Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
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Book Reviews of Starship Troopers
Book Review: A controversial novel--is it Heinlein's best?
Summary: 5 Stars
I've read nearly everything Heinlein ever wrote. I like to group his novels into three general categories. They are:1. "Youth" novels such as the excellent "Citizen of the Galaxy", "Tunnel in the Sky" and "Podkayne of Mars." These feature young heroes or heroines in challenging situations.
2. "Future History" novels, such as "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress","Time Enough for Love", "Methuselah's Children", "To Sail Beyond the Sunset" and "Friday."
3. Novels with metaphysical or philosophical leanings such as "Stranger in a Strange Land" and "Starship Troopers."
You could put "Starship Troopers" in the category of a youth novels. Rico, the young hero of the novel is barely out of high school when he volunteers for military service in order to win citizenship privileges--and impress pretty fellow student Carmen. She's volunteering for service, hoping her mathematics talent will gain her a pilot's seat.
Wait! Citizenship privileges--what's that? Aren't we all endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the vote? Well, not in John Rico's world. There, citizenship is earned by military service, and it isn't all flowers and pancakes, either. If war breaks out, your short stint becomes...indefinite.
So why would anyone risk life and limb, plus some very unpleasant times in boot camp, just to be able to vote? That's the philosophical underpinning of "Starship Troopers." Heinlein creates a republic based on a sort of responsible freedom, where liberty is granted, but the right to direct it is earned by those who paid in a stake.
So, is this book a boring political rant? Heck no! In amongst the lectures on liberty and good government a la Heinlein is an incredibly action-packed adventure. The Bugs are an alien race bent on destroying the Earth. And Earth armies have little idea how to stop them except they know they must do so to survive.
The scenes in boot camp are gripping. The battle scenes are realistic. The "special effects"--the armored suits the infantry wears are amazing "seven-league boots" that impart near-Superman powers on the soldier who wears it. The film that was based on this book caught the excitement of a society at war with a deadly enemy, but the book has more action than the film ever could have...and a lot more explanation of what motivates each character.
If you haven't read this, you are in for a real treat. This is, in my opinion, one of Heinlein's best novels, along with "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and the rambling but brilliant "Time Enough For Love." It's so good that I almost make a fourth category for just "Starship Troopers" by itself. It's my favorite of Heinlein's works.
Book Review: The classic
Summary: 5 Stars
Heinlein was the successor to the H.G. Wellsian tradition of sociological science fiction. Like Wells, Heinlein excelled at taking certain scientific and technological factors, extrapolating from them, and then building a plausible society on those elements.There are a lot of great aspects to this book. Heinlein's depiction of what life might be like aboard a large starship is startling in its breadth and depth of detail, and just overall realism.
However, for me the best parts are the pitched ground battles between the Federation Mobile Infantry troops and the various alien species. Heinlein realizes these in spectacular fashion. You feel as if you're right there in the middle of the action. This is one of the things he is truly great at, and it made a tremendous impact on me when I read the book for the first time in the early 60's as a young teenager, only a few years after the book was published.
Some people have criticized this book for apparently proposing a system of government based upon a military oligarchy, since only people who have served in the military can vote. Perhaps this was the society that Heinlein himself wanted to live in. This seems plausible because he seems so earnest about the idea in the book.
However, he isn't consistent on this point. In Double-Star, for example, another of his Hugo-Award winning novels, the Earth has a parliamentary system headed up by a brilliant Prime Minister, the Honorable Bonforte. Other books seem to propose other governmental systems as the model.
However, I can't say as this system sounds so bad to me now, after having had 8 years of a President who is more interested in getting blow-jobs than in serving the American people (and I'm a Democrat). It might be better than our current system where politicians, whether Democratic or Republican, can be bought for relatively small sums of money, and there are virtually no moral and ethical standards anymore. (I would feel slightly better if I thought they could only be bought for very large sums of money, after all, why sell out cheap?)
In Heinlein's future, the universe is a very dangerous place, and someone who has volunteered for military service has at least demonstrated he is willing, at some level, to put his own self-interest below that of society's. Does anybody really believe our politicians hold such ideals anymore?
However, people have made too much of the politics in this book. Even in a science-fiction book politics makes for dull reading. This is really a book about a futuristic ground war and the characters who fight it. The story makes for exciting reading if only for that.
Book Review: One of Heinlein's most misunderstood novels
Summary: 5 Stars
Starship Troopers is arguably one of Robert Heinlein's most misunderstood novels. Fans and critics alike have often been guilty of grossly oversimplifying this deep and multifaceted work. What the author began as a simple action-adventure/coming of age story for a line of juvenile books mutated along the way into a very adult exercise in speculative sociology (and yet still reads well as action-adventure and coming of age.)
The central theme of Troopers is, "How would society be different if we had to earn our citizenship and right to vote instead of having it handed to us just for being born?" Note that Heinlein never advocates or denounces this idea--he merely presents it as something worth thinking about and asks the question "Is it any less rational that the system we currently use?"
The story follows the journey of Johnnie Rico--a high school graduate who impulsively enlists in government service to impress a girl. He initially has fuzzy visions of flying military spacecraft into combat and wooing the heart of his high school infatuation. Reality quickly comes crashing down around young Mr. Rico when he learns that the only thing he is qualified for is the Mobile Infantry--the hardest, dirtiest, most dangerous, and ultimately the most important branch of Earth's armed forces.
Because the story follows the adventures of a military recruit it has often been criticized for being "overly militaristic." Frankly this is like calling Moby Dick "overly nautical!" Obviously a book about a soldier in training is going to deal heavily with the workings of the military establishment. Starship Troopers has also often been criticized as being "fascist", "advocating military dictatorship" and "ultra right wing." All of these criticisms seem to ignore what is actually printed in the story. Military service is just one way of earning citizenship. Not only can those engaged in government service not hold political office, they cannot even vote until their service is over. Most of Earth's citizens (note that Heinlein is writing about a world government--the ultimate horror for the ultra right) are content to let a tiny minority do the dirty work of serving and voting--there is no compulsory service of any kind and ordinary people seem to enjoy as much or more freedom than do contemporary Americans.
Although the book can sometimes bog down when characters get preachy Starship Troopers is a must-read for any true fan of science fiction, or for that matter any reader who would likes to see a master imagineer play with ideas most people take for granted.Book Review: I've lost track of how many times I've read this masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
STARSHIP TROOPERS is a classic for multiple reasons.It was the first published of Heinlein's 'last period' novels, in which he changed the face of the genre.
It was the first novel I know of to really think about what future infantry combat might be like (it was Heinlein who invented the idea of powered combat armor, now standard in many military sf novels, and a goal of contemporarty R&D).
And it was and is a novel that shook people up so thoroughly that many couldn't see what it's about. In fact, I know of two seperate sf novels written to 'refute' STARSHIP TROOPERS -- both of which fail because they never address its central concerns.
Neither is it a product of the Cold War, or a glorification of violence. Heinlein, an Annapolis graduate, once gave a speech to the midshipmen in which he said that if the human race handled it affairs sensibly, then we'd never fight another war. Unfortunately, he went on to note, we don't act sensibly all the time.
This book is about the times when things can't be handled sensibly.
It's also about infantry, the people who put their lives on the line in the worst possible conditions, to protect their societies.
It's the story of Juan Rico, a boy becoming a man.
And it's a philosophical treatise in fictional form, concerned with questions like "What is morality?", "How should a society be organized politically?", "How should we deal with criminals?", "What should the schools teach to preserve a free society?", and other things.
The philosophy is what drives so many people over the edge, because Heinlein didn't automatically assume either that we'd reached perfection in the modern world, or that we would. This challenge to the conventional wisdom made lots of people half-crazy (The movie version is a good example. Paul Verhoeven, the director just hated the book, and it shows throughout).
Heinlein asked fundamental questions, and some of the answers he came up with were wildly upsetting to many, e.g.: conscription is immoral under all circumstances; women should serve in combat, but not in the same units as men; the right to vote should be earned, not automatically awarded at age 18; corporal punishment is superior to locking people in cages like animals; we won't be able to abolish war in the forseeable future ('and I don't like that prediction any better than you', he wrote in an essay once).
But if you can read ideas you may disagree with without flying into a rage, then this book can be a real treat. And it remains a great piece of storytelling.
Book Review: It is NOT FACIST ! Get off it and look at what it says!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of the few books that belongs to my collection of literary friends. I first read this while I was in junior high school and I thought it was a great story. For some reason I could really identify with Johnny, ie fear of spiders, lousy with math and his realitive "averageness". I read it several times a year and kept it with me through college and ROTC. I couldn't get my ROTC instructor to require us to read it, but I now began to identify with it as I struggled to become an Army officer. Again, I really felt like Johnny was someone who would understand me. While deployed in Iraq during Desert Storm I read it numerous times while I was sitting in a sandstorm and it was a comfort and again, a sort of friend. I think that the people who don't like the ideas that are expressed, ie the review that is at the top of this page by some liberal at Amazon.com, and feel that it is not responsible, are missing the point. The book is about duty and what it takes to be a contributing member of society. No one wants to do the dirty work to keep a nation or society free. Our current president thought it was too tough, many of the rich and powerful didn't want to suffer through the Civil War or later Viet Nam and ran away or bought their way out. One of the quotes at the start of a chapter sums it up best for me, " The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time by the blood of patriots!" I would also add that the patriots must spill others blood as well. Ask the men who went ashore at Normandy, Iwo Jima, Gettysburg, or any other great battle, you have to kill and sometimes be killed to protect your society.It is not a job for everyone, but to imply that to be prepared for that job is to be some kind of Nazi or killer is simply stupid. Those that don't like this book find the harsh discipline, unwavering and selfless commitment to be a bit bitter to their taste. They simply enjoy the fruits of the sacrifice and don't want to get their hands dirty to plant the garden and keep it strong and healthy. If these ideas and many of the others expressed in the book are facist, then we need to redefine the word. My last comment concerns that dislike for the punishments that are handed out to the recruits. Flogging is cruel, but I wonder if a drunk driver got 10 lashes today if we would have the repeat offenders that daily kill innocent victims. I'm not saying we should do that, but I bet it would have an impact on their future decision making!