Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Star Quest... To Avoid Copyright Infringment

Out of the depths of outer space and beyond the furthest galaxies comes STAR QUEST, the fantastic series of novels released in 1978 that only slightly resembles a popular film of the day! 



The cover of this, the first book, only hints of the Star Warsy goodness inside, but check out the back cover copy for juicy details of the reptiloid Lord Blog, servant of the evil Dark Emperor Ylang-Ylang, as their forces threaten the entire galaxy! And when the second book came out, I wanna say sometime the following month, they ditched the noncommittal SF cover theme and went straight for the Star Wars.




I've flipped through the books and they seem to be boilerplate pulp full of scanner-techs, quadrant formations, murderous reptiloids, hydro-gliders, felinoids of the planet Yahwoo, and the boy genius Ween Leever and his robot techno-companion O-V-1. "Ween Leever"! Oh yeah.

The third book in the series, "Star Force", brought this entire cosmos-shattering saga to a universe rattling conclusion.  Robert E. Mills retreated from outer space, never to write another science fiction novel again... or is there a three-book prequel out there waiting to inflict itself upon an unsuspecting public?