Starship Troopers

Decent space war story but the limited POV makes it hard to grasp the bigger picture, which is what I usually like from space war novels. “The Forever War” is a superior version of this, with actual progress to the war and the society around it and not just the main character over his military life, and without changing POV either.

I have to admit that I love the movie and have seen it many times before reading this, but this novel is so unapologetic with its fascism, with several pages of literal lectures about why liberal societies fail, that it’s hard to appreciate it. The satire of the movie makes it easier to enjoy, not to mention that most of this novel has no action, just constant training and transporting around. Sometimes he even skips the action scenes.

Obviously they’re very different works, but even without the comparaison this isn’t a space war novel I’d recommend to someone new to the genre.

Not as great as Stranger in A Strange Land or Time Enough For Love, but equally as substantial. The book makes me think more about politics, civic duties, and freedom. Here's my favourite bit of the book: ...one girl told him bluntly, 'My mother says that violence never settles anything.' 'So?' Mr. Dubois looked at her bleakly, 'I'm sure the city fathers of Carthege would be glad to know that. Why doesn't your mother tell them so? Or why don't you?' They had tangled before - since you couldn't flunk the course, it wasn't necessary to keep Mr. Dubois buttered up. She said shrilly, 'You're making fun of me! Everybody knows that Carthege was destroyed!' 'You seemed to be unaware of it,' he said grimly. 'Since you don't know it, wouldn't you say that violence had settled their destinies rather thoroughly? However, I was not making fun of you personally; I was heaping scorn on an inexcusably silly idea - a practice I shall always follow. Anyone who clings to the historically untrue - and thoroughly immoral - doctrine that "violence never settles anything" I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.' Again and again we see this in our world. A pattern that keeps repeating itself, with different variables to hoodwink the unaware and the unthinking. I think this is a book every citizen must digest, not to agree or disagree with the content necessarily, but to have a conversation with oneself, questioning our own beliefs - be it ones we absorb from society or the ones choose to believe ourselves.

Aside from being a campy movie whose irony was lost on the public, this book is a philosophical piece placed in a science fiction novel. The book deals with politics and explores a totalitarian world view. "When you vote, you are exercising political authority. You are using force. And force, my friends, is violence. The supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived."

Boring.

Starship Troopers AKA Robert Heinlein lecturing for 300 pages about how war is awesome and good and so is beating your kids. Any and all opposition to this philosophy is promptly shut down. You know from the first 5 pages what this book has to offer. I hope you are someone who loves war and think it is a great thing to be a part of, because if you don’t, this book has nothing to offer.

What could have been an exciting intergalactic war story told from the soldier’s perspective is instead an in-depth look at marine camp. Awesome. Reading about training drills and camp discipline is totally riveting. It takes half the book to discuss with any depth who the opponents in the war even are. Going into this book, I was expecting problematic themes, but I was also expecting…y’know, a story or something. It doesn’t even work as a fun, thoughtless space adventure. Heinlein is too stolid and busy repeating the same points over and over to develop anything.

The main character joins the corp with no provocation, leaving little to root for or get invested in, but I suppose that is by design: Johnnie Rico is not a character, just an empty void that can absorb the useless philosophy echoed by every character. I have no idea why this is a fictional book with some flimsy story about war when it is evident that what Heinlein really wanted to do was write a long boring essay about how war builds a society’s moral fiber. It is a prolonged and one-note sentiment repeated ad nauseam. Ideally, theme should run in tandem with some sort of plot. Any potentially exciting events are only mentioned in passing. Heinlein doesn’t dare abandon his meretricious philosophy for even a second. I was bored to tears. Utterly confused how anyone could find this book interesting. The movie, at least, had something to say about fanaticism and the propaganda of war. This has nothing to say beyond “war is good, and if you disagree, you’re an idiot,” for 300 pages.

If you want a version of this with something to say, watch Paul Verhoeven’s film adaptation, which makes the wise move of satirizing its source material (Satire is surely the only way to go when adapting this; playing it straight would do nothing but illicit laughs anyway, so you may as well try to be funny on purpose). If you want a book with a similar premise that has something to say, read Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War. It’s been a while since I’ve read it but I remember it having a plot and characters, which is more than I can say for this.