Outward Bound: A Jupiter Novel

When 15-year-old street punk Linc Marani is arrested during a routine shakedown, his life is set on a new course that leads to the stars. Faced with the choice of spending the rest of his life in work camps or joining a mysterious recruitment program, Linc opts for the latter. Soon he's transferred from jail to a series of top-secret camps where the weak wash out and the bodies and minds of the remaining incorrigibles are disciplined and honed. Linc's benefactors, tough but fair, reveal themselves to be from the ""Outzone,"" the area of space beyond Mars where independent ""zoners"" are struggling to establish a new civilization based on truth and service. Although Linc makes the final cut, will he be able to overcome the habits of his past and the obstacles posed by his rival, class bully Arvin, to succeed in the new community where he has made his first real friends? The action never lags in Hogan's (Bug Park, etc.) 22nd-century coming-of-age yarn, though its outdated vision of macho camaraderie and female submission can grate. Overall, Hogan does a fine job in making real, and even heroic, his young protagonist's struggle to redefine himself far away from anything he has ever known. (Mar.)