En las profundidades de los océanos de Venus, bajo inmensas cúpulas transpareentes, los extraterrestres han construido maravillosas ciudades submarinas. Pero un terrible enemigo, perturbador de la mente, amenaza con destruir las colonias humanas. Lucky Starr, agente especial del Consejo de ciencias, habrá de enfrentarse solo a esta amenaza extraterrestre

4/6/22

I romanzi di Lucky Starr sono lavori minori di Asimov, chiaramente destinati ad un pubblico di ragazzi: vengono accantonate le riflessioni sociologiche e l'introspezione dei personaggi per concentrarsi su una trama avventurosa in luoghi futuristici ed esotici.
Pur cambiando la location, la struttura resta invariata da un libro all'altro ed anche questo non fa eccezione: il protagonista viene chiamato ad indagare su un mistero, e tra mille peripezie riuscirà a venirne a capo. La parte migliore del romanzo è proprio il giallo, che terrà desto il nostro interesse e ci soprenderà con qualche colpo di scena spiazzante, in puro stile Asimov. Anche la descrizione di Venere, dei suoi oceani sterminati e delle sue creature leggendarie è abbastanza affascinante (benché scientificamente superata, come chiarisce lo stesso autore in una prefazione successiva), ma la trama è troppo ingenua, perfino scontata in alcuni punti. I personaggi poi sono stereotipati da morire: abbiamo Lucky bello, intelligente e coraggioso, accompagnato dal suo amico buffo e rissoso che sembra sempre la caricatura di se stesso.
Ovviamente trattandosi di un romanzo di Asimov lo stile mantiene la piacevolezza e la chiarezza cristallina che lo contraddistinguono, però non ne consiglio la lettura se non ai fan più accaniti. Tutti gli altri hanno opere di ben altro pregio a cui approcciarsi. ( )

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus
Series: Lucky Starr #3
Author: Isaac Asimov
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 174
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

The Science Council has had a call for help from the domed Cities of Venus. They sent in a top operative but they received a letter of recall from the Head of the Science Council on Venus accusing the man of corruption. Lucky knows this man and doesn't believe a word of it. He heads to Venus but receives a radio communique from said operative warning him away.

Lucky and Bigman barely make it to Venues, as their pilots mysteriously black out and almost crash their craft. Lucky begins his investigation and is shown a whole slew of incidents where rational people have performed very irrational acts and then had no memory of it. The Head of the Local Council is convinced it is a Syrian trick so as to steal the rare Venus yeast formulas.

Lucky thinks otherwise and after some hair raising adventures in the oceans, finds out that telepathic frogs are the culprit! But the mystery doesn't stop there. It turns out one of the engineers on Venus has learned how to control the v-frogs (venus frogs. Get it? Pretty clever right?) and has been planning to become dictator of Venus.

Thanks to Lucky and Bigman, said Engineer is brought to Justice and the benevolent rule of the Science Council continues apace. Heil Scyenze! * salutes *

My Thoughts:

Maddalena pointed out in the comments of the previous book that this was written for middle graders. So when I went into this, I deliberately kept that in mind and you know what? It worked wonders for my expectations and how I read the book itself. I had a lot more fun this time around. I could see myself as a 5th grader eating this up with a spoon. I wish I had known about these way back then but oh well.

A good rousing adventure tale. It also shows unabashedly, or perhaps unknowingly(?), just how strong a belief in science as a force for good permeated the society of the 50's. Science was going to solve every problem, only the best of men would be scientists and they would all get along because obviously, once you know something you have to act rationally and logically to that knowledge. Phraaaaack, what a naive outlook. Makes me wonder what Asimov was thinking at the end of his life, as he was a humanist and from what I understand didn't believe in God or any sort of afterlife.

Anyway, with that aside out of the way, this book gave me some hope that I was sorely lacking from the previous. I am now looking forward to the next couple of volumes instead of dreading them. Ha!

★★★☆½ ( )

A sorozat következő darabja: ismét fordulatos, izgalmas, könnyen olvasható. Nem teljesen kiszámítható, a Vénusz bemutatása fantáziadús. A sorozat jól filmalapanyag lenne. Talán nem moziba, de tévére biztos alkalmas. ( )