Citizen Of The Galaxy
Ratings13
Average rating3.6
Part of me wants to give this one less star for its unsatisfying ending – and also the fact that the more interesting parts of the story are hardly explored.
Heinlein is high on my list of favorite authors, but this is not high on my list of favorite books. Way too much time is spent explaining complicated family and social structures, complex corporate finance and a little interstellar politics. So go read The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress or Stranger In A Strange Land
I have read Citizen of the Galaxy several times over the decades. IMHO it is RAH's best work.
This time I decided to go with audio. Grover Gardner's narration is very good indeed.
The story of young Thorby's struggle to find his place in the galaxy has held up well. Heinlein packed a lot of story into this book. It has three distinct parts. I think of them as ‘Thorby the slave', ‘Thorby the spaceman', and ‘Thorby's homecoming'. (I reckon some more recent writers would get three 500 page books out of this story.)
Anyway, still a good story, well told. An SF classic.