Reviews
Everyone talks about the bugs because of the movie (fuck those bugs too), but I think Heinlein's hypothesis of a stratocracy that is incorruptible because its functioning allows for zero bureaucracy is fucking GOLD.
Loved when I read it as a teenager in the 80s, and appreciate it even more now that several decades have gone by. The topic has only become even more relevant ... Should full citizenship (and its accompanying benefits) be available only to those who serve their country? While an unpopular notion, it could be the only thing that saves the US as the world reorders itself.
Pretty corny, and stiff dialogue. I’d be lying if it wasn’t a fun read though.
Lots of exposition. He sometimes tries to disguise it in conversation or classroom discussions, but a large portion of the book is describing the world Johnny Rico lives in. This isn’t necessarily bad, but certainly not what I expected in a Heinlein book, nor anything resembling the movie. There are some interesting ideas, and certainly more depth than the movie.
Big nasty communist spiders are attacking Earth and all the planets it has colonized! It's a battle between man and bug, and who is to save us? I'll tell you who! Guys with really fucking big guns, that's who! With spacesuits that make it so they can jump over buildings, and deflect bullets, and drop from spaceships to the surface of planets without getting hurt! That's who! These guys get dropped onto planets with their spacesuits and their big guns, and they can incinerate some little brown people like you wouldn't believe, then they can leave without a single casualty. This is who is gonna fuck up the big spiders. AMERICA, FUCK YEAH! COMING TO SAVE THE MOTHERFUCKING DAYAY! That's yer plot, other than experiencing the trials and tribulations of boot camp through the eyes of a protagonist who spends quite a bit of time philosophising about society and politics and all that good stuff. And this MIGHT make it sound like I DIDN'T like the book. That would be entirely wrong. This book is so vivid, and so passionate, in its description of what it is like to be in this army that I couldn't help but be sucked in completely. It's an easy, quick, fun read, and it's passionate in its monologues about how society should be. I loved the sections where he's explaining his moral sentiments since I've never understood how someone could join an army and go kill people without questioning the motives of the war itself. Personally, whenever I kill someone, I like to know the reason I'm doing it. But it truly is a different way of looking at ethics, isn't it? Mr. Protagonist believes that only those who have fought and risked everything for their nation should be considered full citizens, because they were willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of their nation*. I can see how someone with a fairly black and white view of reality might think this makes sense. But. By fighting in a war you are condoning a war. This means that if the war is ethically wrong, you are doing something ethically reprehensible. So shouldn't it matter what the war is about? (I know. I'm arguing with a dead guy. It's my review, and I'll argue with a dead guy if I want to.) Heinlein's protagonist also makes an argument about the prison system and how it doesn't actually reform those who do time. I totally agree with him here. Somehow he tries to equate this with an argument that you MUST spank children for them to have a sense of responsibility. Uhh, yeah, back to symbolic logic class with you, Bob. But moving on...I found it quite interesting how dualistic our protagonist's thinking is when it comes to ALL PEOPLE. F'rinstance, you can't trust a civilian to do a job that requires "fighting spirit;" women are good pilots, all seem to have great smiles, and they're "the reason men fight" (gay men apparently don't exist in this world), but women don't get to fight Bugs wearing those cool spacesuits because, well, they're all sexy and small and fragile and stuff. Then, within the military, the guys who haven't made a jump are lesser than those who have, Protagonist's peeps look down on the Navy and get in fights with them, etc. (He does have a name, but it's a boring one. I prefer calling him Protagonist.) But then I started wondering if this kind of attitude is necessary for the military to function. I'm too skeptical to EVER join the military, and that has nothing to do with fighting spirit. But maybe, in order to do what they do, soldiers HAVE to feel like they're the best of the best, doing the best thing that could ever be done with their life. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to motivate themselves to jump out of the spaceship and kill the spiders, or guard the border against Mexicans, or defuse bombs in Baghdad, or whatever else might get them killed. So, reading this book got me thinking about the mindset of this protagonist, and thinking about the soldiers and marines I've known, and...well...maybe as much as I disagree with this mindset, perhaps it's a necessary mindset for someone in the military. And we need a military. So maybe we need some people who think in this dualistic way. Anyway, this is what Starship Troopers got me thinking about. Part of this Heinlein can take credit for: if this book is any indication, he was more than willing to speak his mind, and he clearly had a lot of ideas. These rambling monologues where Heinlein was channeled through his protagonist were just as entertaining, if not moreso, than the soldiers vs. bugs part of the story. Then again, I'm horribly entertained by Sarah Palin's "political" career, and occasionally read snippets of Ann Coulter's books because her anger is funny. If that doesn't sound like you, you might just find Heinlein's politics annoying. But I was quite diverted, and I'll be reading more Heinlein soon. *: (There's some contention on Goodreads about whether or not this is the case, but the way I interpreted the book is that you can only vote if you've joined the military--although you might not have seen combat depending on the job you ended up with. But you were WILLING to go into combat since the military assigned you your job and you didn't get to choose. So you must've been WILLING to be a soldier if you want to vote. So pthbthbthbth!)
I enjoyed this book a lot, but struggled a bit with the military jargon. The overall story is similar to the movie, but there’s a lot more emotion in it. Overall, a great read, but if you aren’t super familiar with military rank and operations, you might struggle a bit (like I did). You just have to kind of let it wash pass you and not let it bog you down, it’s not critical to the overall storylines.
Starship Troopers may predate Ender's Game by nearly 30 years, but for being very similar books, the latter is far better. That's not to say Starship is a bad book by any means, just perhaps a bit bogged down by numerous diatribes into political philosophy.
This was maybe my least favorite read of the year, and it could be any number of reasons as to why. I listened to the audiobook which I frequently found boring, and I found I cared little about the plot or the characters. Absolutely not for me, but I finished it in the end.
