Higher Education by Charles Sheffield and Jerry Pournelle Paperback

The book starts out on an Earth ruined by the Politically Correct.  Schools pass everyone and there aren't enough jobs for all of the uneducated masses.

The main character is a high school kid who's smart enough to be eternally bored and looking for trouble to occupy his mind.  He pulls a practical joke that gets him expelled from school.  A teacher takes the time to point him at a job with an asteroid mining company.

Off Earth, the Real World applies.  Potential employees are tested for real ability, rather than given a pass.  If they do pass they're are given crash courses in practical subjects, like math and working in a space environment.

The style of the book reminds me of old Heinlein stories, like Space Cadet and Red Planet.   We learn a little about a smart kid, his setting, and the people around him.   He has some mentors.  Then he has a few episodic adventures to work through, with the final one being life-threatening.

Apparently, this is part of a collection of books in this universe.  Though they're not necessarily sequels to each other, because they're spread too far apart.   The story of this kid seemed to end a bit abruptly.  I wonder if Pournelle is planning on writing more about his life while learning to work in space.

Nostalgia-inducing juvenile fiction.  On Mighty's Total Book Value Scale, Paperback.

Back to Book Reviews

Please email comments, typos, errors, dead links, and any suggestions to webmaster@mightydrake.com. (Privacy statement)
Copyright © 1997-2007 Mighty Drake, Inc. All rights reserved.
Last modified: January 25, 2003

Best viewed with:	Hosted by:	Composed with:	In association  with:	Fight Spam
Opera or Mozilla or Explorer or Netscape	Site 5	FrontPage	Amazon.com	Spamcop.net &  Popfile & Greylisting