Starship Troopers

Very preachy, with long stretches of philosophizing about the problems of "past" governments. Some of my dissatisfaction probably comes from me not agreeing with the author here. Granted, with Heinlein, I expect a certain amount of preachiness, but it's usually easier to just brush the stuff off as being a *character*'s philosophy. But the people espousing the philosophy here are speaking from a clearly successful society that has the advantage of seeing all the other societies collapse, which really makes it hard to distance the book's point of view from the characters' points of view. I might be able to take the militaristic view (successful volunteer soldiers are all people who have demonstrated a willingness to put the lives of the show more rest of society above their own, and therefore they should be the only ones who can vote) more seriously if it wasn't presented with the same level of seriousness as the theory that 20th century western civilization collapsed because we didn't spank our kids enough.

There's also not really much plot, and it's kind of boring. I guess it has that in common with real military life. I have never been in the military, so I can't really judge whether Heinlein has picked up on anything truly fundamental about military life. It *feels* alternately somewhat accurate (but not terribly earth-shattering) and ridiculously naïve (the (presumably straight) male soldiers, after being starved of female contact for months at a time seem to have little to say about sex other than that girls are pretty to look at). show less

Holy crap, a Heinlein book I liked... whodathunk?

I borrowed this because Michelle told me that it is a good counter-point to [b:The Forever War|21611|The Forever War|Joe Haldeman|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1167322714s/21611.jpg|423], and I would have to agree.

This book is more military than sci-fi... in fact, it feels more military, using sci fi "bug" wars to cover boot camp, military life, officer's school and war. You could probably discuss the nuances and topics in this book for days, but at the same time enjoy it on a more shallow level.

It's very *FUCK YEAH!* propaganda, and serious, but a shit tonne of fun at the same time. Maybe it's my military family background that made me appreciate it more? I don't know, but it is one show more of the more enjoyable military-sci-fi-classic pieces out there, imo. show less

***Re-read November 2021 for a book club
I've read this book in my early twentieth, but apart from the general idea of a hero waging a war on some bug-like aliens I didn't remember a thing. So the re-read was in many ways a rediscovery of this book for me.
Short, fast-pacing and with some exhilarating battle scenes this book actually has very little plot movements. The hero, young man Juan Rico, in a spur of the moment decides to enlist and the apparent drive to this decision is his desire to get a franchise, which is limited to people who served in the military for a period of two years. The bigger part of the text is dedicated to discussing some moral and philosophical points of social organization. While the aggressive anti-communist show more position is understandable for an American author writing during the Cold War, some other ideas are really mind boggling.
One is the clear idolizing of the military in general and the over-the-board promotion of the battle experience as the epitome of feelings and the ultimate way to understanding the meaning of life and everything. This is especially troubling for a book written so soon after the World War II.
Another is the statement that any contact with another sentient civilization has to result in war.
Yet another, and the most troubling for me, is the social structure of the depicted society. The worldbuilding outside of the military world is very limited and made in few broad strokes.
We're to understand, that all the important governmental positions can only be taken by the veterans and they're the ones that can vote and be elected. It is mentioned, that the non-franchise citizens are protected by the law, but this is not expanded and I just don't believe there could be a just system that would work in such a society.
There is a corporal punishment, even public corporal punishment both in the military and for the non-franchise for administrative offenses. Rico and one other recruit go through such a public procedure during their military training and the scenes are awful.
There are almost no women in this world. All we know is that women make better pilots and that Rico's mother had to defer to her husband's decisions when it came to writing to her son. And how exactly would they perform public flogging on women?
And there is no opposition movements in this society. The only political decision everyone has to make is either to enlist or not. All the governmental decisions are taken as good and reasonable one, there are no anti-war movements and etc. Have you ever seen a society like this? show less

Starship Troopers is a science fiction classic, a great military coming of age, and simply an incredible book.

You know the story. Boy joins space marines, learns how to use exotic weapons, meets interesting aliens, uses exotic weapons on them, becomes a hero. The story opens in media res, with a heart pounding combat drop and raid onto a planet held by the Skinnies, a secondary alien power. We meet the surface of the book: powered armor, atomic rockets, jump jets and flame throwers. But unlike a lot of military science fiction, this book is not about the battles. It's about the making of man, in high school, boot camp, barracks-room bull sessions, officer candidate school, and finally combat command.

I've never been in the military, but show more I read way too many combat memoirs and histories, and everything about war in Starship Troopers strikes me as exactly true, from the importance of building up esprit de corps, to the burden of command and the confusion of battle. It's a brilliant execution of the premise of "what does it take for infantry to survive on the modern atomic battlefield", and one that has inspired more than a few real military research programs in powered exoskeletons.

But Starship Troopers is so much more than that. It had been a while since I'd read it, and two things that I'd forgotten is how excited Johnny Rico is about everything. His enthusiasm for his world is infectious; you really want to see what happens next. Second is how taut the writing is. I don't think there's a single misplaced word in the first hundred pages, and the rest of the book slackens only slightly. This is Heinlein at the height of his powers as a wordsmith.

This book is controversial politically. I wouldn't go as far some people in calling it fascist, but Heinlein delivers body blows against some of the core conceits of liberal democracy, like universal voting and social work. Due to the basic flaw of an imbalance between authority and responsibility, society broke down in the late 20th century, helped along by a global war between an American-Anglo-Russian alliance and China. In the wake of this catastrophe, society was rebuilt by committees of veterans, which after several centuries has stabilized into a franchise granted by federal service. Service is probably military, but could be anything from hard labor terraforming to "counting the hairs on a caterpillar by feel." Anything to make it clear that the franchise is dearly bought.

This book is determined to drive through its core thesis that the only thing that matters is survival, but that the instinct to survive is best harnessed to moral sensibilities for the common good. That's the core ethos of the Mobile Infantry, in their extreme esprit de corps and mantra that "everybody drops, everybody fights." It seems to work, their organization is lean, self sufficient, unbelievable destruction, although I wonder how well it would hold up to the messy ambiguities of counter-insurgency and pacification rather than a war of extermination against the perfect communism of the alien Arachnoids.

This strong philosophical grounding separates Starship Troopers from its imitators, which postulate a universe of war without asking why. A second thing that's interesting is the lack of a gun fetish, aside from the Marauder Suit, which is mostly sketched at (you wear it, it's tough and can fly and has atomic rockets), there's very little of the overwrought descriptions of destruction that characterize the genre. As the book says, there's no such thing as a deadly weapon, only deadly people. Juan Rico is probably the nicest deadly person in fiction. show less

Robert Heinlein's tale of Mobile Infantry member Juan "Johnnie" Rico's journey from a student unsure of his future to an experienced, but still nervous when it counts, 2nd Lieutenant and veteran of "The Bug War," treads a very fine line between satire of and love note to militarism. Heinlein's writing at times glorifies and honors the bonds built between soldiers as shown with Johnnie's relationships to his superior officers and his own father. But at other turns he lays out plain what so often rampant militarism can cause: soldiers with missing limbs, men dying in battles and wars that they don't even understand the purpose of, a war time atmosphere at home that can stifle civilian industry and rip families apart as men and women are show more drafted to replenish those lost at an unsustainable rate. Starship Troopers does well to demonstrate a lot of the mixed feelings people feel about war and veterans: an opposition to war and what it costs, but veneration for those who serve in it for their sacrifices. show less

It had been many years since I read this, and it's just as fascinating, infuriating, confusing and inspiring now as it was then. There are a lot of political overtones here, but it's not fascism or even militarism. Nor is his disdain for Marx hidden, or his disgust with Plato. But it still defies easy pegging - Heinlein was neither round nor square, and consequently trying to peg him often leads to a mismatched hole.
Some of the contexts are dated - some vague racism and superficial sexism, but read in the context of later Heinlein efforts you can certainly see the germination of his overall philosophy here.
Should be required reading for any high school History and Moral Philosophy class...

“The only good bug is a dead bug.”

Fans of the 1997 movie that shares the name “Starship Troopers” will grieve to learn that this memorable phrase never occurs in the book. In fact, there’s so little common ground between the two that they might as well exist in different universes.

Paul Voerhoeven’s film is an anti-war satire that soldiers love because it makes war look cool. Robert A. Heinlen’s novel is something else: an experiment (in spaaaaace!) in extrapolating what could come after if the inherent instability of democracies overwhelms the stabilizers and tears them apart.

Democracies are prone to collapse because they’re prone to mob rule. This was the problem that kept men like James Madison and John Adams awake at show more night during the Constitutional Convention. Their solution, to separate powers and force a self-correcting competition for that power, has worked so far.

Plenty of dystopian sci-fi has explored democratic collapse and the rise of totalitarian empire. Heinlen offers something unique in his system of democratic militarism. Suffrage and political office are open to anyone who has served in the military and earned an honorable discharge, and military service is open to everyone. Thus anyone can have a voice in government, but no one gets that voice who hasn’t put their own skin on the line, proving their willingness to sacrifice their own interests for the collective good.

Heinlen makes the most positive case possible for such a system. If you choose not to serve, you can still lead a productive and fulfilling life. The narrative protagonist comes from generations of non-citizen non-combatants who are highly educated and wealthy. Not serving doesn’t make you a subservient underclass; it just means that individualistic civvies can’t game the system for their own selfish ends.

You can make a strong case from history that such a system wouldn’t work, but I appreciate the thought experiment. And really, I don’t think this is the beating heart of the novel (even if it generates the most arguments among fans and detractors as to whether or not this is proto-fascism).

This is really a love letter to soldiers set in a speculative political framework. It’s not even really a military thriller: if you’ve seen the movie and hope for loads of gung-ho action and bug guts, you’ll be crushed when you learn that half the novel is set in boot camp and the other half in OCS.

Sprinkled throughout are brief action sequences and vignettes about the deepening disaster of the war against the Pseudo-Arachnids. But despite cheering for humanity because I’m human, I couldn’t figure out who’s right and who’s wrong. Both the Terran Federation and the bugs are expansionists who want the same planets, so there’s little to distinguish the combatants in terms of their war aims.

In my reading of the novel, what transcends all political systems and all wars is the individual soldier. He trains, he learns his limits, he finds out what he’s made of. He fights for his unit, for his buddies, and for his leaders. He goes where’s sent, he kills what he’s told to kill, he survives the boredom, and he hopes to survive the excitement long enough to reminisce down at the veteran’s hall.

There’s a reason Heinlen dedicates the novel to a personal sergeant friend “and to all sergeants anywhere who have labored to make men out of boys.” Politics come and go. Nations rise and fall. Wars start and end. The soldier abides, and will abide, with honor, come what may. show less