A New Generation Reaches for the Star!

"[D]anger and intrigue in space!"
—Booklist on the "Jupiter" series.

"[T]he scientific and technological background is outstanding."
—Publishers Weekly on the "Jupiter" series.

"A [highly] plausible depiction of a young hero's maturation."

—Booklist on "Jupiter" Series highly-popular entry, The Million Dollar Boy.

Historic fact: we simply wouldn't have landed on the Moon without the existence of the renowned Heinlein teen adventure novels. Practically every NASA rocket scientists, and many of the astronauts, had read them as young adults. Rousing tales of adventure in space, these books featured heroes who were regular young people with regular problems—heroes who just happened also to be settling dangerous colonial worlds or sweating away in the stale air of interstellar traders on a long run to the far reaches of forever.

Want to argue Heinlein's dominating influence Here's another truth: Heinlein lit the imagination of an entire generation of engineers and rocket scientists, not just in NASA, but across the Western world. You would be hard pressed to find a scientist or engineer of the founding-of-spaceflight generation that hadn't read Heinlein.

Boy, do we need inspiration like that for this generation.

Let us introduce you to the Jupiter Series! Inaugurated by the brilliant and legendary Drs. Charles Sheffield and Jerry Pournelle, these are Heinlein teen adventures reimagined and brought up-to-date scientifically.

Take the first volume, Sheffield and Pournelle's Higher Education. Hard vacuum tends to concentrate the mind. When strutting man-boy Rick Luban pulls one prank too many, he's booted from school—and into a training program for asteroid mining. Nobody cares if he fails (and some are actively pushing him toward it)—but failure means either death or a return to an Earth-bound life of meaningless monotony. Time to get his act together, and Rick finally does. And learns, in the process, that taking on challenges and learning to rely on yourself actually pays a lot higher dividend than being an idiot cut-up for the rest of your life!

In Pournelle's Starswarm, young planetary colonial Kip finds he has the ability—secretly implanted by his mother—to speak to the artificial intelligence that runs the gargantuan-but- benign corporation controlling his colony. With only his teen friends and a voice in his head as a guide, Kip must face down a nefarious plot that seeks to subvert the corporation and destroy the beloved sapient Centauroid life on Kip's native world.

Sheffield adds three more adventures to the series with young adult heroes facing tough odds and a universe where the hard truths of existence tend to punish ego glorification and wishful thinking—harshly and sometimes fatally.

In The Billion Dollar Boy, a spoiled rich kid wakes from a bender to find himself in an ore bin on the far side of the galaxy. What's more, the locals expect him to pull his weight—or take a walk out the nearest airlock.

Meanwhile, in Putting Up Roots, a young man and his autistic cousin settle a colonial world where the ruling cabal has only one interest: exploitation of world and colonist alike—and their ultimate disposal. But our heroes have no intention of knuckling under. Time to stop being destiny's pawn and become real pioneers!

Then, in The Cyborg from Earth, Jeff, a ne'er-do-well scion of a powerful corporation is posted across the galaxy by nasty relatives who mean him very definite, permanent harm. But after being taken hostage by the cyborg "enemy," Jeff begins to learn that right and wrong apply to everyone, even the wealthy and powerful. And when the right is not on your side—it may be time to switch sides!

The popular author of Bugpark, James P. Hogan, rounds out the series with a strong entry, Outward Bound. Here street punk Linc Marani is faced with a choice: spend the rest of his life in detention—or train to be a "zoner," a law enforcer in the far reaches of the outer solar system. The training is beyond tough, and zoners can expect a hard life of adventure and a likely early death. But to make the cut, to prove you're better than the petty wise guy you were set to become, to be the best—okay, maybe it's a tall order for a guy with every disadvantage of youth and few of the advantages. But the alternative is even more horrible—this Linc knows. He's been there and done that, and he never wants to go back.

So, maybe you know some young adult with promise who could use a little inspiration to get out there (maybe even to the stars!), take on the challenges of a universe that plays tough but fair, and carve a place for him or herself in the cosmos.

Maybe you are one of 'em!

Or maybe you were, and you want to get a taste of that gritty inspiration that made you who you are.

This is the way, the mental fuel that can and will inspire you to reach for the stars. These are tales of rousing adventure full of cutting-edge science, fast-paced action, and characters with whom you can identify. They are books that live up to their heritage in every particular, and are in the process of creating a new legend themselves.

So get them now: six "Jupiter" novels collected in one e-book mega-volume — together for a limited time at the rocket-ready discount price of $20. And of course they're all presented in the reader-friendly, unencrypted formats Webscriptions is known for. No shipping fees. No dead tree crumble. The six-book mega-volume will exist for three months, then, after February 14th, 2008, it'll dissolve into the individual novels once more, all available for a still-excellent $4 each.

And hey, don't forget to remind yourself: reach for the stars. Intelligently and with gumption. But don't stop reaching.

Make Heinlein proud!