then out of print, might have to stay out of print. The Mars book might be reprinted (all that had then been discovered was that Mars was cratered, and craters were not difficult to insert), but the Venus and Mercury books "cannot be patched; they can only be scrapped." Nevertheless, they all were put back into print with Asimov forewords explaining the current state of scientific knowledge, that Venus has no oceans, for instance, and that Mercury does not keep one side perpetually toward the sun so that there is a bright side and a dark side. Typically, Asimov used the forewords to explain how the new information was obtained and what the new understanding revealed.
The novels probably did for their young readers what they were intended to do: they made the readers think and value the intellectual
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1. In Volume Two of his autobiography Asimov wrote that the next book, if he had written it, would have been Lucky Starr and the Snows of Pluto.

 
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