King of a Thousand Suns by James T. Stewart

The boy’s father agrees and they take off. He wants the ship which includes a sentient computer. Rod is able to supply the iron – for a price. The boy and his father need iron to help the ship refuel itself and feed them. While driving to his camp site, he finds an alien boy who leads him to a spaceship, which is almost out of fuel. As part of his initial processing, Rod has a session with the prison psychologist where he tells his tale about why he came to set fire to a fallen tree in a National Forest. He set fire to a single dead tree, but a real fire a few days earlier and 20 miles or so away, caused by campers who never got caught, killed two people, their farm animals and burned a lot of forest. Rod – he hates being called Rodney – was sentenced to six years in prison for burning down part of a National Forest. For stalwart SF fans though, grab hold and hang on for the ride. I don't recommend King Of A Thousand Suns for young readers because of violence and occasional adult references. Another factor I like is that in his inadvertent quest to improve life for millions around the galaxy, our hero adopts, inherits or otherwise impresses more women than he can shake the proverbial stick at but a female manages to get the better of him. But when you read the explanation, you'll laugh. All the events are related to a prison psychiatrist because our hero has been jailed for setting fire to a tree in a National Park. Those of a sensitive bent might want to skip a page. The downside is that when our plucky ex-Air Force American hero has to kill someone to save his own life, he describes the rather gruesome detail.

If you like an off-beat story about an ordinary guy who is solidly determined to do what he deems the right thing - even if that means aiding crash-landed aliens or killing kings - you must get hold of this one. Log In to see more information about James T.I had a good time reading this quirky, irreverent and well realised tale of space wandering. I began writing it in a notebook I kept by my bunk, but not finishing it for many years. My SciFi book, ''King of a Thousand Suns'' began as a dream shortly before a 3 week leave to go home.

I went briefly to an air base in California and was then sent to Germany for a 3 year tour. I spent 11 months in an Electronic Warfare Training School in Biloxi, Miss. After graduating I sold encyclopedias over the summer and enlisted in the Air Force. In the summers I worked in a lumber mill stacking lumber.

After high school I attended the University of California, Berkeley, graduating with an A.B. We moved to northern California (Blue Lake and Arcata). (I loved ''The Wizard of Oz'' and almost all the Oz books. My mother had been a school teacher and she taught me to read at about a 3rd grade level before I entered grade school. I was born in Klamath Falls, OR and lived briefly in Central Point, Ashland, Medford and Grant's Pass, OR.

King of a Thousand Suns by James T. Stewart