Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids

infobox Book |
name = "Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids"
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = 1984 edition by Del Rey Books.
author = Isaac Asimov
illustrator =
cover_artist = Darrell K. Sweet
country = USA
language = English
series = Lucky Starr series
genre = science fiction novel
publisher = Doubleday & Company
release_date = November 1953
media_type = Print (hardcover and paperback)
pages = 188
isbn = NA
preceded_by =
followed_by = Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus

"Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids" is the second novel in the Lucky Starr series, six juvenile science fiction novels by Isaac Asimov that originally appeared under the pseudonym Paul French. The novel was first published by Doubleday & Company in November 1953.

Plot summary

A year has passed since the events in "David Starr, Space Ranger". In that time the spaceship TSS "Waltham Zachary" has been taken and gutted by pirates based in the asteroid belt, and David "Lucky" Starr has come up with a plan to deal with them. The Council of Science has announced a project to thoroughly survey the asteroids, and the "Atlas" will be the first ship to conduct that survey. The "Atlas", however, is a tr

When the pirates (in a Sirian-designed ship) capture the "Atlas", though, it is clear to Starr that they expected it to be deserted. He tells the pirate leader, Captain Anton, that his name is Williams (his alias from "David Starr, Space Ranger"), and that he wants to become a "man of the asteroids" (as the pirates call themselves). Anton has Starr fight a duel with one of his men in open space to prove himself worthy. Starr wins the duel, but remains a prisoner aboard "Atlas" while it is brought to an anonymous asteroid. One of the pirates guarding Starr warns him that he has made an enemy for life of Dingo, the pirate he beat in the duel.

The asteroid is home to a hermit named Joseph Patrick Hansen, and the pirates leave Starr, who still calls himself Williams, in Hansen's care. He tells Starr that he originally purchased the asteroid as a vacation spot, and gradually made it more comfortable over the years. When the pirates appeared, he was cut off from Earth, and now he depends on the pirates for supplies. When Starr becomes angry at one point, Hansen suddenly recognizes him as Lawrence Starr's son. Starr admits his true identity, and Hansen convinces him to pilot them to Ceres in Hansen's ship.

On Ceres, Starr's plan to send Bigman to infiltrate the pirates ends when he realizes that Hansen's asteroid is not where it should be. Starr and Bigman take the "Shooting Starr" to the place in the Asteroid Belt where Hansen's asteroid should be, and start searching the neighborhood. Starr eventually finds it, and lands on its surface, where he is captured by Dingo, the man he beat in the duel. Dingo takes him inside the asteroid, which is filled with men and machinery, including a hyperatomic engine that is used to move it. A fight with Dingo ends with Starr being shot with a neuronic whip and losing consciousness.

Starr wakes to find himself in a spacesuit on the surface of the asteroid. He is unable to resist as Dingo straps him to a catapult and flings him into space. He uses his oxygen reserve to reverse his course and return to the asteroid. Bigman, meanwhile, finds himself under attack by several pirate ships. While he is fighting them off, Starr approaches and contacts him. Bigman rescues Starr, and as the two are leaving the pirates' asteroid they learn that a pirate fleet is attacking Ceres.

Returning to Ceres, Starr realizes that the main attack was a feint, and that the pirates' real goal was to capture Hansen, which they have accomplished. Starr also realizes that Captain Anton's ship is taking Hansen to a secret Sirian base on Ganymede, and that the Sirians plan to attack Earth while Earth's fleet is busy fighting the pirates in the Asteroid Belt. He figures he can head off the war if he reaches Ganymede before Anton. Although Anton has a 12-hour head start, Starr can beat him to Ganymede by skimming the "Shooting Starr" past the Sun, wearing the Martian Space Ranger mask to ward off the heat and radiation. Starr does so, passing within five million miles of the Sun.

Starr is still 50 million miles from Ganymede when he spots Anton's ship and warns it away. When Anton makes for Ganymede, Starr threatens to ram his ship, and accelerates toward it, all the while talking to Anton. The ships are ten miles away when Hansen appears on the screen behind Anton and kills him with a blaster. Still wielding the blaster, Hansen orders Anton's crew to surrender to Starr.

When the Terran fleet arrives to take custody of the pirate ship, Starr must convince the commanding admiral that he should concentrate on the asteroid pirates and leave the Sirian base on Ganymede alone. He does so by revealing that Hansen is actually the leader of the asteroid pirates. His hermitage and the main pirate base were on the same asteroid. While Starr was intercepting Anton's ship, the Council of Science, acting on Starr's orders, captured the base. From the information they found there, they can finish off the pirates of the asteroids once and for all. The only way for Hansen to save his life now is to contact Ganymede and convince the Sirians that their plans have failed and they must leave the Solar System. He agrees to do so.

The reason Hansen recognized Starr as Lawrence Starr's son was because he had been the captain of the pirate ship that attacked Lawrence's ship, and Hansen was the pirate who had killed Starr's parents. Starr reflects that life in the Mercury Prison will be a better punishment for Hansen than a quick, easy death, and that heading off a war with Sirius will be a more fitting tribute to his parents.

Themes

"Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids" is a transitional novel in the Lucky Starr series. It introduces the Sirians as the main threat to Earth, and marks Starr's transformation from his masked crime-fighter role of the first novel to the Cold War secret agent role he will play in the rest of the series. The novel also contains the first hints of an overpopulated Earth facing the hostility of the younger worlds of the Galaxy. From Chapter 6:

:The food was good, but strange. It was yeast-base material, the kind only the Terrestrial Empire produced. Nowhere else in the Galaxy was the pressure of population so great, the billions of people so numerous, that yeast culture had been developed.

This was the seed of the background Asimov would create for his next novel, "The Caves of Steel", a background that would also be evident in the later Lucky Starr novels.

Just as "David Starr, Space Ranger" turned the standard mad scientist plot on its head by making the villain an unhappy neurotic rather than a power-mad megalomaniac, so "Pirates of the Asteroids" turns the standard revenge drama plot on its head. Instead of spending the novel tracking down the man who killed his parents, Starr spends much of his time in the man's company, fully aware of his identity but pretending ignorance in order to reach his larger goal of ending the pirate menace. Instead of a climactic showdown that ends in Hansen's violent death, Starr patiently explains to him that his plan to help the Sirians conquer Earth has been thwarted, and persuades him to talk the Sirians into leaving the Solar System.

External links

A [http://homepage.mac.com/jhjenkins/Asimov/Books/Book010.html review] of "Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids" by John H. Jenkins.