Background Info

 HOW DOES THE STARMAN SERIES COMPARE WITH OTHER CLASSIC SERIES?

The Starman team wants to produce stories whose setting and style are similar to those of the Tom Corbett and Dig Allen series. We want that the stories will have the adventure and intrigue so popular in the Rick Brant series. We want to provide the intellectual challenge and intricacy of the Ken Holt series. We will include a little philosophy about life and human endeavor in the same way the Tom Quest series did. But most of all, we hope that the Starman series will develop its own character—in the style of the classic books without imitating them too much.

One way in which the series will be different from, say, Tom Swift is that this series is dynamic rather than static. Tom Swift remained 18 years old throughout the course of his 33 chronicled adventures; his inventions never changed the world he lived in. The Starman series will be dramatically different: as the series progresses, time will pass, the Starmen will age and mature and the universe they inhabit will change with them. As inventions are developed, they will begin to show up in the universe around them. Settlements in the solar system will expand. Technology will grow and develop, creating new situations. Some enemies will fall, while others will rise to take their place: the source of conflict will change as the solar system changes. The real world is not static, but is a dynamic living entity: why should a series book be any different?

One other way the series will be different from known series is that there are some plots that are woven through the entire series. The Ken Holt series was one of the greatest series of all time, but the 18 books are not interconnected very deeply: instead of a continuous story, it tells 18 separate stories. In the Starman series, we have chosen to be different: each of the volumes we have planned tell a section of a grander story. Each story can be enjoyed in and of itself, but each book is like a patch on a quilt: if you step back and view it as a whole, you discover that each book is part of a greater story.