The Billion Dollar Boy

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 3 MAR 1997

For the second novel (after Higher Education) of the Jupiter series (which the publisher modestly states is aimed at reviving "all the virtues of classic science fiction"), Sheffield departs from Jerry Pournelle to go his usual solo (The Ganymede Club, etc.). The story centers in a simplistic way on a spoiled rich kid who works his way to moral rectitude. During a luxury excursion into space, Shelby Cheever charges off into a "node" and winds up on a remote mining vessel where nobody knows him. The setup and the travel adventure parts are fun to read (harvesting transuranics in deep space, encountering mysterious "space sounders," etc.), and the structure is workmanlike, with neatly dovetailing plots and scientific extrapolations that are engagingly envisioned: machines harvest minerals, heal, clothe, jump light-years and converse. Sheffield can wax lyrical about the wonders of space, but he summarizes feelings rather than allowing readers to feel them. The ending is a sudden apology for the virtues of competition, with a hint of social Darwinism (Shelby was a quick study in space because he is his dad's son--a winner). Interesting is the insight that, to the space dwellers, Earth would seem a place of misery since nearly all mankind, then as now, are poor. Juxtapositions of human and machine intelligence come up in varied ways, but Sheffield never brings closure to this theme; perhaps he will in the series' next entry.