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Review Summaries
"This is truly a rags-to-riches story. Max Jones, a hick farmboy with a 20-20 memory in the backwoods of Arkansas, runs away from his brutal mother and wicked stepdad in an attempt to get a career in space travel. He quickly finds it isn't so easy, however--Earth has very particular union rules about who can and can't go into space. So he enlists his shady but good naturedly friend Sam to get him forged papers that will get him and Sam aboard a passenger ship bound for the interstellar circuit.
Max boards as a lower level staffer in charge of keeping the passengers' pets happy, and if the story ended there it would have been a dull one. But things get interesting when Matt, with his perfect memory, admits to memorizing the all-important "Astrogator" textbooks, and that gets him a promotion from deputy pooper-scooper to assistant chartsman on the bridge. After that he goes through a series of meteoric promotions until he ends up being Captain, when the ship is stranded on an alien planet and all those senior to Max are killed or die of natural causes.
This is an interesting story to read, but a bit slow in parts, as it doesn't have the same kind of military excitement as Starship Troopers or exploration excitement as Space Cadet. But it is interesting to watch the local boy make good, rising in the ranks from pooper scooper to Captain.
"
Steve, Resident Robert A. Heinlein Scholar
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Overall Review
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Plot
Tone of book
- very upbeat
FANTASY or SCIENCE FICTION?
- science fiction story
Coming of age
Yes
Youngster becomes
- great naval officer
Explore/1st contact/ enviro story
Yes
Plotlets:
- stranded on alien planet, fighting aliens to survive
- lost in spaceship
Training/Apprent.
Yes
Is this an adult or child's book?
- Adult or Young Adult Book
Main Character
Identity:
- Male
Age:
- a teen
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events?
Yes
How sensitive is this character?
- sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence
- Average intelligence
Physique
- average physique
Main Adversary
Identity:
- Male
Age:
- 40's-50's
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in:
- an above average amount
How sensitive is this character?
- hard edged
Sense of humor
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence
- Average intelligence
Physique
- average physique
Setting
Spaceship setting:
- futuristic human freighter/transport
A substantial portion of this book takes place on a non-Earth planetary body:
- unfriendly aliens
- primitive aliens
Planet outside solar system?
Yes
Takes place in spaceship?
Yes
Style
Person?
- mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death?
- generic/vague references to death/punishment
scientific jargon? (SF only)
- some scientific explanation
How much dialogue?
- significantly more dialog than descript
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