Lucky Starr is the hero of a series of science fiction books by Isaac Asimov, using the pen name "Paul French". Intended for juveniles, the books were written in the middle of the Cold War and the series shows traces of this, both in educational intent and in the nature of the social forces involved. The series is famous for introducing the "Force-Blade," which may have inspired the Lightsaber in the Star Wars films.

On 23 March 1951, Asimov met with his then-agent, Frederik Pohl, and Walter I. Bradbury, then the science fiction editor at Doubleday & Co., who had a proposal for him. Pohl and Bradbury wanted Asimov to write a juvenile science fiction novel that would serve as the basis for a television series.

Fearing that the novel would be adapted into the "uniformly awful" programming he saw flooding the television channels, he decided to publish it under the pseudonym "Paul French". Asimov began work on the novel, which he modeled closely on the Lone Ranger (the title was David Starr: Space Ranger) on 10 June. He completed it on 29 July, and it was published by Doubleday in January 1952.

Although plans for the television series fell through, Asimov continued to write novels in the series, eventually producing six. A seventh, Lucky Starr and the Snows of Pluto, was planned, but abandoned when Asimov elected to devote himself to writing non-fiction almost exclusively. With no worries about being associated with an embarrassing televised version, Asimov decided to abandon the pretence that he was not the author (although the books continued to be published under the Paul French pseudonym); he brought the Three Laws of Robotics into Lucky Starr and the Moons of Jupiter, "which was a dead giveaway to Paul French's identity for even the most casual reader".

Eventually, Asimov used his own name in later editions. Some cover pages bear his name only, while others credit "Isaac Asimov writing as Paul French".

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