Starman Jones

Starman Jones

3.71 of 5 stars 3.71  ·  rating details  ·  3,549 ratings  ·  96 reviews

A classic novel from the mind of the storyteller who captures the imagination of readers from around the world, and across two generations

Science Fiction Grand Master

ROBERT A. HEINLEIN

STARMAN JONES

It was a desperate time, when one's next meal and the comforts of home couldn't be taken for granted. Max Jones, a practical, hard-working young man, found his escape in his bel

...more
Paperback, 261 pages
Published March 1st 2005 by Pocket Books (first published 1953)
more details... edit details

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
Ender's Game by Orson Scott CardDune by Frank Herbert1984 by George OrwellFahrenheit 451 by Ray BradburyBrave New World by Aldous Huxley
Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books
387th out of 2,947 books — 12,439 voters
Old Man's War by John ScalziStarship Troopers by Robert A. HeinleinPandora's Star by Peter F. HamiltonRevelation Space by Alastair ReynoldsOn Basilisk Station by David Weber
Excellent Space Opera
48th out of 204 books — 800 voters


More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)
filter  |  sort: default (?)  |  rating details
Jim
Another typical (great!) Heinlein YA novel about a farm boy who makes good. The main characters in this book aren't angels. They break the law - bad ones mostly - for reasons they think are sufficient (I always thought so) & reap the consequences afterward, but still come out ahead.

Max is a hillbilly & has an impossible situation at home. He runs away, gets fake ID with the help of a rough, but kind stranger. He gets a job on a space ship cleaning pet cages. Menial, but honest work that...more
Mike (the Paladin)
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...more
Osho
Books read in the past:

I think of this as the exemplar of Heinlein's writing in this period. The hero is a sympathetic lad with special talents, the mentor is old but not a lecherous coot, the plot complications involve interpersonal tension as well as external problems, the problems are both technical and alien-mediated, and the solutions require the protagonist to shoulder responsibilities and become a man. This is a fine young adult novel and one of two science fiction novels (the other being...more
Steve
So I just read this book, and now on Goodreads see that I read it in 1988; this is probably the 3rd or 4th time I've read it. It's a good story, good quality sf for 1953. It's funny how Heinlein made the future seem so real in his books, but he's always got one leg stuck directly in the past (or perhaps half his body). In this future of starships, the main character still grows up isolated on a farm (which is one reason I identified with the thing when I read it when I was in the 7th or 8th grad...more
Jim
An SF Juvenile originally published 60 years ago, 1953, & it shows its age in a few places, but was still a wonderful yarn with one of my favorite characters in it, Sam. Hardly the perfect hero or role model, he was a lot of fun & showed the main character, Max, the ropes.

The age of the story was most apparent in the technology. Max has to study a computer by opening a panel & tracing circuits. Logs were pulled out of the tables in books (Anyone else remember those?), problems were m...more
sologdin
Nutshell: bucolic twerp with plot-significant eidetic memory defrauds his way aboard spaceship, flirts with rich girl, has a big adventure, &c.

YA and pulpy, but moves quickly, with characteristic heinleinian asides regarding law, politics, and science. Some nifty geeking out on the science of FTL travel.

Some have said that the text lays out a critique of labor unions, which may be the case. But it's not unambiguous, as the setting involves less unions than guilds, a significant distinction....more
Doug Turnbull
Starman Jones was copyrighted in 1953 by Robert A. Heinlein and published that same year by Charles Scribner’s Sons of New York. The sixth of the Heinlein Juveniles, it is the last one to be fully illustrated by Clifford Geary.

It is also the first of his juveniles to postulate interstellar travel. All of the earlier books confined travel within the solar system. The protagonist, Maximilian Jones, or Max as he is known, comes from unspecified hill country, possibly the Ozarks, where he is living...more
Kristel
A 1953, classic science fiction from the grand master Robert A. Heinlein is about a Ozark farm boy who travels to the stars when he is forced to run away from home. A not easy feat to accomplish because entering the trades is tightly controlled. You must pay large amounts of money and for an astrogator you must be recommended. Max Jones has learned from his uncle and his eidetic memory doesn’t hurt either. He becomes a stowaway on board a intergalactic spaceship. The pilot dies and the charts an...more
Lis Carey
This Heinlein guy was pretty good at telling a story.

Max Jones is a young farmer, working hard to support his unlovable stepmother after his father's death, but he dreams of the life his Uncle Chet lived, as a member of the Astrogators' Guild. Chet had promised him that he'd nominate him for membership, but died while Max was still too young to join, and then Max's father, before he died also, made him promise to take care of his stepmother.

But when his stepmother remarries and she and her new h...more
Loren
From ISawLightningFall.com

Reputations accrete in funny ways, and often we end up with a mental picture of a person or his work that's less than accurate. Take Robert A. Heinlein for example, the so-called dean of science fiction writers. Though Heinlein's career spanned nearly half a century, most folks today know him for the militaristic Starship Troopers, whose characters blasted not only intergalactic arachnids but Marxism as well. But theme-heavy SF doesn't compose the entirety of his oeuvre...more
Valerie
None of these editions seem to be the one I read.

The hero of this Alger-esque story has an identic memory. Whatever he reads, he remembers. He's told not to rely on this, as what matters to an astrogator (read: astronautical navigator) is knowing how to do (and check) the calculations. They have records, but to use said records without knowing how to check them is to perpetuate errors.

Turns out that the eidetic memory is not (quite) irrelevant, after all--but the initial advice was good, as the...more
Valerie
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 astro...more
David
I read a lot of Heinlein's juveniles when I was younger, but I missed this one and it was on sale from Audible, so it was nice to enjoy one of his earlier works, before he started getting old and wanky. Everything from Friday on was pretty much Heinlein getting his freak on, but his earlier novels are still sci-fi classics for good reason.

Starman Jones is your basic boys' adventure story: Max is a kid from Earth who runs away from home when his stepmother marries an abusive bum. He meets an amia...more
Glenn Schmelzle
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Tiffany Robbins
This was a great book of star exploration as seen from a mid twentieth century writer. He’s very specific about the ships cockpit along with long hand math calculations and analog print outs. I appreciated it purely for its vintage sci-fi feel, though the story was grand as well.

I found Jones to be a very typical Heinlein hero – abused boy running off to make a better life for himself. Of course, he finds a girl in his explorations and for some odd reason she’s into him. He’s into her too, but o...more
Dennis
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.
Steve Moseley
Jun 18, 2010 Steve Moseley rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: kids
Shelves: sci-fi
Farm boy Max has dreams to grow up and be an astrogator (astronaut) like his uncle, but since he is a run-away with no money, and no credentials to get him into space; he must con his way in with the help of con-artist friend whom Max meets on the run named Sam.

This is a classic coming of age story, with enough twist and turns to stay interested in it. I especially like that the story contains some elements of redemption for its main characters, especially Sam.

For a Science Fiction book written...more
Jill
Enjoyed this today as much as I did when I read it in middle school. Great book for showing kids the importance of science and math, plus hard work and honesty pay off. Granted the main character does break some laws to pursue his dream of becoming a space pilot, however; the laws were unjust in that only the children of current guild members were allowed to learn astronavigation. Eventually, the main character comes clean, and the fair-minded people give him a chance. So the lessons of taking r...more
Jan M
I finally have gotten back to my roots. This is pure Heinlein. The story deals with a young man in a big world who wants to fly spaceships. I love the way Heinlein makes his characters human but full of integrity and kindness. These characteristics help him make good friends and, of course, they all have great adventures. Add to that the touch of science (I really don't know how much of this is based on what is known, but I do believe it is a starting point). The optimistic tone is the best, whe...more
Hyarrowen
This is the book that got nine-year-old me started on a fifteen-year science fiction binge, until the genre started to get darker and edgier (and duller). I loved the fast-paced story-telling and the wish-fulfilment; farm boy becomes... well, I'm not going to spoil it but it's a great ride.

On re-reading the book recently, I winced a bit at some of the attitudes towards women, but that was par for the course in 1953 and the female protagonist was a tough cookie, as were some of the other women....more
Betty Cross
This is my other fave from Heinlein's sci-fi for young readers (or "young adults" as they are now called). Young Jones lives with a bunch of ne'er-do-well distant relatives in the Ozarks, but there is a wonderful secret in his past -- his father whom he's never met was an Astrogator, possessor of the skill of travel between the stars, and has left behind one precious heirloom, his Astrogator's manual. Taking the book, Jones decides to run away and go into space. He gets his wish, thanks to the m...more
Darth
This is one of the best pieces of sci-fi ever written.
The story is a moves right along, the characters are interesting and varied, and the action is as fast paced as you would want, without feeling like a Stel Pavlou book. Nothing against Stel, he just writes in an awful damn hurry. It bogged down a little for me on the unknown planet, the capture by the creatures seemed a bit much, but otherwise I dont know that I would change much if I Buettnered this tomorrow and rewrote it in my own homage s...more
J.A. Dalley
Jan 31, 2012 J.A. Dalley rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: All Heinlein Fans
Shelves: science-fiction
This is among Heinlein's greatest novels. Though this book is very dated, it is fun to read about a massive passenger liner were the astrogators are using slide rules and punching numbers in binary into the computer. I think Heinlein was a little off in that prediction.
This is however another one of Heinlein's great juvenile novels. This book follows the adventures of Starman Jones as he runs away from home to be an astrogator and follow in the footsteps of his uncle. Things don't always go as p...more
Robert
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Jay Michaels
After reading The Door into Summer, I dug into my pile of Robert Heinlein paperbacks. Starman Jones (1953) held up pretty well to what I remembered of it from reading it in my teens and 20s.

I continue to be amused by Heinlein's preview of a future where humans are the weakest (but necessary) link in the starship/computer interface. However, his characters are likable in this coming of age story, in which the Farm Boy wants to go to Space, and actually reaches his goal... but not without a few n...more
Merlin
Unlike most of Heinlein's juveniles this one has a plot.
As a rule his juveniles all have to be classed as 'coming-of-age' stories starring a gifted youngster who might have a history of getting in trouble, of the 'too smart for their own good' verity, but is generally naive. The story would just be a series of episodes involving no real danger but providing opportunity for limited growth.
This one though has a beginning, middle and end; it just comes rather abruptly. It is almost as if he hit his...more
Alexander Khodyrev
A Heinlein juvenile. Pretty average sci-fi: predictable, simplistic and entertaining.

Obvious inspirations: "A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms" for the aliens and Horatio Hornblower novels for naval (here space) customs. In both cases the novel does not quite live up to the originals, but one wouldn't expect it to.

Good sci-fi for when you want a quick entertaining read. Some Heinleinian philosophy about trade unions and liberties of the frontier.

Also: Jo Walton's review on Tor.com.
Katharine Kimbriel
I really enjoyed this in my green days, a hero who depended on brain power and biology as opposed to muscles. Heinlein always weaves an interesting story of the dark and bright side of a technological future, usually about how an individual can defeat odds and get their heart's desire. And although quirky his women/girls generally are not idiots or wimps.

Plus, no overt sex or bad language. So -- you probably know a teen who will enjoy this, if not for yourself!

Haven't re-read it yet, but I imagi...more
Julia
Dated but held my attention. Some of the story is not credible (and not just because the science has been superceded. But I still wanted to continue reading. (view spoiler)[ It didn't seem credible that Max would be made the Captain of the spaceship when this was his first flight in space simply because he was an apprentice Astrogator. And it seemed equally unlikely at the end that he would be bounced back down to apprentice on a new ship after having successfully completed the mission as captai...more
MG Mason
Starman Jones is one of the lesser known of Heinlein's work. Coming in at a mere 200 pages, it tells the story of a stowaway on board a starship who has always dreamed of being a navigator. When he is caught and his obvious talent spotted, he becomes part of the crew and soon finds himself on command deck when his family tie is revealed.

Sometime later the chief 'Astrogater' dies and the ship is seemingly lost in uncharted space. The Captain cannot cope. They land upon the nearest habitable world...more
« previous 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 99 100 next »
There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »
Starman Jones (Mass Market Paperback)
Starman Jones (Mass Market Paperback)
Starman Jones (Mass Market Paperback)
Starman Jones
Starman Jones (Mass Market Paperback)

205
Robert Anson Heinlein was an American novelist and science fiction writer. Often called "the dean of science fiction writers", he is one of the most popular, influential, and controversial authors of "hard science fiction".

He set a high standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of literary quality. He was the first SF writer to break into mainstre...more
More about Robert A. Heinlein...
Stranger in a Strange Land Starship Troopers The Moon is a Harsh Mistress Time Enough for Love The Puppet Masters

Share This Book

Your website
“Everybody is equal. Everybody! That's the law."
"They are? Only from on top.”
1 person liked it
More quotes…