Audiobook Fiction Sci-fi Sci-Fi Fantasy Space Opera Young Adult

Starman Jones

Name: Starman Jones
Rating: 3.89 (9151 reviews)
Author: Robert A. Heinlein

Robert A. Heinlein January 1, 1953

3.89 9.2k Ratings

Ongoing Status

62 Views

Start Reading

Synopsis

The stars were closed to Max Jones. To get into space you either needed connections, a membership in the Guild, or a whole lot more money than Max, the son of a widowed, poor mother, was ever going to have. What Max does have going for him are his uncle’s prized astrogation manuals—book on star navigation that Max literally commits to memory word for word, equation for equation.

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.

Books similar to Starman Jones

The Rolling Stones

★ 3.89

Robert A. Heinlein

It doesn’t seem likely for twins to have the same middle name. Even so, it’s clear that Castor and Pollux Stone both have "Trouble" written in that spot on their birth certificates. Of course, anyone who’s met their grandmother Hazel would know that they came by it honestly…

Join the Stone twins as they connive, cajole, and bamboozle their way across the Solar System in the company of the most high-spirited and hilarious family in all of science fiction. This light-hearted tale has some of Heinlein’s sassiest dialogue (not to mention the famous Flat Cats incident!). Oddly enough, it’s also a true example of real family values–for when you’re a Stone, your family is your highest priority.

The Polymorph

★ 4.27

Max Nowaz

Arbitrator, Jim Brown is returning to Earth after completing a successful mission to put down a revolution on and also thwarting an invasion of the planet Pirrus, an Earth colony. While there he found out that he is part alien and this secret had been hidden from him since birth.

Brown finds that an alien species has successfully assimilated themselves with the humans on Earth and is ruling over them covertly. When an attempt is made to kidnap him, he realises he has become a target in a hidden game where different groups are vying for power, complicated by the introduction of artificial humans and super androids to boost Earth’s population and armies.

Some ruling factions are preparing for war against the planet Levita and re-conquest of a group of planets, former colonies in the Delta Quadrant, who have declared their independence from Earth.

Brown realises that he is also running the gauntlet of former enemies who are out to get him. He is desperate to thwart the prospects of war against Levita, where he has a son he has never met and is also against re-colonisation after his recent experiences on Pirrus.

Aboard The Space Adventurer, the cruise ship on which he is returning, he meets two beautiful women. Marika, who has been sent as his minder, by the EPA, Earth Policy Administration, to keep an eye on Brown as they don’t fully trust him and Leela, the daughter of Earth’s biggest industrialist, who is secretly building the super androids on a space hub, where the ship makes a stop.

He soon realises that he is in a desperate battle for survival, before he can even reach Earth and the big bash the EPA is throwing for him, for successfully completing his mission on Pirrus.

Brothers in Arms

★ 4.2

Lois McMaster Bujold

In the wake of unexpected planetary peace and the disappearance of the Dendarii payroll, mercenary captain Miles Naismith attempts to discover the link between the insufferable Captain Galeni and the Komarran rebel expatriates. Reissue.

Planet of Adventure

★ 4.25

Jack Vance

Stranded on the distant planet Tschai, young Adam Reith is the sole survivor of a space mission who discovers the world is inhabited--not only by warring alien cultures, but human slaves as well, taken early in Earth's history. Reith must find a way off planet to warn the Earth of Tschai's deadly existence.

Against a backdrop of baroque cities and haunted wastelands, sumptuous palaces and riotous inns, Reith will encounter deadly wastrels and murderous aliens, dastardly villains and conniving scoundrels.

And always the random beauty in need of rescue...

Ender’s Shadow

★ 4.32

Orson Scott Card

Welcome to Battleschool.

Growing up is never easy. But try living on the mean streets as a child begging for food and fighting like a dog with ruthless gangs of starving kids who wouldn't hesitate to pound your skull into pulp for a scrap of apple. If Bean has learned anything on the streets, it's how to survive. And not with fists. He is way too small for that. But with brains.

Bean is a genius with a magician's ability to zero in on his enemy and exploit his weakness.

What better quality for a future general to lead the Earth in a final climactic battle against a hostile alien race, known as Buggers. At Battleschool Bean meets and befriends another future commander - Ender Wiggins - perhaps his only true rival.

Only one problem: for Bean and Ender, the future is now.

Ender's Shadow is the book that launched The Shadow Series, and the parallel novel to Orson Scott Card's science fiction classic, Ender's Game.

Speaker for the Dead

★ 4.11

Orson Scott Card

In this second book in the saga set 3,000 years after the terrible war, Ender Wiggin is reviled by history as the Xenocide--the destroyer of the alien Buggers. Now, Ender tells the true story of the war and seeks to stop history from repeating itself. ...

In the aftermath of his terrible war, Ender Wiggin disappeared, and a powerful voice arose: The Speaker for the Dead, who told the true story of the Bugger War.

Now, long years later, a second alien race has been discovered, but again the aliens' ways are strange and frightening...again, humans die. And it is only the Speaker for the Dead, who is also Ender Wiggin the Xenocide, who has the courage to confront the mystery...and the truth.

Speaker for the Dead, the second novel in Orson Scott Card's Ender Quintet, is the winner of the 1986 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 1987 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

Starsight

★ 4.34

Brandon Sanderson

All her life, Spensa has dreamed of becoming a pilot. Of proving she's a hero like her father. She made it to the sky, but the truths she learned about her father were crushing.

Spensa is sure there's more to the story. And she's sure that whatever happened to her father in his starship could happen to her. When she made it outside the protective shell of her planet, she heard the stars--and it was terrifying. Everything Spensa has been taught about her world is a lie.

But Spensa also discovered a few other things about herself--and she'll travel to the end of the galaxy to save humankind if she needs to.

Salvager

★ 4.16

Scott Moon

When galactic forces go to war, someone has to clean up afterward, even if there are still shots being fired.

Bameron Kold has never known anything but life in Yorp, a city ruined by centuries of war. When a pilot from the galactic empire crash lands in his zone, saving her life comes at a personal cost. His closest companion is a construction robot with too much artificial intelligence to go unnoticed.

Now, he must earn the pilot’s trust in the hope that she won’t turn him and his robot into the space fleet authorities.

When he thinks everything is going wrong, it all gets so much worse.

Fans of military science fiction, mechanized warfare, and post-apocalyptic settings will love Salvager. Check out this exciting introduction to the Tall Boys universe today.