A review by xenobio
Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus by Paul French

5.0

Something you have to keep in mind about the Lucky Starr series is that they were written for kids. I found this absolutely riveting at age 10-12, so while I'm not sure I would like it so much now, I'm rating it based on how I found it then. The descriptions of the titanic sea creatures in the oceans of Venus are just as breathtaking as a National Geographic documentary on the real things in Earth's oceans (newer editions of the books do have a foreword where Asimov explains that the oceans idea was based on outdated scientific projections). And the bits where Starr and Bigman find themselves under the mind-control device are pretty scary. Asimov manages to come up with realistic-sounding descriptions of things without going overboard on the technical details.

My only complaint as an adult looking back is that female characters in the series are virtually non-existent. I guess this is somewhat excused by the segregated culture of the day that thought there was no need to put girls in boys' books.