Gloriously old-fashioned 'juvenile' SF. Yes, the technology outlook is laughable (using books of tables to navigate a starship by) but the heart of the book is a young man's growing up through hardship and challenges. I read this first when I was a teenager, and it was one of the books that made me a committed SF fan. Sense of wonder? Check. Strong narrative? Check. Careful backgrounding of future scenario? Check. Great stuff.

This is another Heinlein I remember favorably from my childhood. It has not stood the test of time quite as well some of his other titles. Virtually all the women have rather sexist positions. They are vapid, predatory, vicious, or good but on the stupid side. "You need the little darlings but you need to keep them in their places" pretty much sums up his attitude to a large degree in this book.All the vital characters are men.

The story itself is excellent. Max and Sam are aboard a starship by rather shady methods. Once it takes off, Max gets noticed by the astrogation group and starts being groomed for astrogator. However, at least one of the crew is threatened by his innate ability and his hostility leads at least somewhat indirectly towards the ship being lost in space. Will that planet over yonder be good to colonize? Will they ever get back home? Will Max's perfect memory stand up under this stress? Read and find out. The aliens in this book are not particularly memorable in my opinion. Nothing like the wonderful flat cats for example.

Recommended fairly highly but with some reservations. I'd call this perhaps a 3.5 rather than a real 4 star title.

I decided to reread all of Heinlein’s “juveniles” as they're called. I originally read them in elementary school but many decades have passed since then.

Heinlein didn’t write down to his young audience. He presented human nature and the indifference of nature as it was, albeit somewhat softening the occasional blow.

One of the aspects I enjoy most about many of these Golden Age novels is the optimistic, can-do attitude that pervades the writing, rather than the bleak, pessimistic tone of modern science fiction and especially SF written for younger readers. (This is not to say that all Golden Age SF was sweetness and light — check out C.M. Kornbluth’s “The Marching Morons” and “The Little Black Bag” for some fun pessimism.)

Heinlein's anachronistic elements are often recognized when dealing with technical issues. Other aspects are less obvious. I've lived in the Ozarks area (the boundaries between mountain ranges are necessarily nebulous). I was once lost in a state park. I made my way out by following excessively bright lights to a prison.

That was some years ago, but things have gotten worse everywhere. There are no longer any places that get dark at night. (Possibly with the exception of Arizona, where the astronomers have a fairly effective lobby). Researchers on nocturnal animals worry that the excess light will contribute to the dangers to species often already critically endangered. But just try to FIND any research on the impact of excess light on circadian rhythms (and on photosynthesis, as well). And if you DO find any, please tell me about them.

Heinlein's dystopian vision of a society controlled by hereditary Guilds seems to have been cut from whole cloth. I don't know of ANY source that even proposed such a thing.

Other aspects of the galactic civilization are essentially not developed at all. The ship's navigational problems are used as a pretext to avoid examining the society--but there's not much discussion of it when the ship is on its normal course, either.

One interesting note--Max's eidetic memory is quite rightly dismissed as a parlor trick. It turns out to be a useful trick with the loss of reference sources--but it has no greater utility than that. I disagree, however, with the notion that such parlor tricks are necessarily combined with autism. Heinlein even goes so far as to use the derisory term 'idiot savant', which is no longer used precisely because it's so dismissive and offensive. It's essentially a double whammy. People dismiss those who can't communicate well what they know (it's not really possible to determine what they DO know, because of the communications difficulties). Then when a few do find ways to communicate really quite remarkable abilties, they're doubly stigmatized.

Many people with otherwise quite ordinary talents have these 'stupid human tricks' special skills. Too often, however, because they fear such stigmatization (and/or exploitation), they suppress or marginalize their skills. In the book, Max is abashed when he realizes that what he can do is considered extraordinary, and he quite rightly fears that he will be ghettoized on account of it. His luck at finding people who can see past the stigma to the whole person beyond doesn't mitigate the fact that the society as a whole can't get past the 'freak show' mentality.

I've often thought Heinlein was at his best writing the juvenile fiction, especially when he managed to avoid long philosophical debates in the middle, and this is one of the best.

There's nothing overly new about the plot, as Heinlein himself admitted: it's the ultimate coming-of-age/maturity story. But he does it so well! As a reader you can see the forks in the road, the potential outcomes of decisions not taken, and yet you still get to experience it all with Max.

One warning: Don't read the introduction before the book (it does contain some spoilers, and I don't agree with the comparison).

I like this dated novel. A human civilization that was pictured or imagined before our present level of computer and electronic technology was even imagined. A young man "inherits" somewhat informally a set of "astrogator's" texts and then sets out to get "sponsored" to get into the Astrogator's guild", the only way to become an astrogator, someone who plots the course of starships through deep space.

One of Heinlein's so called teen novels and a good read. It dates back to 1953 and as I said is very dated, but in an odd way that adds to the book, much as some of Verne's books are. I checked Amazon and saw a few used copies, it may not be easy to track down, but I'd say you might find it worthwhile. If you can track it down it might just be worth a read.

Update: I just noticed that Hoopla has an audio version of this and most of Heinlein's books. This book is very dated, and for that reason I recommend you should try it. The view of things pre-solid state alone makes the book worth it.

I promised myself when I started this book that I would not allow its 1953 copyright to interfere with my determination to enjoy it. I resoundingly kept my promise. I hope you can make a similar promise and find similar pleasure in this young-adult title from a science-fiction master.

Max Jones is a nondescript farm kid. From as early as he can remember, Max wanted to explore the stars. His Uncle Chet, who had been a star commander, gave Max all the star manuals he would need to someday become a human calculator. In his wildest hopes and dreams, Max dreamed of being the one who created the coordinates that would guide whatever ship he was on into vast new universes. It meant he had to have an incredible memory and be super quick with mathematic computations. Remember, this is 1953, and while computers existed, Heinlein's vision Was a world in which human beings did rapid-fire Equations they could use to vaunt any spaceship into the stars.

Things aren't great at home for Max. His mom shows up one night with some beefcake loser of a guy whom she announces is Max's new dad. Technically, Max is an orphan. His real dad is long dead, as is his real mother. The woman who took care of him was a stepmother, and the new husband sees Max as a teenage piece of uselessness that he can push around at will. When he can take it no longer, Max packs what few things he has, including his uncle's precious books, and heads off for the earth port where he will be able to find work on an outgoing spaceship, he hopes. But it's harder to get into that business than he originally thought. In the end, a lovable Vagabond whom he met assisted him in forging records that made him look qualified to be on the next Starship. He knew they would eventually catch him, but at least this would give him one trip into the great beyond. Of course, he wanted more, many, many more.

The miscalculation that guided the spaceship arrive wasn't Max's fault. But at some point, they wind up in a solar system they hadn't planned to visit. The only planet that seemed habitable includes a vicious species of aliens. Max and a young woman whom you think might become a love interest find themselves in the hands of the vicious aliens and in need of rescue. You can read this to determine if the rescue comes and by what means it arrives. I don't want to create a situation here where I live up to the reputation I've apparently gained in the eyes of a much beloved and highly respected longtime friend. He insists I'm the only person who can write a three-hour review about a two-hour book. I may have already overstepped the limit here just a bit.

I can't help that. I just enjoyed this little science-fiction vacation so much. There's not super-hard science here that you have to grapple with as you would a book by Andy Weir. This is good, clean fun that will remind you of the days when, as a child, you practically glued yourself to the television set to witness the ongoing saga of will Robinson and his “Lost in Space” family. This is a story where there is no profanity, no teenage sex, just a nice, young man from a humble beginning who wants to live a moral and decent life and who hopes only for the best for those around him.

I enjoyed reading this several times on my own, but really enjoyed reading it (in small bits) with the kids in 2013. It is the second Heinlein novel I went through with them, after The Star Beast and they loved them both. Come to think of it, it has been over the time that we've been reading this that Lily first declared her intention to become an astronaut when she grows up (with the proviso that it might be too hard, and if it is, she's going to become a "smoothie girl.") Somehow that combination underlines all the benefits one might hope for in introducing one's children to Heinlein. :-)

[Imported automatically from my blog. Some formatting there may not have translated here.]

Another book down on the "Reread Heinlein Novels" project. A mere thirteen left to go! Wish me luck. (I think I read this one just once before, probably sixty years ago, out of some library. Remembered quite a bit of it, not everything.)

This is one of Heinlein's juveniles, originally published in 1953. It tells the story of young Max Jones, who has big dreams of interstellar travel, emulating his late uncle, an "astrogator" in charge of delicately setting the course for the big spaceships. But Max is stuck on his family farm in the Ozarks, dealing with his slatternly stepmother and her brand new loutish husband. When things turn physically abusive, Max heads out for the local spaceport on his very long-shot quest. He meets a seeming hobo, Sam, who provides sage advice, and also robs him of his valuable astrogation textbooks.

Max persists, and through a series of unlikely events, winds up on a starship, in one of the lowliest jobs. But in a series of even more unlikely events, his talent is recognized, he and the ship (and a comely maiden) are cast into deadly peril, and… well, it's a great yarn.

The current edition from Baen Books has an intro from Heinlein's biographer, the late William H. Patterson, Jr. He observes that Heinlein's juvenile works are explicitly modeled after the (even older) Horatio Alger stories, of young boys growing up out of hardship, and prevailing by grit and talent. And there's also an Afterword by Michael Z. Williamson, which notes the enduring value of the book. It's not the technical details, which are absurd to modern readers. (For example, the plot hinges on astrogation being a high-stress "priesthood" occupation demanding massive computers, but also detailed and delicate paper computation. Dude, buy a PC.) But it's really a book about growing up, something that never gets old.

I'm glad the book, like all Heinlein's novels, remains in print. But sadly it lacks Clifford Geary's imaginative illustrations I remember from that long-ago library book; instead we get a generic spaceship landed on a barren planetscape on the cover, something that doesn't actually happen in the book. (You can get a taste of the Geary pics here.)

A good, old-fashioned sci-fi novel. Nothing particularly out-of-the-ordinary here (nothing like Stranger in a Strange Land or something like that), just your standard farm-boy makes it as a spaceman, interstellar travel, getting lost in space, etc. I enjoyed it, though I wished it was longer - took a while to get to the meat of the story, in my opinion. I was pleasantly surprised though to find it's part of the "Heinlein Juveniles" - 12 books that would now be consider Young Adult fiction. They're not connected I guess, by character at least, but all sort of fit into a timeline of sorts? Anyway, I'm pretty excited about having 11 more of this type of sci-fi, pulp paperback, in my back pocket now, so to speak.

Pretty decent and quite an easy, fast read. Very much a product of when it was written so negative attitudes to anyone not American. Lots of reds under the bed paranoia, black people and women are very much second class citizens.

The hard science gets quite dry in places to the point where I found myself skipping pages where Heinlein info-dumped on the reader.

The solution I expected them to use to get home wasn't used (I assume Heinlein thought it was too obvious and chose his 2nd or 3rd thought) and the fake-out ending totally caught me by surprise.

Not an awful read, fun to analyse as a writer. I'd read this again.

Another Heinlein juvenile. Fast-moving, an easy read that goes down smoothly. The usual Heinlein tropes are there; callow hero, wise older man, clever plotting. I have read this two or three times in my life. Well, maybe four times. If you are familiar with his "juveniles," Heinlein, you know what you're getting. Somewhat dated, of course, but still well-put-together, and benefits from his own experiences in the military.

UPDATE, May 30, 2023: just read this again, more or less as a palate-cleanser between more demanding books. It's still a fun read, but I don't think I'll be reading it again. Off to a "little library" somewhere it goes.