In the late 70s, Patrick Moore wrote a number of children’s science fiction stories about a young astronaut called Scott Saunders. There were six books in total, although I only have three (numbers 1, 2 and 5), unfortunately.
They aren’t very good, unfortunately. One of the best things about them is that half the characters speak exactly like Patrick Moore. The other characters are foreign and inevitably evil. The exciting denouement of The Terror Star - a story that takes in everything from super sentient alien computers to germans, space rays, and the inscrutable expressionlessness of chinese faces - involves a dastardly foreign brute deviously tricking his way to freedom from the honourable english spacemen who thought they had him in their grasp.
My favourite page in all of the books is probably Captain Armada’s appearance at the end. His cheerful face is a beautiful thing.
I also like the way on the covers the books change from An Original Armada to An Armada Original somewhere between book 2 and book 5. I wonder what terrifying event caused this. It is likely we shall never know.
_____________
Image Gallery
(click on the images below to view them fullsize)
