Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein

I have had a copy of Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers ever since I saw the movie version by Paul Veerhoven. I liked the movie version; I found it just over the top enough to be entertaining, despite the little “commercial” snippets separating the chapters. I am not a huge fan of sci-fi or fantasy novels, but Heinlein is one of the masters, so I thought I would finally give Starship Troopers a chance.

Starship Troopers is a novel about a futuristic military state. I can see why it was labeled “controversial” on the cover, because it pokes holes in just about every tenet our society has grown to hold dear. Johnnie Rico is a soft, not so smart guy from Terran. His parents are rich and he has never really had to struggle for much of anything. In his world, to be a citizen, you have to be a veteran, and on a whim, our Johnnie signs up for a term in the military. He gets assigned to Mobile Infantry, and it’s the roughest thing he has ever done in his whole life. Boot Camp is brutal, but he ends up being more of an adult than he ever expected, and when Terran goes to war against the Bugs, he is shipped out to battle. Here is where he proves himself.

There is a whole lot description of the future gadgets, strategies, and the basic truths of the futuristic world, much like a softer version of For Us, the Living. I wish there had been more female characters; I felt like I was reading Lord of the Rings again. Carmen has a few paragraphs, but the military, for the most part, was male. Johnnie was just not an interesting enough character for me to really care about. He was too much of a “go team” sort of guy, and one who even though he supports his military, never really seems to question why he is there. Of course, that might have been part of the point.

What I found most interesting about Starship Troopers has less to do with the book and more in comparison to Ender’s Game, another futuristic military novel I read just last year. How these two authors look at the future of war and the security of our world both turn back and critique how we are functioning now, and both end up raking holes in so many of the basic “truths," especially now. Both books have children being turned into warriors; both question the validity of war. But, and maybe it’s just me, I got more of a “go military” vibe from Starship Troopers. It seems to present a value in controlled violence, a need for children to be disciplined, and a need for things like corporal punishment and the death penalty.

Starship Troopers was an all right book. I’m just not sure I would recommend it to anyone who wasn’t already a big fan of Heinlein’s work. I’m discovering that I am not.

Rating: 3 Purrs