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    Farmer in the Sky
    Farmer in the Sky
    Farmer in the Sky
    Audiobook6 hours

    Farmer in the Sky

    Written by Robert A. Heinlein

    Narrated by Nick Podehl

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Farmer In The Sky is a 1953 science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein about a teenage boy who emigrates with his family to Jupiter's moon Ganymede, which is in the process of being terraformed.

    A condensed version of the novel was published in serial form in 1950 in Boys' Life magazine (August, September, October, November 1950), under the title "Satellite Scout".
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateApr 17, 2012
    ISBN9781455878932
    Farmer in the Sky
    Author

    Robert A. Heinlein

    Robert A. Heinlein, four-time winner of the Hugo Award and recipient of three Retro Hugos, received the first Grand Master Nebula Award for lifetime achievement. His worldwide bestsellers have been translated into twenty-two languages and include Stranger in a Strange Land, Starship Troopers, Time Enough for Love, and The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. His long-lost first novel, For Us, the Living, was published by Scribner and Pocket Books.

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    Reviews for Farmer in the Sky

    4/5

    570 ratings24 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Good inspirational story. Young teens to adults. No sex or bad language, minimal violence.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Perhaps not at direct as some of His other books, This story is enjoyable and well worth an afternoon.
    • 5/5
      Wonderful, exciting well written book and very good narration . Loved it.
    • 5/5
      I loved it. It's been many years since I first read the book, some 56 years to be exact and my imagination still reproduces the images in my mind of what I first saw when reading the book. Listening to the narrator just made it easier for me to do so. Well one book down and many more to go.
      Next :-)
    • 5/5
      This hit a few heart strings from my love of the hatchet and Robinson cruesoe.
      All of Heinleins books seem to radiate optimism and or wholesome virtues,
      Heinlein is an antidote to nihilism
    • 5/5
      Excellent example of RAH's juvenilles - good story with a smattering of science.
    • 5/5
      This young adult book is a great insight into the world of American sci-fi writing of the 1950s-60s. I think I read it then as a youth, and I was eager for a fresh perspective. I wasn’t disappointed.
      Hearing it on audio, I was most impressed with the young narrator! He had a real talent for making the story vivid. He masterfully connected with his audience. I especially loved the quality of his voice – sounding just like a newly post-pubescent kid, ready to conquer the world! Kudos to the casting director.
      A huge shoutout to Robert Heinlein for being one of the best SF authors for youth at such a formidable time, as scientists and writers captured the imagination of a generation.
    • 5/5
      My kind of syfy plenty of adventure and human courage at its best
    • 4/5
      Interesting story of a teen going to one of Jupiter's moons in order to homestead. There's enough science to make the narrative believable, but not so much as to bore the reader. I liked it quite a bit, and am keeping my copy for a future reread.
    • 3/5
      This is a 1950s era youth oriented science fiction novel by the grand master of the early years of the genre. It tells the story of a teenage boy and his family as they leave a critically overcrowded Earth and immigrate to the frontier colony on Ganymede, the terraformed moon of Jupiter. The plot movement is slow as Heinlein explains in detail how everything works. The effort to provide a plausible description of yet to be invented or understood developments is a distinctive feature of early SF. It is analogous to the convention in literary fiction which emphasizes word choice and an obsessive focus on character development at the expense of plot movement.I suspect most readers today will find this novel lacking in appeal but the story in its essence is the stock tale that underlies “coming of age” teen literature.
    • 3/5
      I "read" an audiobook edition - if you could pick anyone in literature to give a swirly to, Heinlein's Bill would be the guy.



      This protagonist and his narrative voice would be any voice actor's challenge because he is such a self-absorbed yet unself-aware, unlikeable guy that he grates on your every nerve.

      plus the slang and curses and turns of phrase Heinlein creates to give the world its 50's on the moon flavor are enough to make you want to throttle the poor main character kid every time he opens his mouth or even thinks a thought .


      all that aside, this story is still great speculative fiction, much of it put forward for young readers in such a way as to challenge myths of western expansion and manifest destiny while at the same time telling a story with some coming of age, tension & adventure. It's also an ode to engineers in a way which i always enjoy .

      Perfect ? no . Perfectly entertaining & worth the read, yes !

    • 3/5
      Bill Lerner and his father George decide to emigrate to Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede, to begin a new life as farmers along with George's new wife Molly and her young daughter, Peggy. During their journey aboard the interplanetary colony ship Mayflower, the kids decide to form new branches of the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and Bill becomes a hero when he uses his old Scout uniform to plug a hull breach in his shared quarters compliments of a fist-sized meteor.The pacing slows once they reach Ganymede and begin to build their new lives. George takes up a part time job as an engineer, his profession back on Earth, while Bill sets out to terraform his family's allotted land and build their new home. Along the way, the Lerner's receive help from their neighboring farmers and the Ganymede Boy Scouts.Then, disaster strikes...Compared to Heinlein's other juvenile space adventures—such as Have Space Suit, Will Travel, Citizen of the Galaxy, or Starman Jones—Farmer in the Sky lacks suspense, tension, and developed characters beyond the protagonist. Instead, it is a first-person POV chronicling of emigration from Earth to Ganymede with several dramatic events scattered throughout. For example, I was disappointed when a certain supporting character's death happened "off camera" and was glossed over in the final chapters. However, this might be to due to the fact that the book was intended for younger audiences during a time when writers trod lightly when dealing with sensitive topics.As usual with Heinlein, his attention to even the minutest scientific and practical details—however fictionalized—offers the reader a sense of verisimilitude and plausibility. There is a fair balance between moving the story forward and describing the processes and pitfalls involved in taming the inhospitable surface of Ganymede.
    • 3/5
      Better. Lots of science in this fiction, and science conjecture, BUT...

      I can overlook the overly heavy Boy Scout thread, given that the story was written for Boys Life magazine; I can shake my head, but still get past the odd yokelisms Heinlein inconsistently saddled his characters with ("victuals", "varmints", seriously?) but the twist at the end (and I'm not spoiling it here) is such a head scratcher that the book gets knocked down from four to three stars. Perhaps I'm expecting too much from a grandmaster, and one of the big three?
    • 4/5
      This audio book was pretty darn good. One of Earth's newest Eagle Scouts Bill Lermer has to leave his troop behind as he and dad are selected to go to Jupiter's moon Ganymeade. On top of that, his dad is getting remarried, and he had no idea ahead of time. The trip to Jupiter teaks forever and is boring, so *ta da* "lets invent space scouts". Its actually pretty interesting to see how they adapt the patrol method to the set up themselves. Of course that gets in even more awkward when they get to Jupiter and find other scouts already there. How to councils merge? (My description makes this sound boring, but its not). Bill and his dad have to find a way to farm on the moon. Its hard work, and some of the settlers want to return to the over crowded earth, but there is no way to do so. The Socialist programs of Earth have made it impossible to pay to do anything, and some of these folks have just been put there because they appear to no longer be liked by their neighbors at home. Bill works hard to build his own farm, he is good to have neighbors that care and teach him the hard work. He doesn't get to make his scout meetings, but that's okay, he's falling in love with the farmers daughter. Yet another Heinileine Juvenile that is well worth reading.
    • 3/5
      It's always fun to read a vision of the future circa 1950. Earthlings colonize Ganymede (one of Jupiter's moons) but they still use microfilm and slide rules. On the outbound trip, a meteor breaks through the hull of the spaceship and the young protagonist manages to seal it with a foam pillow until help can arrive.
    • 4/5
      Farmer in the Sky is one of a series of juvenile novels for the kids of the time. Robert wrote about 12 of these before deciding he wanted to write more adult fiction. This book is told from the viewpoint of Bill, a boy who lives with his father in some far future, and from what I have been able to gather, from beyond the 22nd century.

      Man has made it to the surrounding planets and has terraformed Mars and Venus and there is a base on the Moon. Not a lot of people are travelling though, with Earth suffering under a large population and keeping track of rationing to stretch the food supply.

      With new ships, they are able to reach the moons of Jupiter and are looking for colonists. Bill and his father (he calls his father "George" rather than "Dad." I thought this interesting. Heinlein does have a way of letting us know of social convention within his fictional society which I really appreciate.)

      Anyway, Bill has trouble with school, is a Boy Scout and is trying to get over the death of his mother Annie. He feels betrayed by George when George hooks up with a new woman, Molly. Bill gets mad and thinks George does not respect the memory of his mother. Of course this is silly, but that's how he sees it.

      We see here that Bill has a lot of growing up to do.

      Eventually we get to the point where they head off to Ganymede, one of many moons orbiting Jupiter. It took many years to terraform it and he is one of the first colonists. Most of the story goes over their adventures, near misses and the death of thousands, but oddly without getting really deep about it.

      Spoiler: At the end, even though he has discussions with George, he decides not to go to MIT but to stay on Ganymede, despite the fact he needs the higher education to be an engineer. I couldn't disagree with that more, since he will never be an engineer and go off to colonize the other Jovian moons.

      Bottom Line: Overall, a quick read. Lots more talking than action, and there are a few places in the book that could be a bit shocking to a young teen reading this. Overall, a fine example of a Heinlein juvenile novel, even if not his best.


    • 4/5
      This is one of Heinlein's juveniles, that is, one that was centered on and marketed towards teens. On an Earth where the food ration has once again been cut, a teenaged Bill and his father decide to become farmers--on Ganymede, one of Jupiter's moons--where food is plentiful. The book was originally serialized in a Boy Scouts magazine, so naturally Bill is a scout and those skills and principles are prominently interwoven into the story. It fits the pioneering tale though, and I didn't find that part intrusive. While I wouldn't list this book with the standouts among Heinlein's fiction, it's still enjoyable and a good read.
    • 4/5
      One of Heinlein's great jobs in terms of teaching mingled with a fairly good story. A lot of ecology worked into this one, and things that would make someone interested in learning about ecology.
    • 2/5
      This is another example of Heinlein's 'adolescent' fiction, in which the protagonist is a plucky teen wise beyond his years. Predictable to a point, this book was a little frustrating because the main character, far from being focused on being a farmer on Jupiter's moon Ganymede, waffled more than the Eggo plant in Tennessee. Will he colonize the moon? Yes. No. Actually yes. Will he stay? No. Yes. Probably. An early Heinlein work, and not as engaging as some of his later works. Not recommended unless you're a true Heinlein fan.
    • 3/5
      An early Heinlein, and one of his weakest. The characters lack the depth of his later novels, the science is still in foot-pounds and British Thermal Units rather than metric, there's nothing to give you any emotional attachment to anything.It's a novelty these days to read a book in which the scout movement plays a strong part, but even that failed to really catch my interest.The only scene that I recognised (ie. had been memorable) when coming back to this book after a couple of decades, was the minor detail of Farmer Schultz and his apple tree.
    • 5/5
      One of my favourite Heinlein juvenile science fiction. Young earth boy on alien planet attempts farming against the odds.
    • 4/5
      No man will ever stand on Ganymede with a spade in his hand but FitS is a good juvenile
    • 3/5
      My least favorite of the Heinlein juveniles, except perhaps for Time for the Stars. I'm not quite sure why. Perhaps because it lacks a charismatic character, perhaps because of the tacked-on feeling of the discovery of alien artifacts in the last portion of the book. Or maybe it was just the heavy-handedness of the Boy Scout material in the book, given that I had had enough of the Boy Scouts as a Webelo. But like all the Heinlein juveniles, it's an entertaining read.
    • 5/5
      First Heinlein book I ever read. Still a favorite.