''The Billion Dollar Boy'' is a 1997

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

Charles Sheffield Charles Sheffield (25 June 1935 – 2 November 2002), an English-born mathematician, physicist and science-fiction writer, served as a President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and of the American Astronautical Society. ...

. The story takes place centuries in the future where

asteroid mining Asteroid mining is the hypothetical exploitation of materials from asteroids and other minor planets, including near-Earth objects. Notable asteroid mining challenges include the high cost of spaceflight, unreliable identification of asteroids ...

is a major industry. Earth's population is 14 billion, most of whom live in

poverty Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little income. Poverty can have diverse social, economic, and political causes and effects. When evaluating poverty in ...

. The

protagonist A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a st ...

is Shelby Cheever, a spoiled, exceedingly rich teenager, who lords his wealth over everyone around him, while taking pride in being completely unproductive. In a drunken vacation mishap, Shelby accidentally ends up in a remote mining

colony In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the ''metropole, metropolit ...

with no easy return, due to entering a FTL translation node without setting the coordinates. There he is forced to work hard to survive, and interact with his new shipmates as equals. Through both routine labor, and many misadventures, Shelby endures much positive character building. This book is a future retelling of

Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. ...

's 1897 novel ''

Captains Courageous ''Captains Courageous: A Story of the Grand Banks'' is an 1897 novel by Rudyard Kipling that follows the adventures of fifteen-year-old Harvey Cheyne Jr., the spoiled son of a railroad tycoon, after he is saved from drowning by a Portuguese f ...

''. Same plot: spoiled rich kid gets high runkand falls off an ocean liner paceshipinto the ocean wormhole node He is picked up by a fishing boat pace mining shipand forced to work for/with them for several months until the hold is full. There is even the mysterious Pennsylvania Pratt crimshander Limeswho has forgotten his identity after a personal tragedy and remembers it temporarily while saving shipwreck abotagevictims. The book is a relatively light adventure tale, by Sheffield standards, and serves mainly as a platform for the author's views on child rearing, while giving some

hard science fiction Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic. The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell's ''Islands of Space'' in the Novemb ...

theories about far future

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...

and

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Billion Dollar Boy 1997 science fiction novels Novels by Charles Sheffield 1997 American novels Jupiter novels Fiction about asteroid mining Overpopulation fiction Dystopian novels Fiction about faster-than-light travel Fiction about wormholes Tor Books books Adaptations of works by Rudyard Kipling