This is one of my favourite sci-fi books, even though there's quite a lot wrong with it.

The technology was hit and miss with some great ideas and some pretty terrible ones - given the story was set in the 22nd century. The idea of computers being used solely to funnel data to a human brain for high pressure rapid calculation to get starships through hyperspace / warp is just ridiculous - even for 1953. And people smoking pipes or needing to change cat litter trays on spaceships is hilarious.

The casual sexism is appalling when read today, and the fact that all the crew seemed to talk like hillbillies really got on my wick.

That said, the story was excellent with even a fairly gripping and emotional conclusion.

I often lament the loss of storytelling as an art form in sci-fi books written after the 70s. There aren't many good ones - surely there are still great stories to be told!!!

Until then, I'll continue my habit of re-reading Starman Jones every 5 years or so.

I've read a lot of Heinlein's work, and this remains one of my favorites.

Max Jones is a farmer who dreams of the stars, and when his mom remarries a bully, Max runs away with his uncle’s astrogation manuals and a library book that needs returning. On his adventures to the big city, Max is robbed, his identity stolen, and he is denied entry to astrogater training. But with the help of a friend, Max discovers his photographic memory of the books on star navigation is a ticket to space, even if he has to lie to get there.

My favorite character is the treacherous adviser Sam, who is just as likely to exploit his student as mentor him, serving as an example of how an unfair system with so few choices creates men who cheat and steal, but who are still good people. Max even states an intention of dismantling the system of astrogater training, which is based entirely on nepotism. Unfortunately, Max’s success on the star ship relies little on his cleverness or charm; instead, he gets ahead because of his photographic memory, which feels a little too convenient.

One of the first young-adult science fiction novels, Starman Jones shows it’s age. Star-navigators are trained to quickly chart a ship’s course with slide rulers and books containing charts and tables of numbers, which is quite outdated now in a world of computing devices like my smartphone, but I find this limitation charming. But even if outdated technology is cute, idiot savants and sexism is not. There are no women in the ranks, but at least Max’s love interest is beautiful and smart, even if only demonstrated by her incessant wins at 3D chess.

Recommended for fans of early classic scifi!

readwellreviews.com

What is Science fiction? The art of weaving a fantastic adventure and making it seem plausible - using science. Make no mistake, it is an art and one that the likes of Heinlein and Asimov, practice with finesse. Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, and Isaac Asimov are the grandmasters of the SciFi tradition. They defined the genre, IMO. And you can read Starman Jones to figure out why Heinlein counts among them.

Come with an open mind, a spirit of adventure and wonder. Look at the stars and wonder, what if I was there!

There isn't anything I can say about Henlein's work that hasn't already been said a thousand times. The man was a master in complete control of his art and Starman Jones showcases it perfectly.

The only thing I might be able to add is that, for me anyhow, Heinlein seems to always have a way of telling his stories that make them feel more like a campfire story rather than a book or a novel. He has a way of building and creating tension without you noticing until the cusp is upon you and you're forced to continue reading until its all over.

Some of the processes of how space travel are accomplished feel dated and unrealistic, but he goes into such specific detail about it I often wonder if he wasn't transplanted here from the future. It all sounds so perfectly reasonable as to be reality. And it blows my mind every time, more so when I consider the date his books were published. A man TRULY ahead of his time like few others could ever claim.

I have never read a Heinlein novel I disliked, and that trend did not change with this book. Perhaps some I liked better than others or felt lukewarm towards, but this was neither. Next order of business is to search the google and find out if he ever wrote anything like a sequel to this because I can't wait to follow Max back into space!!

One of Heinlein’s juveniles, this is a coming of age story wrapped in a space travel adventure. Max Jones is a poor farm boy who wants to go to space, but space travel is restricted to the wealthy and to the Guilds. So Max resorts to fraud, becomes a crewmember, and eventually rises through the ranks. All the while, there are adventures.

This was a fun read, combining some of Heinlein’s best qualities with a lack of most of his worst ones. I think I would put this on a very short list of best sci-fi novels of the era.

(I have published a longer review on my website.)

I believe this is one of Heinlein's juvenile novels (YA, in today's terms). I have probably read it before, but it would have been a long time ago! The two Heinlein juveniles I remember best are
"Time for the Stars" and "Rocket Ship Galileo". I think "Time for the Stars" will always hold a place in my heart and in my mind. "Starman Jones" was very entertaining and very typical Heinlein.
A young man (Max) grows up on a space colony farm, but is forced to leave when his widowed mother marries an opportunist. He meets a world-wise older man (Sam) who concocts a scheme to get them both positions on a space bound ship. Both characters are typical Heinlein - far more talented than the average person, but not obvious about it ("regular Joes"). Even Max's love interest, Ellie, with whom he likes to play 3D Chess, turns out to have won awards on her home world for this - but this fact is only revealed later, in an off hand way. Needless to say, through a series of adventures, Max prevails. He rapidly shows his worth, and due to a ship crisis, actually takes over as captain temporarily. This all sounds incredulous, but doesn't feel that way reading the book. It was fun.

Omg I need a Mr. chips!

This novel is written towards boys who have not yet been twitterpated. And it's written well. As I am not the target demographic, being female and I've most definitely been twitterpated, this book doesn't follow along the natural paths I expect it to. However, it is still an amazing book.

Not for Adolescents Only!

I'm sure there is nothing I can say about this book that hasn't been said before, or about any of Heinlein's books that hasn't been said before, but it was the very first "Science Fiction" book I read, as an adolescent myself, sometime between 1961 and 1962, about a year before I graduated from high school. I had never even heard of science fiction before that, but I was hooked on the genre forevermore after that, and constantly looked for books equally appealing in every way, and I was delighted to devour more of Heinlein's books, and other science fiction books from that time on. Now, at age 75, I've reread this book once again, and enjoyed it even more, understanding many of it's concepts much better than I could have back then, having majored in Medical Technology, with a flair for mathematics. But it's not just the science and math concepts that made this book great, and not just the coming of age challenges that the main character faces, but that he faces them with honesty and courage, something that seems almost totally lacking in our modern culture these days, although the politics and difficulties of breaking out of cultural limitations of class seem the same. I highly recommend this book for all those reasons for adolescents and adults of all ages, as well as for the storytelling ability of a genius of storytelling ability, for all times.

A Review of the Audiobook

Originally published in 1953.

Digital Audiobook version published in 2008 by Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Read by Paul Michael Garcia.
Duration: 8 hours, 29 minutes.
Unabridged.

Legendary science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) wrote a set of novels for the Scribner's publishing house early in his career as a novelist starting in 1947. Scribner's published 12 of them. One of his most famous works, n  Starship Troopersn was rejected as one of this series, but it was intended to be in it. A 14th and final book featuring a female lead character was also rejected. They all share a theme of space exploration moving roughly from humanity's first steps away from Earth to contact with massive alien empires in far and distant places.

n  Starman Jonesn falls right in the middle. It is the seventh novel in the series and humanity can travel to far and distant places and has met alien species, but it is exceedingly tricky.

Max Jones is a teenager in the Ozarks on a future Earth. Times are tough and people with pull, connections or money are moving off-planet. Max has no pull, maybe has a connection and certainly has no money. When his widowed step-mother marries the neighborhood bully and lets him sell the family farm without warning Max runs away from home to find his own way.

As you can tell by the title, Max eventually makes it to space. The problem is that Heinlein spends a lot of time explaining the bureaucracy of the various space guilds (every profession has its own guild and its own obscure rules) and then goes on to explain in excruciating detail the formal and informal rules of a ship - how the galley works, how discipline is maintained, how to run an illegal still on board, how the crew relates to the passengers, how the crew relates to the officers, how the officers relate to the passengers, how the bridge officers relate to the other officers, how the bridge officers relate to each other and how the captain can help or hinder the ship's morale. It reminded me quite a bit of the extended descriptions of military life in n  Starship Troopersn.

If all of the "explaining" were edited out, or at least cut back, this book would probably come in 3 hours shorter and be all the better. Paul Michael Garcia did a great job with the text but it is flawed.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5.

Read all of my reviews of books and audiobooks by Robert A. Heinlein here: https://dwdsreviews.blogspot.com/sear...

I mostly agree with Mark's view. After The Rolling Stones, this is a return to a more traditional style of Heinlein juveniles. We have a single protagonist who works hard, travels, sees the universe, learns, works hard some more, achieves other people's respect and his own self-respect, has some romance, and almost without noticing it, grows up and matures. It is not traditional in that he starts by securing a place in the spaceship by cheating and forging, even if he is following the lead of a more world-savvy companion and rebelling against unfair rules and restrictions. We also get to see interstellar travel for the first time in these books.

There is a lot to like here if you like Heinlein juveniles, but there are some problems. Like the others, it shows his age sometimes, mainly with the computer thing and relatively sexist remarks (I say relatively because Max actually was saying that women were potentially as capable as men, but Heinlein still is affected by 50s gender roles and fails to portray a future where women play the same role as men). I have already mentioned that I prefer to judge books taking into account the realities of the time when they were written, so I don't really think less of Heinlein for these.

Anyway, apart from that I had some problems with the novel, like
how conveniently people tended to die to allow Max to shine (see Dr. Hendrix and the captain) or that absurd rule about only astrogators being allowed to be captains, again to allow Max to shine, even though it's ridiculous giving the ship to a completely inexperienced officer when there were senior officers available. Besides, if only astrogators can be captains then all second officers should have been astrogators: it doesn't make sense to have a second officer who can't step up if something happens to the captain.

On the bright side, this is another good space adventure, another fine bildungsroman, it has colorful aliens, and appealing storytelling to make it an enjoyable tale, if you can look past the retro aspects. In fact, the retro aspects can actually add to its charm.