Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids (Lucky Starr #2) ★★★☆☆

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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.

★★★☆☆

• David Starr, Space Ranger (Book 1)