Customer Reviews

Stand by for Mars!

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This is the first of the eight book series based on the Tom Corbett radio and television series of the 1950's. This series was closely based on Robert Heinlein's _Space Cadet_ novel. In fact, the book reads very much like a Heinlein "juvenile." The technical advisor on the series was Willy Ley, the German aerospace pioneer and visionary.

This book introduces all the major characters from the series Tom Corbett, Roger Manning, Astro, Captain Strong, etc. In fact, it starts off with Corbett's admission to the Solar Academy and his first missions as a member of the Solar Guard. The Guard are the peacekeepers for the three planet civilisation of the Solar Alliance (Earth, Mars, Venus- and also the moons of Luna, Titan, and Ganymede.)

I found this to be a truly inspiring series when I was younger- and it is still a good, tight read today. I always assumed that Heinlein was the actual author since the style is so close to his, and because the name "Carey Rockwell" is a pen name that is only associated with this series.

I still have my original mid-50s copies of the Tom Corbett Space Cadet book series and I re-read them every several years. I'm 60 now, so that's been quite a few go-rounds with them. Until kinescopes of the TV shows started to be released on videotape in the 80s, these books alone fed my hunger for the kind of future world conceived by Robert Heinlein in his book "Space Cadet", the inspiration for the cycle of Tom Corbett TV shows, radio series, comic books and the novels. The novels go deeper than the other media and do a wonderful job of letting the reader's imagination put much more depth and detail into the stories and the characters. Whoever Carey Rockwell really was, he's a heck of a writer! These books are tautly and excitingly written with quite a few well-drawn and memorable characters besides the three young heroes of the Polaris Unit.
This is superior juvenile fiction and solid 50s-style science fiction. I speak of them as being truly, a Star Trek prequel, an early inspiration for Gene Roddenberry. The Solar Alliance = The Federation. The Solar Guard = Star Fleet. The Polaris = The Enterprise. The TV shows were very popular in the early '50s. I remember their original shows a bit, even though their run ended when I was 6 years old. The releases of bleached-out kinescopes on VHS and DVD have been great fun but remind me of how much more sophisticated the novels are. There's a website called SolarGuard, dedicated to he world of Tom Corbett. I try to forget that there's a state governor currently, who bears the same name).
I recommend these books highly and I'm thrilled that several of them are back in publication. Start with "Stand By For Mars" the first in the series. An epic!
And "The Space Pioneers" is fantastic! Don't be an "earthworm" (someone who's never flown in space). Try 'em!

Absolutely great reads! The whole series is cute in its 50's-dated language (which contains no swear words whatsover, unless you consider "space gas" an unholy epithet), and just has a fun energy!