From the Bookshelf of Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy…

Starship Troopers

Robert A. Heinlein

Start date: September 1, 2013

Finish date: September 30, 2013

Discussion: Book Discussions

Why we're reading this: Group Classic Discussion September 2013
Hugo Award 1960
#31 on NPR's Top 100 SF/F novels of all time (2011 …more
[close] Group Classic Discussion September 2013
Hugo Award 1960
#31 on NPR's Top 100 SF/F novels of all time (2011 poll) http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/1390858...
#11 on Locus Magazines Best SciFi novels of the 20th century http://www.locusmag.com/2012/AllCentu...

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Jul 19, 2018 Jason Koivu rated it liked it

Shelves: war, sci-fi, fiction

While this is sci-fi, it also seems semi-autobiographical. Robert Heinlein was in the Navy and it appears this novel is based on his experiences. He takes us through boot camp, gives a rundown of his invented space corps and finishes up with a short battle with overgrown bugs. Overall it feels like an introductory to a series or little more than an outline, as if Heinlein wanted a walk down memory lane in book form. In fact, if this is any indication, he was very fond of his time in the services ...more

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Apr 10, 2014 Dea rated it really liked it

This book has been on my reading list for a while, I just seemed to never get around to picking it up. But I did, since I enjoyed the movie, I knew I would have to.

I would like to start by addressing the fact that this book is severely different from pretty much any other book I have enjoyed. It is written like a diary, or an autobiography, and is in first person. I abhor books written in first person, I feel it limits the author in examining the actions and feelings of the protagonist. I feel This book has been on my reading list for a while, I just seemed to never get around to picking it up. But I did, since I enjoyed the movie, I knew I would have to.

I would like to start by addressing the fact that this book is severely different from pretty much any other book I have enjoyed. It is written like a diary, or an autobiography, and is in first person. I abhor books written in first person, I feel it limits the author in examining the actions and feelings of the protagonist. I feel just as strongly about autobiographies, I believe they are nothing more than extended marketing material for a specific person, and why would I want to read that. However, I enjoyed this book.

When I first began to read the famous “I always get the shakes…” my face soured and I almost had to put the book down. Two years ago “Starship Troopers: Invasion” was released to DVD and I could not escape the advertising. The trailer for the movie consisted of a badly trained voice actor reading the first paragraph of the book. After being exposed to the commercial about a dozen times I would grind my teeth at the mere hint of the opening line and this desire to grind teeth carried over to the book and stuck with me for an extended time. Imagine having your internal reading voice being replaced by someone who could not convey emotion if his life depended on it. It was torture, but I wrestled through it. Surprisingly enough it helped to imagine Jack Reacher or Heero Yuy instead on Juan Rico. It was after I had finished reading the book that I discovered that the creator of Mobile Suit Gundam based the name as well as the idea of mecha suits on the book “Starship Troopers”. It is a small world indeed.

Once I got my own reading voice back it was smooth sailing, well until the end. I pretty much lost all idea of what was happening from the time Rico got assigned back to his unit as part of being trained to be an officer. I had no clue who was doing what and why. I had no clue why people were giving orders and taking orders and what it meant for both Rico and the mission. I don’t even know if Rico became an officer by the end of the book or if he got busted back into his boots and just kind of got promoted because people kept dying. I don’t even know if it makes much of a difference since the book is more about “why” and “how” as opposed to “who” and “what”.

Let me address some of the why. I flat out do not agree with many points Heinlein brings up in the book. I do not agree with corporal punishment and I do not agree with military men being better voters since you know they put others before themselves. I also do not agree with the idea that a promising young man who may become general someday needs to drop with the rest of the boots and do the dirty work. Yeah I get the whole idea that he needs to know what it is like to be in the trenches but once so much time and money has been invested in his education you would think the corps would be more interested in keeping their investment safe.

I get it the communistic (even if Heinlein is chewing communism out in one section of the book) idea of “everyone does the same thing regardless of their rank” makes everything seem fair and keeps the unit’s morale high, but in the long run it just does not make sense. You put a year into training this one guy and then he dies on one of the missions and you have to promote one of the grunts to his position, because well you gotta have some fill the space, whether he went through the year of training or not. How does that benefit the unit in the long run especially when the enlisted are dropping like flies?

Corporal punishment and the idea of morals seem to make no sense to me what so ever. In our current day and age many countries, including US, practice corporal punishment. The transgressions that can lead you to forfeit your life range from lack of belief in a specific god to murder, and yet people still seem to commit those transgressions. I mean these people have grown up in the world knowing from fairly early on that if you kill someone (or in some more extreme places if you do not believe in the state appointed god) then you will be killed. So why do these individuals still commit those transgressions? They know they will face the death penalty and yet we still have crime. I do not think hanging and flogging people would make our situation any better than it is.

As far as being born with morals I think he glazed over the topic wanting not to delve into details and thus prove himself wrong. (although, apparently you could show if he is correct or not using mathematics) I believe you could be born with a strong moral sense or you could learn it, but you could also be born without it and never learn it. Is it the fault of the society for its failure to educate the growing youth or is it just a loss at genetic lottery? I think Heinlein oversimplifies that aspect of morality in society and thus gets it wrong.

However, even with all the over simplification and the idealism in the book I did not feel like I was being lectured to. It felt more as a discussion of the possible societal structure, the book gives us the setting and now we can discuss the good parts and the bad, the possible successes and the failures, and all the things that were not addressed. I enjoyed reading the book and I feel everyone should read it, if only once, just to know what their own opinions are on the topics discussed by Heinlein and how they pertain to our current and future societies.
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