Moon Over Mars

Now we come to 3 books by Donald Wollheim.  They are not part of a series, but are set, more or less, in the same solar system.  The one that was known in the 1950’s and is somewhat similar to the one in Isaac Asimov’s Lucky Starr series of books. 
I have read these three, and there appear to be others such as The Secret of Saturn’s Rays .  Some of these were written under the pen name of David Grinnell.  I have never read these others. 
He also wrote a series of books about Mike Mars which also appear to be juveniles, although again I have not read them.
Donald Wollheim was one of the Golden Age writers.  If you consider that age the 1950’s which for me it was.  Books written then are ones I like and remember a lot,not just the juveniles.  And yes a lot of fans consider the golden age the 1930’s but some of that stuff is too dated for me. 
Anyway, Wollheim was an editor, publisher, writer, fan, convention goer, etc.  And this first book I will post about is one of my favorite juveniles.
It’s The Secret Of The Martian Moons.  To me at the time I first read it, and still upon re-reading it’s a great story.  There’s an abandoned civilization on Mars.  The Mars of Percival Lowell, with plants and sort of canals and an atmosphere. 
But where are the Martians?  Their houses are here, and storerooms and evidence of an advanced civilization all sealed in vaults and inaccessible even after a century of trying.
So Earth abandons the Mars Colony as a lost cause, and too expensive. But, Nelson Barr, young hero, and his father and others secretly stay behind. 
Because there have been mysterious goings on.  They fly to Deimos to set up observation of Mars and wait. 
Soon aliens are in evidence,but are they the Martians?   Further adventures with them, and the invading Marauders ensue. 
One of the better juvenile SF adventure novels in my opinion.  I wish I could say the same about the other two, but that will wait for my next posts. 

Jovian Adventures

Now I will digress into a different type of juvenile SF.  We will leave the misfits behind for the moment.
One of the more prevalent types of juvenile SF is the young scientist.  Since a lot of youngsters that read SF either become scientists, or at least are interested in it, having them appear as heroes is a way to get them to read these books. 

There have been several successful series of such books written by non-sf writers.  Tom Swift, Jr. and the Rick Blaine novels for example.  While I read and enjoyed those books, I will be concentrating on the books by SF novelists. 

To start we have Jupiter Project by Gregory Benford.  Gregory Benford is a scientist, a physicist I believe.  He has written a fair amount of SF, and I think this is the only juvenile he wrote. 
Its pretty good.  Matt Bowles lives in The Can, an space station that orbits Jupiter at the LaGrange point of Ganymede’s orbit.  The scientists there, including Matt’s father, are trying to study Jupiter despite the intense magnetic and radiation fields that surround the planet.  And they are looking for life on Jupiter.
This is the sort of life that many a boy, like me who read this book years ago, wished he could lead.  Flying a shuttle to repair satellites, actually living in orbit around Jupiter! 
But, of course, problems ensue.  The cost of maintaining the base is high and they have been there for years and not found life.  So they are being recalled to Earth and the station will be shut down.  In rides Matt to the rescue. 
This is the sort of basic adventure story that I liked at the time, and still have some fondness for.  Sadly, with the disarray that our space program has been in since Apollo the chances of even the grandchildren of today’s teenager’s living such a life is remote. 
Unless we change the way we do things in this area it will be decades before we get to Mars, let alone Jupiter.
Remember the movie 2001?  Well, its 2010 and we aren’t even close to that kind of voyage.  It makes me very sad to see how we have botched it all after the promise of the moon landings.