Simon Morley (Si for his friends), a young talented artist, has to sketch soap bars in an advertising agency for a living, which is as boring as it sounds, until one single day changes his life completely. He is invited to participate in a top-secret project of the USA government. Before long he finds out that it has to do with time travels, but no time machines are involved – just careful recreation of the old surroundings where participants can live and absorb the atmosphere of the past, telling themselves they are already there – and then a little hypnosis does the rest.
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In this relatively short sci-fi novel the reader will find everything: interstellar jumps and unknown planets, friendship and treachery, love and hate. Brave rebels will fight ruthless dictators, a brilliant mind will solve complicated mysteries and friends will turn into enemies. What will never be found in this book is a single mention of three Laws of Robotics or a single robot, even the simplest of them. This book is not about robotics.
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Yes, I know, this book was originially written in French, but I don’t read in French. It so happens that when I was a kid and read Jules Verne’s other books in Russian, this particular book never came my way either. But now as I was sorting that huge pile of book I’d received as a gift from a friend (it filled a huge suitcase), the English translation of “Journey to the Centre of the Earth” attracted my attention, and I read it. The translation is done by Robert Baldick, and it’s quite good.
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“Lucky Starr and the Moons of Jupiter” is just one book from the series about Lucky Starr’s adventures and, from my point of view, the best of them all. I have read the whole series, but never had the desire to re-read the rest of them. “Lucky Starr and the Moons of Jupiter” was one of my first books in English; I have re-read it multiple times through the years and know parts of it by heart.
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