SPACE FAMILY STONE

ROBERT A. HEINLEIN

UK 1st EDITION GOLLANCZ 1969

DW IS IN FINE CONDITION BEING PROTECTED FROM NEW AND IS BRIGHT AND UNMARKED AS SEEN

BOOK: AN EX LIBRARY COPY BUT WITH VERY LITTLE EVIDENCE OF LIBRARY USE. THERE IS A WITHRAWN STAMP TO THE FFEP ( photo 4 ) AND SOME LIGHT ABRASION TO THE PAPER WHERE A LENDING LEDGER HAS BEEN REMOVED. THERE IS ALSO A SMALL STAMP TO THE COPYRIGHT PAGE ( photo 6 ). SOME FOXING AND DUST TO PAGE EDGES ( photos 8&9 ). THERE IS ALSO A MARK TO A FEW PAGES IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BOOK ( photo 7 ).

OVERALL A VERY PRESENTABLE COPY OF THIS CLASSIC SCI-FI TITLE IN AN EXCELLENT DW FEATURING THE ARTWORK OF ALAN BEASE.

The Rolling Stones (also published under the name Space Family Stone in the United Kingdom) is a 1952 science fictionnovel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein.

A condensed version of the novel had been published earlier in Boys' Life (September, October, November, December 1952) under the title "Tramp Space Ship".

The Stones, a family of "Loonies" (residents of the Moon, also known as Luna), purchase and rebuild a used spaceship and go sightseeing around the Solar System.

The twin teenage boys, named Castor and Pollux after the half-brothers of classical legend, buy used bicycles to sell on Mars, their first stop, where they run afoul of local regulations, but their grandmother Hazel Stone saves them from jail. While on Mars, the twins buy their brother Buster a native Martian creature called a flat cat, which produces a soothing vibration, as a pet.

In preparation for the asteroid belt, where the equivalent of a gold rush is in progress prospecting for "core material" and radioactive ores, the twins obtain supplies and luxury goods on Mars to sell at their destination, on the principle that it is shopkeepers, not miners, who get rich during gold rushes. En route, the flat cat and its offspring overpopulate the ship so the family places them in hibernation and later sells them to the miners.

The novel ends with the family setting out to see the rings of Saturn.

INCLUDES UK P and P