^Thank you. The Young Astronauts (actually "Jack Anderson Presents The Young Astronauts") was a series of young adult (aimed at the 9-12-year-old demographic) novels published by Zebra Books in the early 1990s. Jack Anderson was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and one of the promoters of the Young Astronaut Council, designated to encourage science learning among primarily preteens. Anderson came up with the idea of a series of novels about a mission to Mars featuring high school-aged kids that he proposed to promote via the Young Astronaut Council (thereby attracting a built-in audience of tens of thousands of kids) and pitched it to his agent (who was also my agent at the time), who pitched it to Zebra Books, who bought it. Four authors were hired, one of whom developed the outlines for, at first, five novels. If those sold well, more would be contracted. The editor at Zebra (or it may have been Anderson) chose the house name Rick North as the pseudonym under which all of the novels would be written. (Demographics showed that boys in that age group tended not to read fiction unless it came with pictures, and they certainly weren't going to read anything written by a Girl, so a nice, generic "astronaut-sounding" macho WASP name was chosen to represent the series.) That two of the five writers ultimately chosen, including the one who developed the outlines, just happened to be Girls, was our little secret. So, Writer #1 wrote the first novel and one other. Three more of us began work on the four subsequent novels, when the editor realized there was a gap in the continuity and he needed one more novel to fill in. I knew another writer who could work very fast, and he was engaged at the last minute. Thus, the Young Astronauts series was born. As the first volumes were issued, I was also contracted to write three more, which would have brought the series up to nine. But. Jack Anderson dropped the ball. He reneged on his pledge to promote these at Young Astronaut club meetings (I believe there were retail outlets as well) and drifted off to other things. And so, while the writers were all paid nicely for the work done (including the last three volumes, which were never released), the books did not sell well, and the publisher ate the loss. I have no idea whether Mr. Anderson paid a penalty for being a weasel, but I do know the grapevine wasn't kind to him after that. The story's not unusual, just a Day in the Life...
Small world! My daughter's science teacher implied that she would make a good astronaut, because he said she was "taking up space."
What I find interesting about that is that it sounds like the writers were hired and paid like contractors, rather than the advance plus possible tantiemes I thought usual. Is this typical for such a project? And did you work together closely as a group, or did each mostly communicate with the editor?
There were standard contracts, with an advance against royalties, but with Anderson out of the picture the royalties never materialized, because the books didn't earn out the advance. But the advances, as I recall, were generous. Writer #1 and I did exchange a number of phone calls in the beginning (this was 1989-91, so no Internet), and of course the writer I'd brought in and I were old friends, so we chatted frequently. As I recall, the third party was a bit of a recluse, so he and I communicated by snailmail. Mostly we just wanted to make sure our expansions of the outlines didn't conflict, and we all got to read each other's work as soon as it was finished, with our editor smoothing out anything that was out of sync. Our editor was a joy - on-call whenever we needed him, checking in with us regularly, taking me, at least, out to lunch (I was the only one of the four of us who lived in NYC at the time - Ah, the days when editors took writers out to lunch!), apologizing when Anderson flaked, even though it wasn't his fault. So the project itself was fun. Jack Anderson, not so much.
Btw, there is another Rick North here who is probably unrelated, but could sort of vaguely be inspired by a male with technical expertise that addresses himself to kids.
Googled this after it came up. One question I had was age range, which you've answered, but I have two more: Is the science still solid? Which volume did you write? I have an eleven year old son who loves baseball, penguins, reading, and things astronomical. If the science is still valid, I suspect he'd enjoy these books, especially if I could tell him that I know the author (he was pretty interested to hear once that I knew some published authors).
Not sure if the science has kept up with developing technology (again, these were written circa 1989-1991), though it did explain why a mission to Mars could only be initiated when both planets were in proximal orbit. It also explored reverse-thrust technology (propelling a ship halfway, then flipping it backwards, shutting off the engines and letting inertia carry it the rest of the way) and closed-system tech (essentially recycling human effluvia into supplemental food and water supplies). There was also a great deal of discussion of hydroponics, and of building domed habitats once they'd landed. However, the basic premise - that you can send a group of growing teens into months at zero-G, then settle them on a planet whose gravity is less than 40% of Earth's, without serious consequences - was flawed. And there's a lot of teenage Angsty, boyfriend-girlfriend, petty jealousy stuff that your son might find off-putting. Oh, and mine were #4 and #6 (Destination Mars and Citizens of Mars). The latter has them trying to set up a rudimentary government (kind of interesting, since one girl is from Communist China; lots of talk about Thomas Paine).
Thank you soooo much for this reply! I am unable to find anything substantial about this OUTSTANDING series. Over the years I've looked from time to time to no avail. I used to read these books hot off the presses, running off to my local Kmart to see if they were on display yet (the enchanted world before the Internet). Now that it's been over 20 years, I'm at that point in life where I flirt with a mild nostalgia of my childhood. I just re-purchased the entire set off of Amazon. I want you guys to know how much they impacted me. Without these books (and the movie Space Camp), I would have lost my way. These books kept me alive growing up. I mean it. I grew up in a very bad place. My love of knowledge combined with the dream that I could grow up to be something more some day (in that distant land of adulthood!) were the only things that kept my head up above the water while many of those around me succumbed. Central to this childhood narrative were these books. I used to fantasize that if I did well in school and scored well on those national achievement/standardized tests they give you growing up that I would receive a letter in the mail, just like Nathan, inviting me into a special world of like-minded people who wanted to love knowledge, to compete in a par excellence type of way, and who simply wanted to mature into talented beautiful people. These words might seem strange but if you were never trapped on the other side of the "bubble" then it is difficult to fully relate. I remember when I first started experimenting with computers in a not so approved way I used to almost wish I was caught so that, like Lanie, my computer talents could be recognized (I now have advanced degrees in Computer Science and work in Silicon Valley). In fact, I used to mold my personality as a combination of Nathan and Lanie. Nathan was the all American, leader type. He was a good "older" brother to emulate. In school, not bragging here since my school was not very good, when I couldn't find competitors to challenge me in certain subjects I used to imagine that I was competing with Gen in math and academic achievement in general. I was a weird kid who only had the grand narratives of society to clutch onto since there was nothing else for me. So Gen was a friendly psychological punching bag for a budding patriot to alleviate the worries of a rising Japan (remember when people feared Japan's rise?). The same went with the Communists (when they were Communists!). And if you don't think I'm crazy by now, you just may...I actually had a crush on Alice!! I used to imagine when she would run out onto the plains of her farm and fret that I was her close companion and confidant, imagining a future together in the those crystal clear stars. Man I have not read these books in over 20 years and I remember so many moments. These books were my best Teachers. Thank you very, VERY much. I also remember the sadness I felt when that elusive 7th book never showed up. I would always hope in the back of my mind that someday, somewhere I would see it on the shelf like a shinning Willy Wonka Golden Ticket. My mind almost exploded when you said that not 1, but 3 more books are in existence. Holy Smokes! The obvious question, is there any way to get them? Amazon is very flexible. I would purchase them in ebook format, without cover art and all. I would so love to have them. Do you know who I could write to at Zebra? Once again, Thank you very much.
I read these books when they were "fresh" at about your child's age. Man, I'm getting up there! But, from what I remember the hard science is the same. Although this was written before tablets, smartphones, and the Internet, the Astronaut training aspects are still similar. I was in the military and was involved in a lot of crazy training. A significant portion of these books are about a military-esque level of training sans the warfighting part of course. In fact, if your son liked Ender's Game I can see him liking this, maybe even more since it is far more realistic/something that could actually happen. The computers on the Spaceships and Spacestation are futuristic for its time. They did a lot of their studies, reading, and training on them. But they were more like terminals, desktop computers. However, your son might justify not having smartphones/small tablet devices for safety reasons since they will float around and all in zero-g. They explain all this in the books so it isn't a stretch. Like the kids will ask why they can't have this or that up in Space. It is only now that NASA is experimenting with lasers to beam the Internet to near Earth bodies (Moon, Mars) so no Internet and a delayed feed of News, video, etc. is the same as it was 25 years ago. Anyway, hope that helps!
Thanks @Nathan Long, and glad you found your way to this discussion. As you explore elsewhere in our humble corner of the Internet, you'll find an eclectic and sometimes strange group of personalities and topics. I look forward to seeing more contributions from you!
You certainly know the material, and you've even chosen one of the protagonists for your username. I'm impressed.
