Currently Reading II

I've recently reading Ben Bova's Venus, so the review will come shortly. In the meantime, I've started one of the earliest Asimov books, in the period when he was still writing the original Foundation trilogy, but writing as Paul French. Apparently it is part of a series that isn't as easily available as the Foundation series, but I have a feeling it will stand well enough on its own.

I've picked up a number of classics while on a trip to Vermont this summer, so you'll see these from time to time until I've exhausted my supply.

Description from the back of the book follows:

Zero time!

Twenty-five years before, Lucky Starr’s parents had been destroyed during a pirate raid on the Terrestrial Empire. Lucky had since brooded, awaiting a chance to avenge their deaths. Now the vermin of space once more threatened the empire’s safety and tranquility. The time for sweet vengeance was near.

Lucky was at the helm as his space ship, the Atlas, was being readied for takeoff. The Luna City exhaust pit yawned as the ship’s main rockets blasted their fury into it. Slowly and with majesty the Atlas lifted and moved upwards, its speed increasing, its mission underway. It pierced the black sky, shrinking until it was only a star among stars, and then it was gone.

“One man against the pirates of the asteroids,” Lucky’s friend, Conway, mused sadly. “Soon the ship will be a rain of molten metal,” he thought. “Lucky Starr and the Atlas are doomed!”