Carey Rockwell

A 1950s young adult science fiction story, Danger In Deep Space is the follow on from Stand By For Mars! featuring Tom Corbett, space cadet.

It's a light space romp where we see two disgraced spacemen attempt to heist a satelitte consisting mainly of copper which is now extremely rare and sought after, the science is, uh, shall we say imaginative even for 1953, yet I felt that didn't really detract from the story.

One thing I did note was like the first novel in the series the prefix of space is added to many words to, well, spacify them. It kind of seems like lazy writing to just throw space infront of a word rather than a proper description or even just leave boots be boots, is there a need for them to be space boots? I already know they're in space. Examples of this include space-papers, space-dreams, space-dolls (women), space-happy, space-bums, space-speed and a few others.

Overall though, it's a light and entertaining read.… (meer)

The dynamics of the team are surprisingly complex, with Roger Manning's pride and scorn proving very difficult for Tom and Astro to deal with.

The book is unusual for a 1952 space drama. Tom, Astro and Roger are put together as a team of three cadets. Typically there would be an enemy outside of the team. Instead, the main mystery and challenge in this book is Roger Manning himself. Tom and Astro struggle to integrate him into their team, struggling to overcome his disinterest and sometimes actively uncooperative behaviour. The team in other words strives mostly against itself. It takes almost the entire narrative arc of the book before we get the reveal of why Roger is driven to behave in this way. Ultimately the team triumphs by working together to overcome the challenge of an almost impossible journey, by joining together to strive against nature itself.

The book is also unusual in the Dr. Joan Dale has a role of authority and scientific expertise. Although she shows up rarely, she's clearly in charge of the classification tests, a leading scientist, and a friend and equal of Commander Strong.

"Joan Dale held the distinction of being the first woman ever admitted into the Solar Guard ... Her experiments in atomic fissionables was the subject of a recent scientific symposium held on Mars. Over fifty of the leading scientists of the Solar Alliance had gathered to study her latest theory on hyperdrive, and had unanimously declared her ideas valid. She had been offered the chair as Master of Physics at the [Space] Academy..." (Chapter 3, pp. 30-31)

The series could have gone in an interesting direction building on these characters and ideas, but it dropped all of the complexity and nuance in the next book.… (meer)