For juvenile science fiction novels written in the fifties, it's probably fair to say that Isaac Asimov, a prolific writer of nonfiction science, got far more right about our solar system than we might have expected. Here, however, he gets it horribly wrong and my copy begins with an apology for that. It was consistent with what we knew about Venus at the time, he says, but that was quickly proven to not be the case.

For instance, the surface of Venus in this book is one giant ocean, with its fifty populated cities and their six million people all located on the seabed, domed to withstand the pressure of such a vast amount of water. By 1962, says Asimov in his foreword, Mariner II taught us that the temperature of Venus is so hot that not only does it not have a worldwide ocean, it has no water at all. All sorts of other details were proven wrong too, but it's the ocean and Asimov's extrapolations from that assumption that cause all the real problems.

So he got the orbital direction and the period of Venus's year wrong? Who cares? What matters is that went with a worldwide ocean. Because he did that, he populated it with a host of fluorescent sea creatures that are delightful and an orange patch two miles across that weighs two hundred million tons that is far from delightful. He went with the need for underwater cities and the need for the populace to synthesise their own food, which is why everything served on night one at the Green Room is made out of yeast, even if it doesn't remotely seem like it. Not one of these things is problematic in itself, but if you take away the ocean, it all falls apart.

Fortunately he took it all in stride. "I hope that the readers enjoy the story anyway," he concludes, "but I would not wish them to be misguided into accepting, as fact some of the material which was 'accurate' in 1954 but which is now outdated."

That's fair and I frankly had no problem with this science fiction adventure novel mostly unfolding under the ocean that Venus doesn't have. If I had any problem at all, it was how Asimov set himself up for failure early in the book, not by being incorrect but by being smug about it. "Until the first explorers landed on Venus," Lucky tells his trusty sidekick, "all mankind ever saw of the planet was the outer surface of these clouds. They had weird notions about the planet then." Ha. That feels a lot more problematic to me than the non-existent ocean.

Then again, my copies of this series are from New English Library in the seventies and they made such a mess of it that suddenly Asimov looks good again by comparison. The cover art, while being suitably futuristic, places its colony building or whatever it is on a bleak desert landscape that has an unmistakably red tinge to it. This is clearly Mars not Venus. Then again, this is also book three in the series, originally published as 'Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus' by Paul French, but this edition claims to be book four. NEL simplified those titles and ditched the pseudonym but, weirdly, when footnotes cite earlier books in the series, they go with the Signet editions in the States and thus the full titles. Someone was really not paying attention at NEL. Where's their apology?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, there's a story about to unfold. Lucky and Bigman, under their fake names of William Williams (not Bill this time) and John Jones, are being flown from one of the two space stations orbiting Venus down to the surface by Tor Johnson. No, not that one. That Tor had a year to go before his first Ed Wood movie, but he did have a screen career, appearing in an episode of 'Lucky Starr, Space Ranger' in 1954. I mean, 'Rocky Jones, Space Ranger'. Oops!

This Tor is George Reval's co-pilot on the 'Venus Marvel' shuttle that's flown plenty of these trips so the pair are highly capable and experienced. They also both boast particularly lush moustaches, apparently a Venusian custom. Then again, Venusian culture can't have evolved that far, given the fact that they still routinely smoke in their underwater domed cities. Ugh. At least their music has no bandleaders; it's created through sound boxes of magnetonic instruments, which translates to an orchestra of theremins. I'd pay to see that! And the people dancing to it.

Anyway, Reval and Johnson promptly crash them into the ocean, as if they'd never flown a shuttle before. Clearly, there's something going on and we soon realise that it goes a lot deeper than this unfortunate incident. Then again, Lucky has to be there for a reason, right? He's there because of Lou Evans, a peer of his at the academy, who has been told to leave Venus by the local office of the Council, who are also investigating him on charges of corruption. Lucky is adamant that his friend couldn't possibly do anything like that and bravely continues to believe that even when Evans tells him that he absolutely did everything that he's accused of doing. He just doesn't know why.

And here's the rub. It's pretty obvious from that initial shuttle crash that people are doing things that they wouldn't normally do and they don't seem to be themselves while they do it. Everything we know about Reval and Johnson vanishes when they take the shuttle into its suicidal dive but it returns immediately afterward, as if someone took remote control, not of the 'Venus Marvel' but of them. Similarly, Evans isn't at all himself when Lucky interviews him. He appears vacant, unable to remember much of anything. And then there's some local about to open one of the locks to the dome of Aphrodite, the largest city on Venus. A quarter of a million people do not suddenly need the ocean rushing in to join them but he's no terrorist. In fact, he doesn't seem entirely there.

That all happens pretty early in the book so I can happily tell you that much. I shouldn't even look at the back cover blurb, given how New English Library mangled this edition otherwise, but it only has four sentences of synopsis and yet still tells us that Lucky "finds only one enemy, and that of the worst kind—the enemy within his own mind." In other words, you shouldn't be shocked to find that Asimov has returned to a favourite theme of his, enhanced mental powers, which he gave to the ancient Martians that Lucky met underneath the surface of Mars.

Of course, he figures out what's going on and, because he telegraphs a few things subtly, we have a good shot at figuring it out too. However, he also adds a twist that means that, once the secret is out, it can be countered without having to evacuate the entire planet. He does a good job, as, I should point out, did Lou Evans, thus justifying Lucky's faith in him. He figured out what was going on too and arguably sparked the solution by getting a crucial message out, but was merely unable to see it through to the end himself. It isn't weakness to acknowledge needing help.

There are a couple of other details I should mention from a series perspective. One is that there's an honest-to-goodness woman on page sixty-seven. I talked in my reviews of Asimov's 'Foundation' books how there are precious few women in his vision of the future, so I found myself wondering if Mrs. Turner—isn't it telling that she doesn't even have a first name?—was the very first woman to appear in this series, waiting until book three to show up? Did we see Lucky's mum in flashback to him being orphaned in the first book? I can't remember. Wikipedia tells me that Mrs. Turner is the only woman to appear in the entire series. I'll be checking that as I go now.

The other is that, only three books in, the original 'Lone Ranger' in space thinking seems to have gone by the wayside. Frankly, I have no problem with that in the slightest but I wonder how it was taken back in 1954 by the children reading this on original release. Personally, I thought that the mask given to Lucky by the ancient Martians in 'Space Ranger' was hokey and awkward. I have to assume that Asimov felt the same because he minimised its use in 'Pirates of the Asteroids', then conveniently shuffled it off the table entirely in 'Oceans of Venus'. Here, he's David Starr, Council of Science member, a.k.a. Lucky Starr, a.k.a. William Williams when he's undercover. At no point is he David Starr, Space Ranger. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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