Space Voyages is a series of seven science fiction novels written by Ben Boatwright between 2002 and 2005, with a video series adaptation
that has been ongoing since 2011 and a long-awaited print publication in 2014. The series is set in a near future where three teenage astronauts, known as the SILPS (Search for Intelligent Life Project Shuttles) trio, are sent on a space mission by NASA to discover intelligent life beyond Earth and assumedly make First Contact. Their plans quickly go awry, however, as they crash off course and spend the next three odd years initiating their own resistance movement against an evil galactic empire headed by a duo of megalomaniacal anthropomorphic cats named Darby and Cornelius. Oh, and their cousin is the good guy.
Space Voyages provides examples of:
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Darby and Cornelius, at least until we figure out that Cornelius has been pulling the strings all along.
- Both Casual Interplanetary Travel and Casual Interstellar Travel: Just about everyone involved can travel about to various solar systems and galaxies at will, but mostly due to the many time warps and place warps placed conveniently nearby as opposed to the true capabilities of any one spacecraft.
- Catchphrase: Darby's "Seize them!"
- Cosmic Entity: The Red Borkin.
- Death World: The planet Amnesia, and probably Mirti as well.
- The Driver: Shortie.
- The Empire: The BEFO Empire.
- The cattins are both Funny Animals and Humanoid Aliens, at least in their normal feline form. It is revealed that cattins have the special ability to take on any physical form they please.
- Improbable Age: Three teenage astronauts sent into space with little more than an incompetent Mission Control to help them.
- Invisible Parents: The parents of the SILPS trio are very rarely seen, and Mrs. Mailey is the only one of them who ever has a line of dialogue.
- Parental Substitute: The main but largely unrecognized role of Thaddeus to the SILPS trio.
- Space Plane: Thaddeus's four-story airliner.
- Swirly Energy Thingy: The time warps, place warps, and continuum warps encountered throughout the series.
