Jumping Off the Planet by David Gerrold - SF - SFBookcase.com - Reference of Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels/Authors.

Series: The Dingilliad
Volume: 1
Genre: SF
ISBN: 081257608X
Pages: 288 pages
Publisher: Tor Books
Price: 5.99
Reader Rating: Not rated

Jumping Off the Planet by David Gerrold

Description: Twenty-first-century Earth is desperately overcrowded, and Charles Dingillian's father offers his three sons a trip to the moon. Actually, he is kidnapping the boys from their mother-and couriering key data in an illegal financial transaction. He is also a wimp, Charles' mother is bisexual, and Charles' older brother is gay. Oh-and the younger one is an obnoxious brat. Clearly we're not in Heinlein's Kansas. But cut through all the characterization-by-dysfunctionality, and a genuinely powerful coming-of-age story remains, with characters as sympathetic as they are bizarre and a vividly depicted future society. The legal scenes are worthy of Heinlein, and Gerrold's depiction of the giant space elevator, the Beanstalk, vividly fills in its technological details, its appearance, the life aboard it, the society of its permanent residents, and its potential for disaster. The first book of the Starsiders Trilogy suggests that Gerrold is obliquely approaching the territory of Heinlein's juveniles. Like much of Gerrold's work, this is sometimes over-the-top but always recognizably the creation of a major talent.

This series is also known as the Starsiders Trilogy.