Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
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Book Reviews of Starship Troopers
Book Review: Do You Want to Live Forever?
Summary: 5 Stars
Now, boys and girls, a little lesson on fiction. A novel is a long story in which a developing series of events happens to a character or group of characters, in such a way that when it's over something has changed - one of the characters is a different person from who he or she is at the beginning. By that definition, "Starship Troopers" is not a novel, it's a slightly fictionalized political manifesto in which the characters involved remain pretty much as they were, only more advanced and at higher military rank. Furthermore, to an even greater extent than this author's other work, "Starship Troopers" advocates a politically conservative, militaristic society in which no one can vote in elections without previously serving in the armed forces in some way. And I'm a progressive liberal moonbat of the first water, and I loved this thing. How do you figure?
Well, because it's interesting, of course. Robert A. Heinlein, as clunky as his writing could be at times, spent a long career publishing dozens of science fiction stories in the major magazines of the day and a series of novels for young adults, to such an extent that many consider him to have been the premier sf writer of the 50s and early 60s (beating out Isaac Asimov for the title, but we'll discuss that some other time). You can say what you like about the tastes of sf magazine editors in that era, but they knew enough to refrain from publishing writers who couldn't communicate. That should tell you something about Heinlein's ability to grab the reader's attention.
Getting to the story of "Starship Troopers" (what there is of it), Juan Rico of Buenos Aires decides to join the military after high school on a sort of whim, because his friends are doing so, and very much against the wishes of his wealthy industrialist father. Because young Rico has no particular skills and graduated in the respectable middle of his class, he goes to the Mobile Infantry and becomes a grunt - that is, one who actually fires weapons in battle. At just about the same time, Earth finds itself at war with the Bugs, a perfect communist hive mind wherein the soldiers have no brains to speak of - they move and fight by the instructions of distant bug brains.
And, friends, that's pretty much it. Rico goes through basic training, talks to his instructors, superiors and buddies, rises in the ranks and engages in a number of space battles, meanwhile discussing the history and philosophy of his world. This is largely based on the notion that duty is nothing more nor less than self-preservation extended to one's society, and the political idea that the vote is morally the property only of those who have already demonstrated their willingness to put the needs of their society or country or world or what have you before their own. There's plenty of incident once the novel gets moving, but nothing in the way of development or plot.
As you might guess, there's a certain amount of lecturing, but Heinlein was a skillful and experienced writer and placed the lectures in the mouths of his characters rather than his narrator. Frequently, the lecturing character is in fact a classroom teacher, sometimes delivering a lecture and sometimes answering student questions or objections. A very good idea - since the characters engage with each other, the reader can feel engaged too.
When Rico himself delivers a lecture or its equivalent to the reader, Heinlein again demonstrates his skill and experience; Rico rarely or never discusses social or moral philosophy outside of some specific incident. Why, for instance, does his society endorse capital punishment, everything from paddling to executions? Well, for instance, Rico narrates an incident in which he overhears another trainee being generally discharged for a serious violation, and then overhears the commanding officer dressing down the drill instructor for permitting the violation in the first place. When a similar incident comes up in Rico's own training, he immediately takes his lashes with a perfect understanding of their rationale. None of this agrees at all with the psychological realities of punishment and its effects, but that would only be a problem if Heinlein were making a speech in Congress in favor of whippings in the Army. Since he's writing a story, the philosophy behind it strikes one as entertaining, and - almost - convincing.
Of course, he set up his argument according to his own biases. The enemy in this novel is a perfectly aggressive, expansionist hive mind - of course you have to engage in total war against an enemy like that. Anything less is asking for extinction. Heinlein was a Navy man and did some war work during WWII, and I have to wonder how much of the Bugs' character comes from anti-Japanese war propaganda. For an antidote to this approach and an examination of what might happen if we applied these tactics to the sort of enemy we might actually encounter these days, see Joe Haldeman's "The Forever War", written explicitly as an answer to "Starship Troopers". But to get back to the subject at hand.
Here as elsewhere in "Starship Troopers", it's Heinlein's unexcelled ability to combine highly technical information, philosophical musings and adventure storytelling that makes the novel so good to read. I should warn fans of the movie, however, that it's nothing like the novel. The message of the movie is that "war makes fascists of us all" - that's pretty much the opposite of Heinlein's message here. He believed that war, or at least military service and virtues, made good citizens of us all, and whether you agree with him or not, "Starship Troopers" makes his case about as well as anything could.
Benshlomo says, Know your enemy and you will know yourself.
Book Review: Starship Paratroopers or Starship NAZIS? part 1
Summary: 5 Stars
Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers written in the 1959 is an important book EVERY U.S. military man should read and should be on the required reading lists of all the services. Its currently best-seller #7 of U.S. Army West Point Military Academy Cadets at Amazon books, so this is encouraging. However, its really two books, Book 1 describes a Technotactically advanced Space Paratrooper force that thinks and uses egalitarean teamwork. When most people refer to "Starship Troopers" this is what they think of: Space Paratroopers jumping from space in capsules, re-entering the earth's atmosphere, then landing by parachute inside an armored, powered "superman" suit with devastating weapons, situational awareness, an ability to fly for short distances using leg jets. Basically the armored tank and the infantryman have merged into a "mechanized human". We follow one recruit, Johnny Rico from basic training to combat to OCS and some more combat against sub-terranian alien bugs, impervious to stand-off, even nuclear firepower. He and his team-mates help each other out as they fight to save mankind.
Heinlein in amazing anticipation of events predicts:
1. The desirability of masses of individual Paratroopers flooding an enemy system of defense
2. The inability of firepower even nuclear to subdue enemies gone to ground, and the need to have ground forces
3. U.S. and Russia teaming up to fight Red China (?)
4. All-Volunteer Force not having enough things to do
5. Men wearing ear rings as socially acceptable
6. Women as combat pilots
7. Need for Situational Awareness means to be mind and hands-free; page 102;
"And that is the beauty of a powered suit: you don't have to think about it. You don't have to drive it, fly it, conn it, operate it; you just wear it and it takes orders directly from your muscles and does for you what your muscles are trying to do. This leaves you with your whole mind free to handle your weapons and notice what is going on around you...which is supremely important to an infantryman who wants to die in bed. If you load a mud foot down with a lot of gadgets that he has to watch, somebody a lot more simply equipped--say with a stone ax---will sneak up and bash his head in while he is trying to read a vernier"
"Starship Troopers" is the unspoken inspiration behind the U.S. Army's effort to digitalize the individual fighting Soldier called "21st Century Land Warrior or "21st CLAW". Heinlein if alive today would be pleased. But overall he may be alarmed that his vision is being used to complicate the fighting processes instead of simplifying them. His warning above should be heeded.
He also brilliantly foretells and describes a dazzling array of technologies that we actually have today from beacons to Soldier global positioning systems to night sights. He paints a picture of a "Super Infantry". He clearly understands the need to "force an entry" by his Paratroopers (Starship Troopers) descending rapidly from space in enormous numbers with decoys and debris from their capsules creating a flood of blips on enemy radars too numerous for him to contend with. This anticipation of the essence of ballistic missile (the starship trooper in his capsule is a re-entry vehicle) defense was written by a man in the 1950s before we even had such things as satellites and sub-orbital ballistic missiles! The irony is that the very reasons Heinlein uses for describing how his "Starship Troopers" would be impossible to stop applies to the current National Missile Defense debate. We should in the interim develop a high-altitude mass tactical individual parachuting system with delayed opening chutes as Heinlein proposes to better avoid enemy air defenses in the 21st century. When/if space combat becomes a reality, the flood of individual re-entry capsules makes a lot more sense than packing the men into a landing spacecraft which provides a convenient target for the enemy to destroy.
This is the book we all love.*
Yet this is all BAIT.
Heinlein starts the book off with the attention-getting battle in the supertrooper gear to try to later on sell you on his POLITICAL AGENDA or what I call "book 2". He is saying that if you like the military "Mobile Infantry" (MI) force presented (essentially the self-reliant, U.S. Army Airborne Paratrooper in futuristic space gear), you need to change the way the U.S. government is run to the way Heinlein sees it should be. To have mechanized humans, you must have a mechanized SOCIETY. There is no "free lunch" as his school professor/mentor retired MI LTC DuBois would likely tell Rico. Heinlein flat out proposes that the U.S. Constitution and its ideas of each human being having intrinsic citizenship rights in his starship future will be eliminated. Clearly, this is a subversive book that is a direct cultural attack on the Constitution of the U.S. which Heinlein as a former U.S. Navy officer was sworn once to uphold.
*The recent Hollywood film is a disgrace that failed to depict Heinlein's vision of space Paratroopers when we easily have the visual technology to do this and chose to instead mock the entire book with glib presentations of generations X/Y actors having sex and co-ed showers together then getting massacred by space bugs because they have no armored suits or tanks and only standard 21st Century 5.56mm assault rifles to shoot at the bugs. Maybe the Director, Paul Verhoeven hated the book's neo-fascism philosophy and decided to make his own trashy movie to trash it? Maybe someday someone will actually read the book and create a video game that depicts Paratroopers in powered space suits dropped from space?
Book Review: Fight or Die
Summary: 5 Stars
Starship Troopers (1959) is the thirteenth SF novel in the Juvenile series, following Have Spacesuit - Will Travel. This story was almost not published. Scribner had published the previous twelve books, but rejected this story. It was eventually published by G.P. Putnam's Sons.
This story takes place in a future time after an unspecified disaster. The previous government was gone, so veterans of the various conflicts that occurred during this time formed their own government. Only veterans need apply for citizenship; the meek and unblooded who had not risked their lives for their fellows were not allowed to vote or serve in public office.
In this novel, Juan (Johnny) Rico is a young man growing up within this new milieu. He attends the required History and Moral Philosophy classes to learn to be a citizen. Much of the book dwells on the discussions within this classroom.
Carl is Johnny's best friend throughout high school. But he has been the brains and Johnny the brawn.
Carmencita Ibanez is a classmate of Johnny and Carl. She never has trouble getting dates, but she doesn't go out with the same bay twice in a row. She does well in mathematics and has great reflexes. She often uses the Rico family pool to keep in shape.
In this story, Carl decides to join the military to earn his citizenship. Naturally, Johnny immediately declares that he has the same intentions. Yet Carl doesn't think that Johnny's father will let him join.
Legally, his father cannot prevent him from joining up. When Johnny brings up the subject, his father disparages the whole idea and then offers a trip to Mars after graduation. Johnny is very happy until he tries to tell Carl that he has other plans.
On the way to the recruiting office, Johnny and Carl meet Carmencita. She tells them that she is applying for pilot training. The boys think that she would be a great pilot with all her talents and skills.
Then Johnny joins the military, but all his choices for branch assignment are eliminated by his test scores and interviews. He is assigned to the Mobile Infantry, the default branch. Although he is disappointed, he unhesitatingly defends the branch after his temporary roommate belittles it.
This tale operates on two levels. The History and Moral Philosophy parts discuss some of the basic issues about military service. At the same time, Johnny is finding out the hard facts of life and death while fighting against an enemy.
Although this work has been called a militaristic fantasy, it is actually a cautionary tale. Read the scene about "violence doesn't solve anything" and then ask the Carthaginians about that concept, if you can find any. Remember, it takes two sides to fight a war, but only one side to commit a massacre; maybe the Amerindians, the Jews, the Kulaks and other slaughtered people would have an opinion on this subject.
There are certain truths that are self-evident, including the fact that humans -- as presently constituted -- are fighting animals. Moreover, the author postulates that alien creatures resemble humans in that respect, if no other. Furthermore, governments are necessary to prevent internal tyranny, but have a tendency to change over time into such tyrannies.
This type of government is not new. Many governments have required all male citizens to serve in the military and revolts have usually left the troops in charge. However, the author takes artistic license to allow the new government to grow into a limited democracy much like that of Athens. Yet citizenship is available to ANY person who is willing to put his life in danger for his fellow man.
The author bypasses the common trend of such a governments -- such as revolutionary France and South America -- to degenerate into military dictatorships. Somehow, this government continued to be a limited democracy with upward mobility.
As the author says in the book, the only thing that can be claimed for this government is that it works. Any government can be viable, but the dictatorial governments invest large amounts of effort keeping its population from revolting. Many governments ensure that any persons who are likely to revolt has a chance to work off their anger against an external enemy.
This method has worked many times in the past, but has one flaw: veterans come home with many skills needed by revolutionaries. So the author gives them control of their own society. In that respect, the historical parallel is probably Sparta.
One aspect of this novel that is not mentioned very often is the common experiences of military personnel. Anyone who has served in any branch of the military during combat has at least a vague understanding of the limitations and uncertainties of military force. When leaders know these limitations, they are very unlikely to put their domains into unnecessary conflicts.
This novel is a classic of science fiction. Despite all the other excellent works by the author, this one tends to stick in the reader's memory for decades. Read and enjoy!
Highly recommended for Heinlein fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of moral philosophy, armed combat, and comradeship.
-Arthur W. Jordin
Book Review: Another fine novel made into a lousy movie
Summary: 5 Stars
Starship Troopers was originally intended to be 1959's entry in the series of "Juvenile" novels written by Heinlein in the late 1940's and throughout the 1950's. Unfortunately for the publisher of that series (and fortunately for us), the author had outgrown the genre, and penned a tale that was much more intense and thought-provoking than Scribner's editors felt comfortable-with: resulting in the book's rejection, and Heinlein moving-on into the more mature and "hard science fiction" - focused latter half of his career, where he wove excellent storytelling skills and strong, deeply held convictions into a series of excellent novels, such as The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Time Enough for Love, and others.
The book has long been criticised as being too militaristic if not downright totalitarian in its views. I would disagree.
The book certainly features militaristic terminology, settings, and attitudes on every page, but we're talking a very unique military organization here - one entirely different from the mass armies fielded by both the great totalitarian and great democratic states of the 20th century: Johnny Rico's "MI" is a very small organization, made up entirely of highly trained select volunteers. They are men dedicated entirely to their craft, and can quit at any time; drawn from an open society similar to our own, with free speech and not focused on conquest. What is different is that only those who complete their voluntary military service can vote, that the earth has attained the long-hoped for dream of a single government, and humanity is in the process of colonizing suitable real estate in our galactic neighborhood.
Like many of Heinlein's works, the story is narrated by our lead character, Johnny Rico, as we see him in a journey starting as a naive recent high school graduate with fuzzy ideas of his purpose and direction in life, to becoming a dedicated, skilled soldier, who knows that at any moment he might be called upon, and is willing, to give up his life for the good of humanity.
Johnny faces many hard choices along the way as he is converted from a citizen to a soldier by the MI's deliberately harsh training tactics - chances to give up, chances to fail - he doesn't. Like many of Heinlein's lead characters, Johnny is a resourceful, intelligent and self reliant individual, who knows that the most dangerous man in a fight is not the soldier with the fanciest weapons - a point Heinlein explicitly makes several times.
The pace of the book is quite fast - and once things get rolling, you are drawn into the story and really appreciate and understand Johnny's viewpoints, as well as travelling with him through his training, encounters with those who do (and do not) understand the nature of his metamorphosis into a solider, and into several action-packed battle scenes and a series of critical final scenes where he is faced with the decision to either remain a "term" soldier - implying a limited duration relationship with the military, or whether he'll pursue becoming an officer, meaning that the military will be an integral part of who and what he is for the rest of his life.
I've not even talked about the "Bug War" that is the central conflict that the story revolves around - and that is deliberate, as the real war is the war Johnny is fighting inside himself, the war to define who and what he is, what meaning his life will have. That is a challenge any young teen, such as I was when I first read this book, must face as they mature.
This book teaches us that we won't ever truly find the satisfaction and sense of meaning we all need in our lives, if we allow others to determine our path in life for us: Johnny struck out on his own despite the opposition of his father and doubts of his classmates and teachers. He succeeded in defining himself, chosing a course in life that had nothing to do with the plans his father had for him to be the eventual heir to the family business.
A riveting book, a thought provoking story with characters you care-about, and a story that grows on me each time I read it. The movie Starship Troopers that is theoretically based on this book is a sad and poorly done ripoff: throwing aside the concepts and themes that lie at the heart of this story in the name of some military action and box office dollars.
Like so many of Heinlein's other works, I rate "Starship Troopers" as 5 stars!
Book Review: Thought provoking
Summary: 5 Stars
Robert Anson Heinlein was a master storyteller. The way to write a great story is to be controversial, to arouse passion in the reader. You don't have to agree with the philosophies or morals stated, they are in the story to make you think. Heinlein was someone who detested violence, yet, who recognized the occasional need for it. This is made clear in this book, yet Heinlein had to keep the story shorter, as this book was intended for a juvenile audience.
I first read this book in ninth grade, and still re-read it from time to time. The book is not really about war or warfare, it is about becoming a man. That's it, simple. Yet to read the various reviews posted here, you might think that this book is either trash or very profound. I tend to vote more with the profound group here.
The central character, Juan Rico, a Filipino living in Buenos Ares decides to enlist in the service to impress a girl. This service does not have to be a combat arm, his friend Carl becomes an electrician in a factory on Pluto. He signs up for a two year term, the minimum required to become a citizen. All citizens are veterans of this system. Heinlein states that this system grew out of a time where society had become fractured, and the veterans united, due to more of a feeling of "if you aren't a veteran, don't bother us" attitude. Veterans could trust other veterans, but didn't trust others as much. This system simply grew (in Heinlein's mind) because this system separated the wolves from the sheep, or the "warriors" from the pacifists. With the polarization of our society today, and the problems we are incurring, this might actually be a possibility.
The book deals with our character Johnny coming of age, growing up as we watch, in this background of being a soldier at war. He reflects on his History and Moral Philosophy class (which no one was required to pass, only attend), and thinks of the decisions and events which lead him to become what he is becoming. This is the simple meat of what is happening in this book. The philosophical background is neither conservative, nor fascist, if anything this book is built on individual liberty and freedom of choice, which is rather a libertarian point of view. But fascist? Please!! I lived in Spain under Francisco Franco who was installed in power by Adolf Hitler. I know fascism; I have lived under its rule and threats, and know it well. Fascism is a very misused word today, living under a dictator with no freedoms and under threat of jail or death is the meaning of the word. Fascism is a country under rule of one person with all of its citizens working for the good of the state. It is very similar to the works of communism under Joseph Stalin, who ruled with much the same system, albeit with a slightly differing philosophical background, the primary mechanisms used were very much in line with Hitler's National Association of Socialist Workers Party, or Nazi's. Another very misused term in describing Heinlein. Both of these Socialist Utopian visions cost the deaths of millions and millions of their own citizens, and I don't just mean in war. Pogroms were common in both of these societies.
Now that I have made this book sound utterly boring and mundane, please, reconsider. Read the book for yourself, with an open mind. It will read much like something written today. His thoughts on the military are very ahead of its time. Female pilots, often on all female ships, in 1959? The reason for Heinlein not having female soldiers are due to a couple of reasons. One is females, by and large, are not as strong in the upper body as the average male. Not all of them, just by and large. Heinlein was very well aware that the female of our species is by far the more dangerous, but I think he felt that 1959 just wasn't quite ready for female soldiers, or maybe he worried about 1959 not being ready for his version of them. Hard to say, but interesting to think about. Anyone who has read the Moon is a Harsh Mistress will attest to Heinlein's thoughts about female fighters, or Friday for that matter.
All in all, this is the best book I have ever read, whatever its faults. I am sorry that it was made into such a crummy movie. The movie might have been okay, had it been done without the Starship Troopers name. Read the book, then let us all know what you thought of it, what can be more fair than that? 631 reviewers ought to tell you something....