the starman team
Michael D. Cooper is the pseudonym for Michael (Mike) Dodd, David Baumann, and Jon Cooper, each of whom played a vital role in creating the Starman series. Although each member contributed in different ways, no story was presented to the public until all three team members were in full agreement.
David Baumann
David Baumann is a semi-retired Episcopal priest, who follows the high Anglican tradition in southern Illinois. He has also been a martial arts instructor and a free-lance writer. He did the actual writing. From story summaries several thousand words in length he crafted the final text adding details, secondary characters, and minor plot developments.
Jon Cooper
Jon Cooper is a computer programmer. Though all three team members contribute very smoothly to the development of each book, Jon is the primary plotter of the stories. Jon’s family traveled for business throughout his childhood and teen years. During that time he visited nineteen foreign countries and lived in three, including a stay of several months in a thousand-year-old former monastery on an island in the Saone River in France.
Mike Dodd
Mike Dodd is a social worker and zeppelin builder. He was the science advisor for the series, and made certain that the scientific information is accurate and plausible. His wedding ring is made out of a moon rock, and he owns an authenticated piece of Mars, for which he paid $100. From his knowledge of astronomy and the nature of the Solar System, he contributed a number of ideas that shaped the stories in unique and exciting ways.
In the summer of 1998, a team of three fans of the classic children’s series books of the 1950s made contact with one another through a web site dedicated to the Tom Swift Jr. series. The three men — Jon Cooper, Mike Dodd, and David Baumann — found that they had not only a common interest in such books, but a combination of skills that had the potential to produce a similar series in their own day. They began a collaboration that eventually created a new series for readers in the twenty-first century, books in the genre of Tom Swift Jr., Tom Corbett, Dig Allen, Rick Brant, Ken Holt, and other juvenile series that had been popular fifty years earlier. Their collaboration eventually produced the Starman Saga: a story comprised of nine novels, two novelettes, and ten short stories.
By 2016, interest in the stories had peaked and ebbed. The existing stories had been collected into three hardcover volumes and a companion volume of notes, articles, and anecdotes. The message boards and fan forums had passed into disuse. In 2021, Jon, Mike, and David were approached and asked if the stories were available to be licensed and published in new editions. An agreement was reached.
The result is The Starman Saga, rereleasing and expanding the original Starman series. The novels have once again been revised and edited for clarity and consistency. The short stories are being reprinted and revised to bring additional depth to the setting. New material is being produced to expand the Starman Universe. It's an exciting time to adventure in the world of Starlight Enterprises and the Starmen, discovered again for the first time.
This is the future, the way it used to be.