Outward Bound

Outward Bound by Hogan, James P.. mass_market edition. ISBN: 9780812571912.

Fifteen-year-old Linc Marani is from the wrong side of twenty-second century L.A.s tracks. Everyone he knows is addicted to dope, booze, and the violence that masquerades as bravado in life on the streets. When a chance at some cold hard cash is offered to him by a slick associate in a fancy Cadillac, Linc jumps at the bait, only to find himself sentenced to a juvenile labor camp when the heist goes sour. Labor camp, to Linc, means an aching, dawn-to-dusk bootcamp-style grind with no hope of escape or parole. He is about to give up and head out for a precisely regimented and miserable future when a mysterious psychologist offers him the chance of a lifetime. Can Linc overcome one of the worst neighborhoods on Earth by proving his worth on a mission beyond the stars? Outward Bound is the sixth book in the Jupiter series. Patterned after the inspiring coming-of-age novels that Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov used to write, the Jupiter series has laid claim to that same imaginative drive and skillful storytelling that has delighted generations of science fiction readers worldwide.