Starman Jones

by Robert A. Heinlein

Published 18 February 1971
  • The stars were closed to Max Jones. To get into space you either needed
    connections, a membership in the arcane Guild, or a whole lot more money than
    Max, the son of a widowed, poor mother, was every going to have. What Max
    does have going for him are his uncle’s prized astrogation manuals
    — books on star navigation that Max literally commits to memory word for
    word, equation for equation. When Max’s mother decides to remarry a
    bullying oaf, Max takes to the road, only to discover that his uncle
    Chet’s manuals, and Max’s near complete memorization of them, is a
    ticket to the stars!
  • From the First Golden Age of Heinlein, this is the so-called juvenile
    (written, Heinlein always claims, just as much for adults) that started them all
    and made Heinlein a legend for multiple generations of readers.