Starship Troopers

This is an interesting story about a war in the future against bugs. It delves into military life and from what I know about the military from movies, books and my short stint in Air Force ROTC reflects how the miliatry works and thinks about itself.

I took off one star because of the novels overt conservative politics and cynacism about liberal democracies. Heinlein even writes several pages into spanking kids and his views on juvenile deliquency.

After reading a couple other books by Heinlein, I was both shocked and energized by Starship Troopers. Who would've thought that Heinlein would write military sci-fi? It has a hard SF edge, running through military training and leading into combat against a truly overwhelming foe. The element of refusing to surrender is truly motivating. There is great storytelling and the characters are very real (some you love, so you hate, and you enjoy doing both). Highly recommended!

I think I went into this with the wrong mindset. I kept waiting for something to HAPPEN, not knowing that the majority of the book would be flashbacks. I found it a little Ishmael-esque - full of philosophy, and interesting philosophy at that. But if you go into it expecting your typical plot arc, it can feel too much like aimless meandering. I might try it again someday... or, I might just say, "Eh, it's not for me."

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.

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."