Note: this will make a lot more sense if you read the first essay in this series, which sets out the premise that I'm exploring here. Caution, many spoilers below.

by Robert Heinlein, 1953, published by Charles Scribner's Sons.

Next on our list of Heinlein Juveniles is Starman Jones, one of Heinlein's best. This book will tackle two new themes, in addition to the usual ones: fairness and breaking rules. It's also the first of Heinlein's Juveniles to be set outside of the solar system.

Maximilian Jones has had a rough time. His mother died, then his father remarried, then his father died, leaving him with his stepmother. Max has had to drop out of school to work the family farm and support his mother and himself. His mother is something of a floozy, who sometimes stays gone for a day or two at a time (presumably to chase men, but Heinlein wasn't allowed to say that directly). She's lazy and self-indulgent, but not mean or hurtful towards Max. Max has also lost his uncle, Chester, who was an astrogator aboard a starship. His uncle has taught Max, who is something of a prodigy, the difficult mathematics of astrogation, even though it is against the rules of his guild.

Max's mother (Max always refers to her as "Maw") comes home one day with a thug named Montgomery and announces that they are married. It seems that a government power project is moving into the area and buying up land. Monty has married Max's mother to get in on the deal and sell the farm for a premium. By the way, there will be another villain named Montgomery in Time Enough For Love: Heinlein evidently thought it was an evil-sounding name.

On the first night home, Monty is abusive towards Max, who isn't one to buckle under. Max escapes injury and decides to leave. He briefly considers his duty towards his stepmother:

...Had Dad meant for him to support Mrs Montgomery?
Of course not! When a woman married, her husband supported her. Everybody knew that. And Dad wouldn't expect him to put up with Montgomery. He stoop up, his mind suddenly made up.

Max takes off through the hills with just what he can carry – which includes his uncle's astrogation books. He walks until late at night and then finds a hobo in a gully making up some mulligan stew. The hobo, Sam, invites Max to share his dinner and they talk until Max is too sleepy to continue. When Max wakes up the next morning, Sam is gone, and so are the books. Max hitches his way to Earthport, intending to call at the Astrogator's Guild Hall and see if his uncle has left him any legacy.

A major part of the novel revolves around the idea of guilds and trade unions. The good ones are impossible to get into unless your relative was a member and nominates you to be their successor. Heinlein elaborately sets up an unfair system, designed to make it impossible for people to make their own destiny – a system where your station at birth locks in your life options. This is important, because unfairness is a theme he wants to explore in the novel.

Max finds that his uncle has not, unfortunately, nominated him. He also finds that Sam had been there earlier in the day, pretending to be him so as to sell the books back to the guild. He hadn't succeeded; the guild had been suspicious and he had left abruptly when they tried to take his fingerprints. So, the Astrogator's Guild pays Max the deposit on the books "an impressive sheaf of money" but Max is back out on the street. The first person he runs into is Sam.

His first instinct is to yell at Sam for taking his books, but Sam points out that they weren't actually his books and that Sam had taken them where they belonged, after all. They go have lunch and talk the situation over. Sam has the idea that they can use the money Max has to buy up false documents and get themselves aboard a starship (Sam has served in the past and Max knows all about it from his uncle).

"Use your head! We don't have enough to pay one apprentice fee, let alone two, in any space guild –and the Asgard isn't signing 'prentices anyhow. We'll be experienced journeymen in one of the guilds, with records to prove it."
When the idea soaked in, Max was shocked. "But they put you in jail for that!"
"Where do you think you are now?"
"Well, I'm not in jail. And I don't want to be."
"This whole planet is one big jail, and a crowded one at that. What chance have you got? If you aren't born rich, or born into one of the hereditary guilds, what can you do? Sign up with one of the labor companies."

Max gets talked into it and they wind up aboard the Asgard, with Max doing work he actually knows: taking care of the livestock that is part of the ship's cargo. He also meets and becomes friendly with "Mr Chips" a sort of semi-intelligent monkey from some other planet and Mr Chips' owner Ellie, who is a passenger. An unexpected opening develops aboard the ship, however. The position of "chartsman" has opened up and, since Max's fake records show that had once tried out for the position, he is invited to try out again. The guilds are notified and Max moves up.

Max now works in the control room, with all of the big shots. Max works as chartsman with three astrogators, Simes, Dr Hendrix and the Captain. There is a rule: only astrogators can be Captain, since the job is difficult and the responsibility is as great as being captain in the first place (one wrong move and you can find yourself lost). Dr Hendrix is a kindly old guy who knew Max's uncle and takes him under his wing. Simes is young, nasty and jealous of Max.

Hendrix finds out that Max not only knows the math, but that he has a freak talent: he never forgets anything. For example, he had read all of his uncle's books and he can now recite them word for word, even down to the tables of figures. Hendrix finds this an interesting talent, but not a particularly useful one: after all they have the books.

Then Dr Hendrix dies of a heart attack and things change again. Now, the ship is below its complement of three astrogators and because Max has demonstrated his talent at it, he is allowed to become an Assistant Astrogator. Simes is more jealous than ever and tries to treat Max as badly as possible. At this point, Max confesses that his record is a pack of lies. This is noted and disciplinary action will come later, but the current emergency makes it something to worry about later.

"What's eating you boy? You look like the goblins had been chasing you."
Max flopped on his bunk and sighed. "I feel that way, too." He told Sam about the row with Simes.
"Sam nodded approval. "That's the way to deal with a jerk like that –insult him until he apologizes. Give him lump enough and he'll be eating out of your hand."
Max shook his head dolefully. "Today was fun, but he'll find some way to take it out on me. Oh, well!"
"Not so, my lad. Keep your nose clean and wait for the breaks. If a man is stupid and bad-tempered –which he is, I sized him up long ago– if you are smart and keep your temper, eventually, he leaves himself wide open. That's a law of nature."

Their ship can cover many light-years in a single "jump". The ship must be brought to a precise location in space, pointed in a precise direction and just below the speed of light. The ship can then bump over the speed of light and find itself unimaginably far away through a fold in space. Max finds on their next transition, that the Captain isn't as sharp as he once was. Normally Dr Hendrix would be handling everything, but now it's the Captain and Simes handling things at the crucial moment. The Captain transposes some digits, then Simes is too uncomfortable to apply a big enough correction and the Captain, amazed, has to apply an even larger correction. Unfortunately, he applies it with the wrong sign and they are way off. In fact, they come out at an unknown location, lost in space. The Captain takes this as an almost physical blow and retires, haggard, to his cabin.

They land on a handy planet to think things over. The Captain, looking worse than ever, announces that he has taken them as far as he can and that the ship, now on the ground, is in the care of the First Officer. The passengers start to pioneer the new planet while the control room gang tries to figure out where they are by analyzing the spectra of first-magnitude stars.

One day, Max and Ellie go for a walk with Mr Chips. They get too far from the ship and some indigenous creatures that look something like centaurs capture them. It turns out that the creatures are highly intelligent and have, through biological means, caused all of the other creatures on the planet to become their slaves. Max and Ellie aren't mistreated, but they are held captive for several days.

Eventually, Mr Chips leads Sam to the place where they are being held and he is able to free them and get them back to the ship. Just as they are reaching the ship, however, the centaurs attack and Sam is killed. Devastated, Max also finds that things haven't gone well in his absence. The Captain has died and Simes has tried to take over the ship. The First Office didn't find him stable enough to hand command to, however, and in the ensuing fracas Sam has killed Simes. This leaves Max as the only person left aboard who can astrogate. Simes has also hidden the books and Max will have to astrogate by memory.

The ship is in a mess, the natives are much stronger than they had thought and the ship is in danger. Max reluctantly assumes command and they make it back by the risky maneuver of flying back into the exact spot where they emerged. Max is fined, but bringing the ship back is such an accomplishment that they only bust him back to assistant astrogator. The book ends where it began, with Max making one last visit back to the abandoned farm. He has accepted his punishment and is ready to make a life for himself.

So, typical comming of age novel, right? Well, yes and know. Certainly most elements of the coming of age story are present, but not quite in their usual form. Usually, Our Hero doesn't break the law to get his start, at least not feloniously. Usually, Our Hero has a mentor, but he's usually a retired hero himself, not a scamp and a thief like Sam. Usually, Our Hero gets the girl, but here Max doesn't get the girl –his responsibility as Captain precludes any personal relationships. Usually, Our Hero is set for life once he completes his quest, here Max is just starting out.

All of these twists are due to the lessons Heinlein wanted to teach. Yes, he's saying, there are unfair rules and, yes, sometimes you just have to break them. But when you do so, you take responsibility for your actions and pay for your transgressions. Heinlein went to a lot of trouble to set up a basically unfair society so that Max would have a good reason to break the rules. He needed a lowly companion to help him do it.

"I was always explaining –in my mind of course– why I did it, justifying myself, pointing out that they system was at fault, not me. Now I don't want to justify myself. Not that I regret it, not when I think what I would have missed. But I don't want to duck out of paying for it, either."
Walther nodded. "That sounds like a healthy attitude. Captain, no code is perfect. A man must conform with judgement and commonsense, not with blind obedience. I've broken rules; some violations I paid for, some I didn't. This mistake you made could have turned you into a moralistic prig, a 'Regulation Charlie' determined to walk the straight and narrow and to see that everyone else obeyed the letter of the law. Or it could have made you a permanent infant who thinks rules are for everyone but him. It doesn't seem to have had either effect; I think it has matured you."

There are all sorts of good lessons throughout the novel. The part I quote above, where Sam says, "That's the way to deal with a jerk like that" is a good example. I learned that lesson in this book as a kid and it has worked for me time and again since. If someone is stupid and bad-tempered, you just wait. Eventually, they will always find a way to commit some career-ending gaff. You may have to wait a while, but I've never seen it take more than a couple of years. Often, you can just stand by and help it along in quiet ways, such as keeping records or calling attention to mistakes before they get covered up.

The illustrations are mostly pretty good, but Clifford Geary did have his off days. The illustration that shows Max, Ellie and Sam running back to the ship as the centaurs attack is terrible.

Max looks like he's got some sort of facial scarring. He also looks like he's wearing a hair shirt of some kind. I don't know how this happened, but I would guess that Geary had to hurry through this one. Here's a close up of Max:

Max is the first character in the Heinlein Juveniles to have an unusual talent, but he won't be the last. Heinlein found such people interesting and liked to write about them –usually showing that it takes more than unique talent to get by in life. Max's stepmother and Monty are also interesting characters. It develops that Max owns half of the farm, a fact Monty wasn't aware of. After Max is gone, Monty and Max's mom only get half the money they are expecting. At the end, Max figures the money has run out and his stepmother has settled any beef he has with Monty: "Maw wasn't the woman to let a man loaf when she was needing."

There is no discussion of science or engineering in this juvenile. The story is long and complicated enough, I suspect there just wasn't room. Also, the Asgard is powered by magical future-juice, so there's not much factual to be said. Instead, Heinlein draws on his experiences at sea to do a near-pefect job of setting the social scene aboard a passenger and freight-carrying starship. He also nails the complex relationships between crew, officers, passengers and Captain. In the Wiki article about Starman Jones, you'll see speculation that Heinlein drew on his experience as a naval officer to get the degree of verisimilitude the novel has. I don't think that's the case. I think it was his many experiences as a passenger in passenger and freight-carrying ships that Heinlein drew on. A lot of these details show up in Tramp Royale, a travelogue that was published after his death. In particular, Heinlein drew on his real-life experience to get the relationship between the Captain and the First Officer correct, and especially how that relationship changed depending on the ship being under way or on the ground.

Starman Jones is a deeply satisfying novel that fulfills the premise of this series of essays perfectly. It's abundantly clear that Heinlein explicitly crafted the novel to discuss certain themes and life-lessons. They don't just show up in the plot and characters, they are the plot and characters.