Son of the Stars
novel by Raymond F. Jones
Son of the Stars is a science fiction novel by American writer by Raymond F. Jones, first published in the United States in 1952 by The John C. Winston Company.
This is one of the thirty-five juvenile novels that comprise the Winston Science Fiction set, which novels were published in the 1950s for a readership of teen-aged boys. The typical protagonist in these books was a boy in his late teens who was proficient in the art of electronics, a hobby that was easily available to the readers. In this story Ron Barron is typical in having a ham radio set up in a shed in the back yard of his parents' house.
Plot
Early one morning sixteen-year-old Ron Barron, accompanied by his pet collie, Pete, drives his hot rod out of the small town of Longview and up into the nearby hills. He is hunting for the object that his automatic meteor tracker had detected in the wee hours of that morning. After half a day of fruitless searching he finds what he was seeking, but it is not what he expected.
It is the wreckage of a ship, a disc-shaped vessel two hundred feet wide and forty feet thick at the center. As he examines the ship, Ron encounters the lone survivor of the crash, a boy about his age, who has six fingers on each hand. Ron is wary at first, but Pete is friendly toward the alien, so Ron relaxes his wariness and takes the injured boy, still in shock, home with him.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Son of the Stars” as novel by Raymond F. Jones. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as novel by Raymond F. Jones. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q18209735. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1952.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Son of the Stars”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Son of the Stars primary sources, Son of the Stars archive and Stars research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Son of the Stars”?
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- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Son of the Stars” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.