Starman Jones [Mass Market Paperback]

While browsing through a used book store in Charlottesville, Virginia, I stumbled onto this gem of a science fiction novel intended for teens, but just as applicable to and enjoyable for adults. I must admit that I was expecting this book to be much less than it turned out to be, based on the hilarious mock Logan's Run cover depicting Max, Eldreth, and comic relief mascot Mr. Chips posing next to a control console. That cover, and the truly unforgettable blurb mentioned in the title to this review, were what swayed me to hand over my hard earned $2.50.

This is only the second Heinlein novel I've ever read (I enjoyed another juvenile work, Glory Road, back in the 80's, but had only recently begun to be interested in looking into his work again). If his adult fiction is anything like the quality of Starman Jones, I will definitely be reading a lot more Heinlein in the years to come.

What's so great about Starman Jones, you might ask? For one thing, it is very straightforward, with an extremely simple plot that emphasizes character development over elaborate storytelling. It states its facts concisely with minimal exposition, and it ends when it needs to end (after a brisk 250 pages or so). Yet as one would expect from a novel written for juveniles, it takes its time to instruct readers in various hard science concepts such as astronomy, astrophysics, navigation, and even (surprisingly) husbandry and other fields. Even the more advanced concepts are dealt with in a masterly way that makes them appealing to both adults and (one would presume) juveniles.

The next quality that I greatly admire in this book is that it is very well grounded in reality. Max's life struggles are highly realistic and the choices he and others make are believable. The main characters and most of the minor ones are drawn from life, not stereotypes or sci-fi cliches. This aspect of the novel leads to some surprising developments down the line; in fact, at several points in the book I was pleasantly surprised to see characters making choices that I did not at all expect them to make.

The last two points that cause me to rate this work so highly are its prescience and its educational value. By prescience I mean that this novel, which was written in 1952, anticipates much of what was to follow in space travel and colonization narratives that were written later on. But what I came to realize toward the end of the book is that it also anticipates (in an abbreviated way) the socio-cultural science fiction of the 60's, especially Pierre Boulle's Planet of the Apes, published over a decade after Starman Jones. In fact, if one considers the ratio of space narrative / slave narrative in Planet of the Apes, one might say that Starman Jones contains the inverse, as it dwells for the first 7/8 or so on space matters, then briefly explores the idea of humans being held captive by a primitive anthropomorphic race (another unexpected twist in SJ).

Perhaps the most significant achievement of SJ is its educational value. It might have been enough that Heinlein was able to instill hard science into a format easily digestible to 50's (mostly male?) teens, but SJ expands its scope to include topics such as friendship, responsibility, ambition, ethics, politics, diplomacy, trust, patience, subtlety, handling stress, and soooo many other areas. It's just a shame that books like this aren't required reading in high schools today, although the way things are, I don't know if today's teen readers would "get it."

Check this book out. You won't be disappointed.

Starman Jones is one of Heinlein's best, along with Space Cadet, Tunnel in the Sky, Time For The Stars...well it's one of his top ten best. The enthralling account of an orphan escaping abusive step parents by stowing away on a starship kept me reading and thinking and dreaming which continued the second and third time through. It's a well-written coming of age story and precursor to Star Trek combined, and I've never seen it done better than by Heinlein. Recommended for young readers along with any other Heinlein novel written in the 1950s. Rocketship Galileo, Citizen of the Galaxy, Between Planets...

This is one of the few books that I read as a boy that stuck with me all the rest of my life. While I never studied to be an "astrogator", this book did inspire me to study astronomy, navigation, physics, and calculus. It gave me a dream to build on. You see, the hero, Max, is a poor, rural kid from a highly dysfunctional and abusive family (actually, white trash is more accurate.) Being lower class, Max has no realistic chance of going to college or entering a profession ( a "guild".) Yet Max not only escapes, he goes on to Captain a starship. He succeeds entirely on his own against incredible odds. Instead of accepting a life of rural idiocy and poverty he literally remakes himself and his destiny from the ground up.

Whenever I was up against it in my own life I inevitably remembered Max. How many modern books provide an example like this for lower class kids? My only regret is that there wasn't an Astrogator's Guild that I could have joined. If Max could cut it, so could I....

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