Starman Jones

"Where can you find pleasure
Search the world for treasure
Learn science technology?"

Village People - In the Navy


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Spoilers for the book in question follow. While not one of Heinlein's greatest, it's a touchingly bittersweet adventure to leaf through for fans of his other tales.
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Robert Heinlein wasn't shy about abusing the classic hero's journey when it suited him, but in Starman Jones it's more obvious than even in the rest of his "juvenile" books. The innately clever farm-boy hero of a noble lineage is set out of his home by an inimical presence, befriends a grizzled, slightly abrasive old mentor possessing arcane lore belying his unassuming appearance, sets out on a quest to better his station in life, meets a plucky princess love interest and a recurring high-ranking antagonist, establishes cooperation with an animal guide, crosses over into uncharted territory, is captured along with his damsel by inhuman monsters, executes a daring escape, saves the damsel, witnesses his mentor's heroic sacrifice and finally puts the lessons he's learned during his voyage to use in navigating himself and all his companions back to the mortal realm, restoring the status quo thereby returning to his old farm a hero. For a story to get any more monomythic than this, it'd have to be indented into clay tablets by some olive addict in a robe.

Its uncharacteristically bald-faced by-the-numbers basic plot suggests that Heinlein paid more attention to other elements, two of which are rapidly accentuated before even the halfway point: militarism and cynicism.
For one, shipboard ranks and their interactions are laid out in lavish detail, along with quite a few details of conduct and ethics. While Heinlein frequently touted the (questionable) charms of uniformed life, he rarely did so in any great detail, with the exception of Starship Troopers which would be written several years after Starman Jones.
For another, while the background and events of the book are nowhere near as bloody or disastrous as some of his other works, they are presented in a surprisingly bitter tone:

"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.""

Heinlein's protagonists never had an easy time of it, sure, but none of them sounded quite as hopeless and lost as Max Jones the illicit enrollee prey to his own impostor syndrome, catapulting himself through military ranks out of desperation at standing still, fearing escape even more than he fears discovery of his imposture.

It took me over half the novel to connect these two aspects, to realize the smattering of SciFi or social commentary dressing them up matters as little as the plot's monomythic skeleton. This book's not about the romance of space travel, or about the necessary equanimity of inter-sapient communication, or about politics and legal systems or about science or leadership. This one's about the Navy life, the life denied to Robert Heinlein decades prior by tuberculosis. Even the oppressive caste system in Starman Jones, left unexplained in contrast to the detailed future histories the author would normally imagine, serves only to highlight the pining for that idealized, more meaningful meritocracy, to be sought even as a quasi-stowaway shoveling manure in the lower decks.

One might wonder whether Heinlein would have retained such a hopeful outlook of military life if he'd stayed in to continue dealing with officers like Max Jones' antagonist, had that life not been denied to him, had it not become a forbidden fruit, but even that is beside the point. He weds his bitter sense of loss to the figure of the countless adolescent hayseeds throughout man's history desperate to prove their worth, who abandon their ramshackle multi-generational homesteads to sell their lives as cannon fodder in (vain, realistically) hopes of glory or betterment. And, true to his masterful touch, by the end of the story Heinlein makes good on false promises. In the last few pages he brazenly abandons the hero's journey.

Max Jones returns to his home in the Ozarks to find it abandoned. He is not welcomed as a hero, or even at all. He does not reclaim his heritage but instead cuts his ties to his past. He does not get the princess. He does not, in fact, even retain the riches he's earned, as they're sacrificed in payment for his deception. He just sets off towards port once again, eyes to the horizon, having gained nothing more or less than a way out.

A mediocre adventure story with a beautiful ending.