Starman Jones - review

[watervole]

Still wobbly. Reading and cross-stitch seem to be among the few things that don't make me feel worse, so I'm doing a lot of both.  (computer use is generally bad, so I'm getting very little done on that front and email is just having to wait most of the time)

Just finished an early Heinlein: 'Starman Jones'

Still a surprisingly good read in spite of being written in 1953.  The computers only take binary input and decimal to binary conversion is done on spaceships by looking up the conversion in reference books - and I still enjoyed reading it.  The story survives the dated stuff by still feeling good with the stuff that hasn't dated - and it's a cracking good 'boy's own' adventure story.  In essence, farm boy with a desire to go into space takes his uncles astrogation books and saves the day.

Comments

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

I remember that one, I liked it very much at the time I read it, which would have been late 50s. I have never revisited because I was worried it had dated badly.

[pennski.livejournal.com]

And in other news, there are now 3 tiny tomatoes on "your" tomato plant and the rest of it is a mass of flowers.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I am amazingly pleased by this!

You've obviously giving it lots of tlc, water and fertiliser.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

That was the first sf novel I ever read. I still love it.

[robthefish.livejournal.com]

I was bought up on Golden Age SF. "More Than Human" by Theodore Sturgeon (which I'm pretty sure was written in the mid 50s)is one of my 'comfort reading' books :-)

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I remember that one. Though I don't have my own copy as I used to get loads of stuff from the library.

[rockwell-666.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, I've read this one too. It is, as you say, a "Boys Own" adventure, but none the less it's enjoyable.

His early stuff is all very readable, even though a lot of it is now scientifically inaccurate (Venus a world of swamps etc) and his Future History books still rank for me as some of the best imagined short fiction.