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Starship Troopers

Robert A. Heinlein

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Oct 11, 2010 Amy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: former-favorites, book-club, re-read-in-2021

Re-Read in 2021
This isn't one I would have normally picked up for a re-read, but I'm glad Jeremiah chose it for book club. I genuinely enjoyed this one. It is a sci-fi, military memoir. The philosophy was lighter than I remembered but no less thought-provoking. I suppose the comparison to Ender's Game is apt and the one you read first you will enjoy most. But this book holds a special place in my heart and this re-read did nothing to disrupt it.

Original Review
I read this book for book club last Re-Read in 2021
This isn't one I would have normally picked up for a re-read, but I'm glad Jeremiah chose it for book club. I genuinely enjoyed this one. It is a sci-fi, military memoir. The philosophy was lighter than I remembered but no less thought-provoking. I suppose the comparison to Ender's Game is apt and the one you read first you will enjoy most. But this book holds a special place in my heart and this re-read did nothing to disrupt it.

Original Review
I read this book for book club last year and wrote the following review.

Science fiction gets a bad rap in most literary circles. Just mention an outer-space adventure and noses go up, mouths go down and ears tune out. Somehow Star Wars doesn’t seem to mix well with Pride and Prejudice. Starship Troopers, by Robert A. Heinlein, is a novel that will bring Trekkies and classic lovers alike together.
When Johnnie Rico decides to join the army for his eighteenth birthday, he has no idea what he’s getting himself into. Assigned to the infantry, he’s off to the toughest boot camp in history. There he will be pushed to his limit physically and mentally. His adventures are only beginning, though; by the time he’s graduated, Terra has moved from ‘peace’ to ‘emergency’ and finally to ‘war’. Johnnie goes on serve in the ‘Great Bug War’ where he will learn to deal with grief, triumph, and combat.
This book is fantastic. Though names like ‘The Great Bug War’ may seem cheesy, it is quite the opposite Do you have a ‘moral conscience’? Are a person’s rights ‘unalienable’? Is there such a thing as a ‘juvenile delinquent’? What is ‘social justice’? How does society affect ‘corporal punishment’? These are only a few of the controversial questions addressed in this narrative.
Controversial is a good word for this book. Mingled with terrific adventure, the author expresses his opinion on life, of a society’s need for violence, and what it truly means to be a citizen. ‘Terra’ is earth in the future, a planet now under one government. Citizenship is an honor, voting and running for public office a privilege only given to veterans. Rule and order is enforced with spankings when little and public whippings when older. Every student is required to take History and Moral Philosophy, take but not pass. Johnnie’s teacher is the primary communicator of Heinlein’s beliefs. In one of his lectures he states, “Anyone who clings to the historically untrue – and thoroughly immoral doctrine that ‘violence never settled anything’ I would advise to conjure up the ghost 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 bird, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon!”
Robert A. Heinlein is even more fascinating than his characters. He is also a major creep, which makes this book all the more strange. Born in 1907, he served in the US Navy and was discharged with pulmonary tuberculosis. He married three times, ran for office in California, lost the election, and ended up turning to writing to pay off his mortgage. Most of his work was published in Boy Scout magazines but when he presented them with “Starship Troopers”, the editors found it too controversial and refused to publish it. Eventually someone else printed it, but it would be his last ‘juvenile novel’. (Wikipedia) From then on, his work would become much more adult. A nudist, his early beliefs centered on ‘social theories’ and free love. His books have been hailed in the hippie movement, the anti-war crowd, and the right-wing Reagan era. A touch of libertarianism runs through his work, as does anti-authority and a strong opposition to religion in government. (Wikipedia) When he died in 1998, he was already being hailed as the author who gave science fiction some credibility.
I would recommend this book for everyone old enough to understand it. In fact, I would go so far as to call it a must-read. Why? Is it terrific fiction? Yes. A realistic and believable military book? Totally. Great insight into the mind of a boy becoming a man? That too. But it is more than that. It is more than a ‘coming of age’ story, though that is part of it. Nor is it some controversial work that will baffle philosophers for ages. It’s a story with a message, and a warning, that you will have to discover for yourself.
I could go on about this book: the characters, the plot, the controversy and everything I discovered reading it. But I won’t. Because this is the sort of book you can use too many words to describe. You find the book and read it. Don’t take my word for it, find out about Sergeant Jelal, the bugs, Carlos, and even Johnnie. Find out for yourself why some science fiction books do deserve to be up there with the classics, and why Starship Troopers is easily one of the greatest books of the twentieth century. ...more

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Sep 01, 2009 Tori rated it it was ok

Shelves: for-genj-book-club, sci-fi

For book club:
Imagine the future. Not ten years into the future, or even a hundred years into the future, but even farther into the impenetrable time that lays ahead. What is out there? Or more specifically, what is there for transportation? For weapons? For technology? Could humans live on different planets besides Earth? Could everyday people travel the universe, and would it be considered normal? Robert Heinlein goes past reality as he allows the reader to dive into the mysterious future in S For book club:
Imagine the future. Not ten years into the future, or even a hundred years into the future, but even farther into the impenetrable time that lays ahead. What is out there? Or more specifically, what is there for transportation? For weapons? For technology? Could humans live on different planets besides Earth? Could everyday people travel the universe, and would it be considered normal? Robert Heinlein goes past reality as he allows the reader to dive into the mysterious future in Starship Troopers.
Juan Rico joined the army on a whim, even though it was against his fathers wishes. After being sworn in he was sent to Camp Currie for a rigorous boot camp where he was shot at, shouted at, and allowed less than satisfactory sleep.
After graduation comes real combat, fighting the spider-like "Bugs". A major battle would dissolve his current team and land him with a position in the Razdack's Roughnecks. There he truly found his place. A few petty positions and a few hard deaths to deal with, but Juan was doing well in his routine. In fact, everything was running smoothly.
But there are more battles to fight. This time, they would be doing something new. The Bugs were like ants. They lived underground tunneling deep into whatever planet they were on. The warrior bugs were in obedience to the "brains" who were hidden way below the surface. The job was to capture some brains. The only problem was that no one had ever gone down a Bug tunnel, well, no one alive that is. Juan was faced with a mission he couldn't back down from, and one that would test all his skills. The question was could he complete the mission and live to tell about it?
The truth is, I'm not a fan of Science Fiction literature, and this book did nothing to relieve that opinion. Between long boring gulfs that seemed to have no point to confusing action scenes, the book seemed to have no purpose except to display the authors worldview. Though it followed Juan through his army career and some parts were interesting, others seemed to lack value. Sometimes, Heinlein went into depth about very trivial things while he brushed over some very important issues that could have added depth to his novel. Juan as a character didn't seem to be realistic. I never connected with him or any other character in the book for that matter.
To add to that, Heinlein was an evolutionist. He presented that theory as fact in his book forming the plot around the higher evolved creatures. Novels that lean heavily on evolution as fact to support their premise and plot rarely ever satisfy me.
If you are looking for a book with awesome power suits, weapons and technology, this book may be for you. But, if you are looking for a good read, I wouldn't suggest this book, unless you are interested in studying Heinlein's strange views on life and the way he thinks things should be run.
...more

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