left dangerously shorthanded. The aging captain tries to take his place, but is not up to the task. When Max detects a critical error in his real-time calculations leading up to a transition (an instantaneous jump to another region of space), neither the captain nor Assistant Astrogator Simes believe him, and the ship becomes lost. They locate a habitable world, which Ellie names Charity, and the passengers become colonists. Meanwhile, the crew continues to try to figure out where they are and whether they can return to Earth. Unfortunately, it turns out the planet is already inhabited by hostile centaur-like sapients. Max and Ellie are captured, but Ellie's pet is able to guide Sam to them. They escape, though Sam is killed covering their retreat. Upon his return, Max is informed that the captain has died. Simes tried to take command illegally and was killed by Sam, leaving Max as the only remaining astrogator. To make matters worse, Simes hid or destroyed the astrogation manuals. Vastly outnumbered by the natives, the humans are forced to attempt a perilous return to known space by reversing the erroneous transition. Max must pilot the ship; he must also supply the missing astrogation tables from memory. To add to his burdens, the remaining officers inform Max that he must take command, as the captain must be an astrogator. The pressure is immense, but Max succeeds and the ship returns to known space. Max pays heavy fines, but is allowed to join the Astrogators' Guild, and is assigned as an assistant astrogator aboard another starship. However, he loses any chance for a romantic relationship with Eldreth; she returns home to marry her boyfriend. Max accepts this with mixed feelings, but looks forward to his new career. Reception Groff Conklin in 1954 found the novel to be "a richly textured and thoroughly mature tale" and the best of the seven Heinlein juveniles available. Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas praised it for its "good character-development, rousing adventure-telling, and brilliant creation of several forms of extra-Terrestrial life." P. Schuyler Miller ranked it "close to the best in mainline science fiction." New York Times reviewer Villiers Gerson declared Starman Jones to be "superior science-fiction. ... carefully plotted, lucidly and beautifully written." Surveying Heinlein's juvenile novels, Jack Williamson described Starman Jones as "a classic example of the bildungsroman pattern" and noted that "with its bold symbolism, the book makes