The format is approximately 5.5 inches by 8, 25 inches. vi, [7] 14-188, [4]

The format is approximately 5.5 inches by 8, 25 inches. vi, [7] 14-188, [4] pages. The illustrated dust jacket has some wear and soiling. This is the second volume of the six volume The Lucky Starr Series and contains a new Preface by the author! Starr uncovers a Martian plot to ruin the economy of the earth's galactic colonies. Isaac Asimov (January 2, 1920 – April 6, 1992) was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke. A prolific writer, he wrote or edited more than 500 books. He also wrote an estimated 90, 000 letters and postcards. Best known for his hard science fiction, Asimov also wrote mysteries and fantasy, as well as popular science and other non-fiction. From 1942 to 1945 during World War II, between his masters and doctoral studies, Asimov worked as a civilian chemist at the Philadelphia Navy Yard's Naval Air Experimental Station. ISAAC ASIMOV was one of the great science-fiction writers of our time. Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids is the second novel in the Lucky Starr series, six young reader science fiction novels by Isaac Asimov that originally appeared under the pseudonym Paul French. The novel was first published by Doubleday & Company. A year has passed since the events in David Starr, Space Ranger. In that time the spaceship TSS Waltham Zachary has been taken by pirates based in the asteroid belt. Because David "Lucky" Starr harbors a personal dislike of the pirates for their murder of his parents, he has devised a plan whereby the unmanned survey ship Atlas, as soon as the pirates capture it and bring it to their hidden base, will explode. Starr has leaked the plan to the pirates and sneaked aboard the ship, believing an infiltration will be a more efficient way to bring down the pirates. When captured, Starr tells the pirate leader, Captain Anton, that his name is Williams and offers to join the pirates; whereupon Anton has Starr fight a duel to prove himself worthy. Starr wins the duel, but remains a prisoner aboard Atlas while it is brought to an asteroid. The asteroid is home to a hermit named Joseph Patrick Hansen, and the pirates leave Starr in Hansen's care. Hansen recognizes him as Lawrence Starr's son. Starr admits his identity, and Hansen convinces him to pilot them to Ceres. On Ceres, Starr plans to send his friend Bigman to infiltrate the pirates, but realizes that Hansen's asteroid is not where it should be. Starr and Bigman take their own spaceship Shooting Starr to search for it and eventually land on its surface, where Starr is captured by Dingo, the pirate he beat in the duel. Dingo takes him inside the asteroid, revealing a hyperatomic engine used to move it. A fight with Dingo ends when Starr is struck with a neuronic whip and loses consciousness. Starr wakes to find himself in a spacesuit on the asteroid; whereupon 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, where he and Bigman defeat some of the pirates. They learn that a pirate fleet is attacking Ceres. Starr realizes that the pirates' real object was to capture Hansen, which they have accomplished, and learns that Captain Anton's ship is taking Hansen to a secret Sirian base on Ganymede, whence the Sirians plan to attack Earth while Earth's fleet is occupied fighting the pirates in the Asteroid Belt. 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 apart when Hansen kills Anton and orders Anton's crew to surrender to Starr. When the Terran fleet arrives to take custody of the pirate ship, Starr convinces the commanding admiral to concentrate on the asteroid pirates and leave the Sirian base on Ganymede alone, revealing that Hansen is the...