Reviews for Stand by for Mars!

The average rating for Stand by for Mars! based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-04-27 00:00:00 Gary West This book had a huge influence on me. A gift from my mother when I was 8 or 9, it is the earliest book I can remember reading - 50 years ago! - and I became a life-long fan of science fiction. I don't know what happened to it, most of the books I enjoyed in my youth were "lost", hopefully passed on to others to enjoy. Over the last several years when I thought of this book I could clearly see the image of Tom in his bubble helmet on the cover. The only part of the story that I could recall (SPOILER ALERT!) was the three cadets struggling to cross the brutally hot Martian desert as their food and water ran out. In particular I remembered an illustration showing the largest cadet carrying one of the others who had passed out. I looked for the book in used bookstores over the years and finally ordered a first-edition (1952) from Abebooks.com. After it arrived I found the illustration on page 205, exactly as I remembered. I am grateful to "Carey Rockwell" (pseudonym for one or more unknown authors) and Mom for introducing me to science fiction through this book. (5 Stars)

Review # 2 was written on 2012-02-04 00:00:00 Kristina Petersen This needs some explanation. When I was a child, maybe nine or ten, I found a book one of my brothers owned: THE ROBOT ROCKET, by Carey Rockwell, part of the TOM CORBETT, SPACE CADET series. I don't know what they thought of it, but I adored it. It was so cool, with space travel and Martians and Venusians and trips to other planets and intrigue and excitement and a lot of scientific information. It was great. Then I lost the book, and forgot about it for a long time. And then last Friday I was talking to my in-laws and family about books in general, and somehow Tom Corbett came up as an example I gave of a children's book really grounded in science. So with the help of the almighty Internet, I found it. And all the others. STAND BY FOR MARS! is the opener in the series, available courtesy of Project Gutenberg for your Kindles and iBooks apps, and probably online text as well. Free. And for that price, if you love science fiction, especially classic sci-fi, it's worth a look-see. Tom Corbett is a young cadet at the Space Academy, training to become one of the Solar Guard. He meets Astro, a giant Venusian, and becomes friends. Neither of them can stand Roger Manning, a know-it-all smarmy kid who reminded me of Draco Malfoy in looks and temperament. But when they're all assigned to the same corp, they'd better learn to get along--or else flunk out! Don't get me wrong. This book is rather predictable in plot and simplistic in characterization, and a lot of the science is wrong (jungles on Venus?). However, for its time, it was one of the few series to make the attempt to be as correct in its scientific knowledge as possible, thanks to the consultant Willy Ley, a genuine scientist. Even though it was based on a TV series, at least the one woman in the Solar Guard is taken seriously, and has a brain to go with her stunning good looks. The whole thing just took me back to a much simpler childhood, when you had "rockets", and courses were charted with the help of astrogation tables as well as computers. No black people, of course, but since Tom is described as "curly-headed", I like to imagine him as being of African descent. Oh, and for whatever reasons, at least once per book the young men "strip to their waists" and work on the motors. Complete with illustrations. Hmm. Light entertainment at its finest.