One of the Juvenile SiFi books Heinlein wrote to introduce SiFi to young readers. An excellent book for young readers to start reading SiFi stories. Heinlein as always writes a very good interesting story that has just enough pure science in it to perk your interest. Very recommended.

This is the third of Heinlein's "Juveniles" I’ve read recently. The "Juveniles" are simple Young Adult books, often starring a young human between child and adult, but still science fiction.

The books were written some 70 years ago so it is easy to see all the things they got wrong about the future and that is a lot. They completely missed things like the information society, electronics, the mechanization of agriculture and dropping birth rates. Instead they implant a bit of rural 1950s US into the future.

This novel is kind of a mix of 2-3 different stories, as Max Jones (not related to the Hank Jones in an earlier novel) moves through different phases, but overall he is kind of disappointing in his stupidity. The book rightly makes a lot from having the right education and the will to pursue knowledge but why is someone so smart so stupid?

After reading three of the "Juveniles", the supposedly best of the bunch, I’ve come to the conclusion that I would not recommend any of them to a modern reader. They are way too stuck in the past without adding anything interesting about the future. They don’t even qualify as interesting adventure novels. I think they were kind of considered progressive at the time, which just tells us how backward we would consider the rural US in the 1950s if we experienced it today.

This novel written in 1953 and published by Scribner and Sons was the first book in a series for juveniles. The main charater Max Jones a farmboy lives on the family farm in the Ozark Mountains. His step mother newly married after his father passes away sells the family farm leaving him with nothing left to loose. He is not able to get along with a potentially cruel step- step father so runs away after a heated argument.
He returns late in the night to retieve astragation books his deceased uncle left for him then makes for the clsosest possible destination. Along the way he meats Sam Anderson who at first steals Maxs credentials then succeeds in getting them a berth as stewerds mate thrid class.  As luck would have it Max has an eidetic memory which assists in  helping Max work his way up the ladder of the crew.  A fantastic story of which I will not ruin for you here. But it is so worth a read. I believe this realm of science fiction is completly ignored by teens and young adults today .

There's at least one star's worth of nostalgia in this rating.

This was okay, I guess. It's always kind of fun to read pre moon landing science fiction involving space travel. The quirky mechanics of space travel was really the book's only redeeming quality.

I always feel myself groan inwardly when someone writes characters from rural areas stereotypically. Yes, we get he grew up on a farm, he does not need to say things like "Well golly ma'am!" every few sentences.

Most of the characters are flat. The plot drags on, and the conclusion was pretty anticlimactic. Maybe I'm expecting too much of this book after really enjoying The Moon is a Harsh Mistress?!

Even so, I can't bring myself to give it more than two stars, as I was pretty bored throughout most of it.

I really liked this book. A lot of modern sci-fi themes and ideas can be traced back to this book; warp speed, possible parallel universes, etc. Good story and characters, geared toward young readers because it's more or less a coming of age story, but I loved it and I'm nearly 40. Hard to beat.

I've read half a dozen of these Heinlein juveniles now and enjoyed them a lot. I find it interesting what was considered a book for kids in the past. While the plots seem to be modernized versions of basic kid adventures (like running away to become a sailor in this case), the books go quite in depth about the math and science involved. I can't imagine anything like Starman Jones being published today because our concept of what is "nerdy" has been so watered down. We consider comic books nerdy, while in the 1950's they were considered mainstream. The politics with Max's superior officers were also fairly mature and complex. I'd love to see a book like this today where the hero was, say, a programming prodigy who built a spaceship and went exploring.

Книга явно ориентированная на юношество.

Мне импонирует безапеляционность автора в вопросах, как должен себя вести человек чести.

Совершенно не важно, что я не со всем согласен - мне нравится целостность взглядов автора.

Книги Хайнлайна вообще приятно читать, поскольку там встречаешь образцы для подражания. Порядочных, цельных и уверенных в себе людей.
При этом автор не уходит в кич и характерную для многих книг такого направления тупую героику космических боевиков.

Конкретно эту книгу я бы не рекомендовал читать - у автора есть и более читабельные произведения.

В этой книге он попытался показать процесс, который просто невозможно описать.
Как программист я прекрасно понимаю безнадежность попытки описать реальный накал эмоций от работы со сложными системами.

Неудивительно что результат получился довольно нудным и глуповатым.
Дело тут вовсе не в том что автор описывал придуманный процесс, а в том что интеллектуальную деятельность не получится как-то вразумительно описать. Ее можно только самому испытать, но для этого надо много лет этому учится.

This book has flaws and is dated, but I don't care.

This was one of the books that Heinlein wrote for a teenage male audience. A fair amount of his fiction for adults is crap (I've read all of it) and some is good, and a lot is in between, but in his "juvenile novels" (not his term, as far as I know) for teenaged males he is sometimes transcendently brilliant, and this is such a case.

In a sense you don't find out what the story is about until Chapter 20, titled "A ship is not just steel". I suspect that Heinlein started with the idea of bringing the protagonist, Max Jones, to the point in Chapter 20 where a very senior officer delivers an astonishing piece of information in just four words that Heinlein may have learned in some form while studying at the Naval Academy in the 1920s.

Until Chapter 20, it looks as if Max is encountering various difficulties along the way and dealing with him and as if that's the story. He started as a dirt-poor farmer and slowly works up to being one of the lowest-ranking officers aboard a starship.

Legal issues are frequently mentioned in passing without seeming to become a major issue. This begins in the first chapter, in discussions of who inherited Max's uncles's effects and of a husband supporting his wife, and of the shameful crime of failure to return a library book. For some reason, the following has become a favorite paragraph:

BEGIN QUOTE The library book had been burning a hole in his rucksack; at Oklahoma City he noticed a postal box at the freight depot and, on impulse, dropped the book into it. After he had mailed it he had a twinge of worry that he might have given a clue to his whereabouts which would get back to Montgomery, but he suppressed the worry---the book had to be returned. Vagrancy in the eyes of the law had not worried him, nor trespass, nor impersonating a licensed teamster---but filching a book was a sin. END QUOTE

By the end of Chapter 5 Max has some weighty legal liabilities hanging over his head that remain until the last chapter. In Chapter 6, there's a subtle bit of foreshadowing of the surprise that comes in Chapter 20, in the form of a passing reference to some legalities. I never noticed that until decades after I first read the story. In Chapter 16 a leader makes some statements about the importance of the rule of law in difficult circumstances, and that prepares us for the surprise in Chapter 20.

Max wants to go into space, but only certain Guilds are allowed to have space-based careers, and farmers like Max don't belong to any of those Guilds. A series of unfortunate events, however, results in Max getting a shot to realize his dreams.

Don't read the synopsis on the back of the book! My version (old paperback with a picture of the Worry Room) contained moderate spoilers for events that happen 3/4 through the story.

Max's sink-or-swim journey is reminiscent of everyone's first real job, where everything from responsibilities to policies to expectations are completely unknown. Max's experience runs the gamut: understanding the chain of command (a necessity in the civilian world, too), social structure, etiquette at different 'ranks' of life, social expectations (when looking nice is expected vs. required), the social importance of following these expectations (presentation is important for position and promotion), following orders, giving orders, when to ignore minor infractions and when to report them, how to deal with stress, how to deal with adversity, and so much more. Perhaps the most important lesson is taught by Kelley, who at one point comments that he tried to be an astrogator, but knew his limits and backed off.

Like some of Heinlein's other works, the story takes a while to get off the ground (pun intended). Also, the pre-moon-landing depictions of technology are a bit dated, but they're still a good reminder that we did some amazing things in the Apollo era. The fact that we were able to land men on the moon with only 145,000 lines of code is still astonishing every time I think about it. So is the technology outdated? Yes. Does that make it inferior? I certainly wouldn't discount old tech.

It's a fun read and one that I expect to re-read again.

Μετά το Ο δρόμος της δόξας, αυτό είναι το δεύτερο βιβλίο που διαβάζω από Ρόμπερτ Χάινλαϊν και μου φάνηκε λίγο καλύτερο από το πρώτο. Το βιβλίο αυτό είναι περισσότερο για εφήβους αλλά διαβάζεται και από μεγαλύτερους, δεν υπάρχει πρόβλημα.

Η ιστορία γνωστή, ένα αγροτόπαιδο από τη Γη, φεύγει από το σπίτι του με το οποίο δεν τον ενώνει τίποτα πλέον, και ύστερα από κάποιες μπαγαποντιές, χάρη σε έναν μικροαπατεώνα αλλά όχι κακό άνθρωπο που συνάντησε στο δρόμο του, καταφέρνει να κάνει το όνειρο του πραγματικότητα και να πετάξει στο διάστημα με ένα εμπορικό/επιβατικό πλοίο. Έχει και ένα ταλέντο. Ό,τι διαβάζει το θυμάται απ'έξω και είναι πολύ καλός στην αστροναυτιλία. Σιγά-σιγά παίρνει προαγωγές μέσα στο σκάφος κλπ κλπ. Κάποια στιγμή το σκάφος χάνεται σε άλλο γαλαξία και προσγειώνεται σε έναν άγνωστο πλανήτη. Κάποιες περιπέτειες και μετά πίσω στο σπίτι.

Η αλήθεια είναι ότι δεν ήταν τόσο περιπετειώδες, αλλά αυτό που μου άρεσε πάρα πολύ, ήταν η όλη ατμόσφαιρα μέσα στο πλοίο, τέλεια σκιαγράφηση της ζωής μέσα σε ένα τέτοιο πλοίο, με τους αξιωματικούς και τις διαφωνίες τους, με το προσωπικό, με τους επιβάτες, μάθαινε κανείς πως λειτουργεί ένα πλοίο και τι γίνεται στο κυβερνείο του (κάτι παραπάνω θα ξέρει και ο Χάινλαϊν). Η γραφή απλή αλλά καλή, συνέβαλε και αυτή στη γρήγορη και εύκολη ανάγνωση.

Το βιβλίο γραμμένο το 1953 δείχνει λίγο τα χρονάκια του, αλλά είναι πολύ αξιόλογο και ό,τι πρέπει για ένα ανάλαφρο απόγευμα.

Though the story is chock full of 1950s social attitudes, stereotypes and biases, there is enough imaginative setting, character development and page-turning drama to make this a pleasant read. And a six-armed monkey-type pet.

P. 104-195
"'...Where are you from?'
'The Ozarks. That’s Earthside.'
'Now isn’t that a coincidence! I’m from Winnipeg—we’re neighbours!'
Max decided that it might appear so, from that distance. But as Dolores babbled on it became evident that she knew neither the location of the Ozarks nor that of Winnipeg, had probably never been on Terra in her life."

I’m curious about Robert Heinlein's connection with Winnipeg. Apparently it is also a setting he used in at least one more book: Friday, about a genetically-engineered courier in future Earth.