4/6/22

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Title: Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids
Series: Lucky Starr #2
Author: Isaac Asimov
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 144
Format: Digital Scan

Synopsis:

Something funny is going on with the Pirates who inhabit the asteroids. While they seem to be growing in number and strength, their attacks have become more focused, tighter and a lot more strategic. Lucky and others from the Science Council build a spaceship meant to be captured and then exploded in a Pirate base. It's all a double, triple, never ending ruse though, as Lucky sneaks on board after alerting the Syrian Embassy anonymously of the “real” mission of the ship. The Syrians are in league with the Pirates and when everything in place, Earth will face a two fronted war.

Lucky uncovers just how far along the plans actually are and sets in motion events to prevent the war from ever starting. He comes across the man who had his parents killed 25 years ago who is the mastermind of the Pirates. While the Military is looking at dealing with the Syrians, the Science Council goes in secretly to the asteroid belt and using the information from the mastermind, clean out all the pirate nests. This collapses one front of the potential war, so the Syrians withdraw without a fight.

My Thoughts:

Yeah....this was rather boring. Also, Lucky wasn't much of a Space Ranger at all. He only used the mask the aliens gave him, in the first book, as protection so he could fly closer to the sun and catch up with some bad guys. No cool fight scene with it.

There were a couple of “fights” but they took place mainly in space and were as slow and clunky as you would imagine. No space ninjas here! It really boiled down to Lucky figuring things out last minute but not willing to tell his mentors because he didn't have all the “facts” to back them up. Then he'd race off to get facts.

I must have glossed over it in the first book, but apparently there is another Galactic Empire of the Syrians, from Sirius. I felt like I was stumbling over them without knowing who or what they were. Are they humans or aliens? What is their beef with Earth? This should have been dealt with a little more clearly.

If the series stays tonally the same as this book instead of the first, it is going to be real easy to understand why this series never became very famous. Even Andre Norton wrote more exciting stuff.

★★★☆☆ ( )

Az előzőhöz hasonló, könnyen olvasható történet. Cselekményes, de az Asimovnál ismert "egymás közt megbeszéljük, hogy mi is történt" technika itt is jellemző. A Mars-járás után az aszteroidák, mint háttér üdítő változatosság. Az előző kötetnél még hangsúlyosabb, hogy az űrhajók és az űrhajósok úgy közlekednek, mintha csak tengeren lennének, ami nekem kicsit túlzás. Értem, hogy a technika ebbe az irányba visz, de azért ha valaki csak egy űrruhában repked az űrben egy aszteroida közelében, akkor lényegesen kisebb az esélye, mintha a tengerbe esik egy sziget mellett.
A történet csavarja - miért kell, hogy a sci-fi-ben mindig legyen csavar, más műfajban nem fontos? - elég hamar kiszámítható volt.
Összességében szórakoztató olvasmány. ( )

One year after David Starr's adventure on Mars—where he encountered a benevolent race of energy beings living in isolation below the planet's surface while investigating a food poisoning scare—Starr sets off to eliminate a growing pirate threat originating from our solar system's asteroid belt.

David "Lucky" Starr, a junior member of the Council of Science, proposes that an expendable, unmanned vessel, the Atlas, be sent to the asteroid belt with the intention of allowing the pirates to capture it and tow it back to their base—where explosives rigged in certain sections of the ship would detonate.

Starr's mentors, Doctors Conway and Henree, endorse the plan but are shocked when they learn from Starr's sidekick, the diminutive but capable Bigman, that Starr had decided to board the Atlas in order to infiltrate the pirates.

As planned, the ship is captured by a pirate vessel, commanded by one Captain Anton, who suspects that Starr, traveling under the alias Bill Williams, is a government man. After narrowly winning a duel to the death with Anton's first officer, a surly and stout pirate named Dingo, Starr is dropped off on a large asteroid, where he encounters a hermit named Hansen, who claims to help the pirates on occasion in exchange for his safety—as long as he remains on the asteroid.

However, Hansen recognizes David Starr as the son of the late scientist Larry Starr. Further, Hansen has a small vessel that can take them off the asteroid and he pleads with Starr to help put him contact with the Council of Science base on Ceres.

Once there, Hansen is not at all forthcoming with information about the pirates and he claims to have forgotten the coordinates of the asteroid he calls home. However, Starr had taken notes on the way from Hansen's asteroid and decides to return in his own vessel, the Shooting Star along with Bigman. Eventually, they locate the asteroid, but Starr quickly finds himself ensnared in a trap set by the pirates led by Dingo. They capture him and take him below the surface, where Starr observes a manufacturing plant and main base of pirate activity.

Will Lucky Starr escape the asteroid alive and make it back to the Shooting Star? Even if he does, will he and the Council of Science be able to stop a raid on Ceres by a fleet of pirate ships bent on recapturing Hansen? What's more, how will the Council of Science eliminate the pirate threat from the asteroid belt once and for all?

Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids is the second volume in a six-book series. As with David Starr, Space Ranger, the story is an easy, fast-paced read. This time around, the plot twist was predictable, but that did not diminish the enjoyment of a vigorous, rip-roaring adventure. ( )

La seconda indagine di Lucky Starr ingolosisce fin dal titolo, ma forse proprio per questo lascia alla fine più di una punta di delusione. Si tratta sì di intrattenimento leggero ma comunque di discreto livello grazie al ritmo narrativo asimoviano caratterizzato da un dialogo sempre brillante, ma a un certo punto l’autore privilegia la trama gialla all’avventura e l’efficacia diminuisce: il rallentamento fa risaltare nella vicenda qualche snodo abbastanza grossolano da far presto capire dove si sta andando a parare. Nella prima metà del volume, il protagonista si va a ficcare da solo nelle grinfie dei corsari che taglieggiano chiunque transiti nella fascia asteroidale, scoprendo che sono con ogni probabilità foraggiati dai siriani (che non sono gli sfortunati sudditi di Assad, ma gli abitanti del sistema di Sirio). Nel frattempo, è costretto a sfidare a singolar tenzone un pirata grosso e cattivo come da manuale per poi incontrare un enigmatico eremita dello spazio: insomma, una serie di situazioni tipiche del genere e che hanno più di un richiamo alle peripezie marinaresche. Il ritorno su Cerere genera però un eccesso di chiacchiere con i paternalistici membri del Consiglio e il rentro in scena di Bigman, il Sancho Panza marziano che sarà pure simpatico, ma come personaggio è superfluo (incluso il ruolo di spalla comica). Il gioco a rimpiattino con le navi nemiche non riesce davvero ad appassionare anche perché, insolito per un’opera del Dottore, si segue con una certa fatica: i capitoli conclusivi riportano la narrazione a una dimensione più consona, ma la soddisfazione complessiva resta lontana dal grado raggiunto nella puntata precedente. ( )