The Runaway Asteroid | Page 2

cyberspace, which acts as both the
bookshelf and cafÂŽ for today's ideas and authors. The creators of Starman saw value in
your stories and tried to get the publisher to renew the series. Sadly, your old publisher
ignored them and blocked the revival, as though they were so much space junk.
No one owns a theme. But the creators of Starman have shown that they share some of
the beliefs that you express in your subjects. Their young men of the stars prove that they
too are brave, adventurous and willing to sacrifice for freedom and justice. With a loyalty
toward each other that would create envy in every generation, they test themselves
against cunning scoundrels. As they conquer villains, they, and we along with them, learn
whether they measure up. Will they prove themselves worthy as young people have done
for all time? Young readers can have a chance to preview something about their own
lives and the world they will live in. And just as you believed, somehow the human race
survives. If the world of Starman is an accurate guess on the future, then the good guys,
the ones in the white spacesuits, will continue to prevail and produce more young people
to keep the dream alive. I hope that some of the next generation of courageous young

people will read this series.
Your fans don't know that you started writing seriously relatively early in life, in the
1920's and '30's, first as a teen for your personal pleasure and then on your school
newspaper at New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn, New York. Did having to learn the
English language after speaking Russian until the age of seven help you become a better
writer? Were your poems and letters to Mom valuable both to her and to your
professional development? Did the comic books you authored during the Golden Age of
comics give you a better sense of story-telling and dialogue or did it degrade your love of
language? I know that writing television scripts and other creative projects supported the
family during the difficult years of the 1950's, but how did it affect your later work with
Digby Allen? So many of your themes are repeated and reworked in several of your
creations right through to the late 1980's. Who would guess that you once wrote a paper
on the use of the raven in several of Shakespeare's plays? Or that you wrote biology text
to accompany a new medium, slides made from strips of 35-mm film? Would admirers
realize that you were most interested in world events, but read the sports section of the
New York Times first, everyday? I'm certain your fans wouldn't have read the American
Elsewhen Almanac, a compilation of bits of Americana and commentary that you
published in the 1980's.
I want to thank the authors of Starman for giving me the opportunity to write the
introduction to their second novel. If there is a way to communicate to you across the veil
between our dimensional world and the one in which you now reside, then it must be
through the pages of a book. After the love of family, I don't believe anything was more
precious to you than books, so maybe this letter will be able to cross the divide. Just as I
proofread the drafts of Digby Allen before you sent them to the publisher, your
granddaughter and grandson proofread this. Perhaps that will act like a mystical booster
rocket to get these pages to you.
And to future space pioneers, may the solar winds be at your back.
Love,
Paul
October 20, 2000
THE RUNAWAY ASTEROID
1: Controlled Fury
"THEY'RE getting closer! They're almost on us! We won't make it into the Belt on time!"
The navigator of the Silver Spear was on the verge of panic. His frenzied hands moved
over the controls.
"Keep going! Keep up full speed! Make sure that we get there ahead of them!" Lurton
Zimbardo's voice was even and controlled, but it was obvious that he was barely
containing his volatile fury. His commands were not to be questioned. His nostrils flared,

the muscles around his lips were taut, he kept his fists clenched and pounded a persistent
rhythm on his ship's control panel. His breath sounded as if he could inhale and exhale
the room's entire atmosphere. It was only his iron self-control that kept his crew from
giving in to their fears.
Behind them just moments away Starman David "Zip" Foster's ship, the Star Ranger, was
closing the gap. The pursuit had been going on for two days, since the Silver Spear had
blasted off from Eagle City on Mars and escaped while the rest of the pirates were
rounded up by Earth's forces. Zip Foster, accompanied by Starmen Mark