5 h 22 minAudiobook9 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · 132 pagesHardcover · 6 × 9 in · 132 pagesAbout this book
What good is reaching the stars if the journey separates you from the people you love?
Sixteen-year-old Alan Donnell grows up aboard an interstellar trading ship. For him, life among the stars is ordinary. But time passes differently for travellers and people on Earth. When his twin brother, Steve, chooses to stay behind, that difference becomes more than a scientific puzzle: it threatens their shared life.
In Robert Silverberg’s Starman’s Quest, Alan seeks a way beyond this painful divide. His search brings him to Earth, where planetary society and shipboard life have different habits, loyalties, and expectations. The possibility of another form of travel gives him a goal: finding a way to cross space without losing so much to time.
What you’ll discover
- A brother left behind Steve’s choice gives the vast problem of time a close, human face.
- Time with a cost Explore a scientific puzzle through the relationships that unequal ageing puts at risk.
- Two ways of living Follow Alan between Earth and starship communities, each with its own loyalties and expectations.
- A search for connection The quest for different space travel holds out hope for keeping people together.
- Growing beyond the ship Join a young traveller as he questions the only life he knows.
Who will love it
Readers who like classic space adventure, ideas about time and distance between stars, and coming-of-age stories about brothers, loyalty and a young person chasing a big scientific dream.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A Birthday on the Way Home
- A Restless Boy and a Lost Drive
- Across the River into the City
- Hostile Streets and a Helpful Stranger
- Tracking a Twin Through the Records
- The Gambler's Way of Winning
- Finding Steve and Taking Him Home
- A Gambler's Apprentice and a Dangerous Plan
- What the Story Is Really About
Who’s who
- Alan DonnellA seventeen-year-old crewman on the starship Valhalla who dreams of building Cavour's hyperdrive and searches Earth for his brother.
- Steve DonnellAlan's twin, who jumped ship and is now nine years older, working as a gambler in debt in York City.
- Captain Mark DonnellThe stern, hidden-hurting captain of the Valhalla and father of the twins, who runs his ship by the schedule.
- RatAlan's small, sharp-tongued pet from Bellatrix VII, who speaks Terran and gives blunt advice.
- Max HawkesA gifted, bored gambler with Free Status who rescues Alan, teaches him the city's ways, and has plans of his own.
- Kevin QuantrellA young starman from the Encounter who longs to leave the Enclave but is frightened by the vast city.
- Judy CollierA young girl aboard the Valhalla who has a crush on Alan and follows him around.
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- Audiobook
- 5 h 22 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
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- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in, 132 pages: 7,95 USD when you start free, 13,95 USD on its own.
- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Starman's Quest
by Robert Silverberg · 1958
Alan Donnell, seventeen, steps into a hostile city to find a twin brother nine years older.
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A Birthday on the Way Home
The story opens aboard the starship Valhalla as it nears Earth on the return leg of a trip to Alpha Centauri. Alan Donnell stands at the viewscreen on his seventeenth birthday, studying the green planet where he was born. He counts his age on a small device called a Tally, which marks only the days he has actually lived.
His father, Captain Mark Donnell, teases him that by Earth's calendar he is three hundred years old. Alan insists that his own Tally is the only clock that matters. The joke hides a sore subject. Alan's twin brother Steve jumped ship on the last visit and was left behind.
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What is Starman's Quest about?
It follows Alan Donnell, a teenage starman, who leaves his ship to find his twin brother on Earth. Because of time stretching at near light speed, his brother has aged nine years, and Alan also hunts for a lost faster-than-light drive.
What is the Fitzgerald Contraction in Starman's Quest?
It is the book's name for the way time slows aboard a ship traveling close to light speed. A trip lasting weeks for the crew takes years on Earth, which separates starmen from the people they leave.
Who is James Hudson Cavour?
Cavour is a scientist from the 26th century who is said to have designed a faster-than-light hyperdrive and then vanished. His notebooks and theory drive Alan's search throughout the story.
The author
Robert Silverberg
1935–? · American science fiction writer
Robert Silverberg is an American science fiction writer and editor born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1935. He graduated from Columbia University in 1956. His novel Starman’s Quest appeared in 1958. He also wrote Nightwings and Dying Inside. He moved from New York to California in 1972.
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