In the May 1964 issue of If Magazine, E.E. "Doc" Smith published a novella entitled "Imperial Stars." He died before he could do anything more with it. He left behind no manuscripts, no story arcs, no further plot ideas or concepts of where to go next.

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In 1974 the Smith Estate commissioned me to expand the novella into a full-sized book and create nine more books in the universe, expanding Smith's novella into what became known as the "Family d'Alembert series." Unfortunately, when Doc Smith wrote the novella his health was failing and the writing, the universe and the characters were not up to his normal standards. It was hopelessly old-fashioned even when it was published, let alone in the 1970s and later when I wrote the series. The text used bizarre words like "ultratoilsomely." The heroes were two-dimensional and way too goody-goody to be believable. The history and development of the universe were painfully naive, with an anti-communist screed straight out of the 1950s McCarthy era. And while Smith was noted for the excellence of his villains, the ultimate bad guy never once set foot onstage.

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Having to stick closely to Smith's creation hampered me considerably, but I did as much as I could to make the characters and universe more believable, and I managed to come up with stories that were exciting enough to please Smith's legion of fans. I got letters of praise that told me I was succeeding, which was most gratifying. Smith's fans loved the series and when it was done I liked it too, although I thought it could be much better without the editorial restrictions I was tied to.

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In the mid-2000s I decided to rewrite and modernize the whole series. I tossed out "Imperial Stars" in its entirety and created a far more believable universe to accommodate the stories of books 2-10. I wrote an entirely new first novel, Tsar Wars, to introduce the recreated universe and more believable characters. I made major modifications to the remaining 9 books to fit the new beginning.

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The result is the Agents of ISIS series, something more appropriate for the 21st century where the heroes no longer have to find a pay-phone to make a call when they're out in the field--they can use their wristcoms.

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(And by the way, I came up with the acronym ISIS several years before those Islamic thugs hijacked it. I refuse to change it simply because they sullied the name.)

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The series order is:

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1. TSAR WARS

2. TREACHEROUS MOON

3. ROBOT MOUNTAIN

4. SANCTUARY PLANET

5. STELLAR REVOLUTION

6. PURGATORY PLOT

7. TRAITPRS' WOPRLD

8. COUNTERFREIT STARS

9. OUTWORLD INVADERS

10. GALACTIC COLLAPSE