Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers

[Kato]

Where do I start... Back in Highschool (or at least what'd be the most suiting German equivalent of it) when I was like... dunno, 14 or so, maybe older, maybe younger, I read a nice book about a militaristic society and about people who liked to get shout at and told they were useless (or at least they didn't mind) and who went into battle fully aware they might or rather probably won't come back. And I thought of it as a rather nice thing overall with some nice pseudo science fit in.
Couple of years later I'd about totally forgotten the book and decided (for mostly different reasons) to serve my at the beginning 9 months in the German military (which later turned into 2 years) The fact is, I noticed getting chewed out wasn't that bad if it really happened to you, and there are a hell lot of things making up for it.
So, a week or so ago a fellow student of mine happened to have the original book and all the memories popped back up all in a sudden, and I couldn't keep myself from reading it again. I'm not sure if it was the English (I guess it wasn't) or the fact I had gained about ten more years of experience, two of them in a though way less difficult, but at least a little alike Johnny's. It's just that my view on the topic has mostly reverted itself from 'an over the top story about the glory of the military' to 'a incidentally in the future settled story about the life of a (more or less) slightly special officer in an army.'

So... Yeah, I dunno. Who else read the books? How did you perceive it? (Did you do any kind of military service? Before? After? Was there any connection?) I know it is hard to discuss Heinlein (and especially ST) withut going political, since most of the book is Heinlein's views/ideas on societ, but we don't want to steer a military uprise, do we?
Also, did anyone see something else from the 'universe', except for that so bad it's good Verhoeven movie? (Don't get me wrong, it's nice action and comedy, but it's about as far from the book as Spaceballs is from Starwars...) e.g. someone stumbling over the anime by incident?

[kamikasei]

I thought it was interesting, and entertaining, but I got the feeling reading it that it was basically an argument for his particular political/social views where he'd written all these fictional facts to back it up. I remember being, well, disgusted by his argument about the death penalty. Essentially, whenever the characters started on about such-and-such "proven philosophical/ethical principle", it came off as the author using them as mouthpieces and having the characters we're told are very wise or competent assure us that their arguments are flawless.

That said, I have heard it suggested that the whole thing is actually self-subverting and that what I describe is actually meant to be an unreliable narrator effect reflecting the fascist indoctrination in the setting. Don't remember the book well enough to judge how plausible that is.

The power suits were cool though.

[hamishspence]

The book was certainly interesting....

When it comes down to it, it is one of the prototypes for a lot of later sci-fi. The Author Filibusters on capital punishment and other things can get a little trying, but as an soldier story its quite a good one.

Its been pastiched a couple of times- Harry Harrison's Bill the Galactic Hero is a good one.

[Om]

The film is better. It takes Heinlein's vision of a hyper-militaristic fascist society and dresses it up in clothes (literally) that we all recognise. Hearing these speeches come from officers in black leather trenchcoats lays bare the message that lay within the novel. No wonder so many of Heinlein's fans hate it

As for the book itself, I never enjoyed it. I wouldn't have found it so hard to get over the political message if there had been anything else of substance in the book. I've heard people praise the power suit segments but for some reason they never worked for me ("Whoosh, I dropped another bomb. Whoosh I jumped another few klicks"). In the absence of that, and the absolute abhorrence of the society described, I didn't find much to engage me

That said, I have heard it suggested that the whole thing is actually self-subverting and that what I describe is actually meant to be an unreliable narrator effect reflecting the fascist indoctrination in the setting. Don't remember the book well enough to judge how plausible that is.

I'd buy that if it there was any sort of indication at all that this wasn't to be taken seriously. As it was the tone of the book, and the vision it lays forth, is unrelenting right from the early pages. At some point I did write an essay (which I seem to have lost...) just cataloguing the various nationalist/militaristic/fascist comments or descriptions. There were quite a lot of them

[hamishspence]

It's view of the universe, with the implication that its expand, compete, surval of the fittest, is pretty bleak. Howver, there is the notion of alien allies as well- the aliens they are fighting in the first chaptor of the book are their allies in the last chapter.

Heinlein can't really be pigeonholed- his books have an enormous variety from the slightly imperialistic Federation to the much more individualist moon men in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

[Faulty]

Nice yarn, horrible politics in my opinion. My politics really place me as an opponent of both military and state. Heinlein is a good author despite his often (IMO) questionable beliefs, however. I prefer The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

[Oslecamo]

Book's quality is discussable, but it gets lots of cookies for inspiring a lot of other cool fiction.

Mainly Starcraft and WH40K. Less deep politics, more awesome space action with power armored dudes fighting hordes of bugs and aliens with the ocasional backstabbing alliance.

Thank you Robert.

They should really make a movie closer to the book.

[orchitect]

Before going into my feelings on the book, I'd like to point out to Om that the director didn't even read the book. He said so in his interviews. If he had read it and deep into it he would not have made the movie the way he did. Or he might have just to make a buck.

I read that book twice straight through. The first time was a roller coaster that really caught me up in that world. The second time I was able to step back and look at the world of Starship Troopers.

I never joined the military, but I think about it a lot. I blame Starship Troopers for this (and my father, but that's another story). One on hand the world is so perfect in its simplicity, but that's the attraction of an merit-based society. I, not having military experience, imagined it to be like that, and I found that very attractive.

On the other hand, I find the society to be prone to stagnation because of the amount of work it takes to maintin social order. Overtime people can be conditioned to behave a certain way, but its a fairly unrealistic goal unless 1) the world was devestated by a global war, or 2) we have a common enemy. Starship Troopers meets both of these requirements, but I can't see, and don't want to see, them happen to us no matter how attractive that form of society is to myself.

[Zeta Kai]

Heinlein may have invented military sci-fi, but it's been done better & less jingoistically since. I highly recommend the novel Armor by John Steakley & Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. They both have a more fun & more gripping narrative than Starship Troopers, they both have more military battles (which are told in more depth), & they are less politically charged (to put it mildly).

[chiasaur11]

Heinlein may have invented military sci-fi, but it's been done better & less jingoistically since. I highly recommend the novel Armor by John Steakley & Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. They both have a more fun & more gripping narrative than Starship Troopers, they both have more military battles (which are told in more depth), & they are less politically charged (to put it mildly).

Agreed on Armor.

One of my favorite bits of power armor V bugs fiction.

First 90 pages are amazing.

[Om]

Before going into my feelings on the book, I'd like to point out to Om that the director didn't even read t he book. He said so in his interviews. If he had read it and deep into it he would not have made the movie the way he did. Or he might have just to make a buck

Actually from what I heard Verhoeven, who had lived through fascist occupation as a child, read the first few chapters before abandoning it deeply disillusioned. Certainly his choice to frame the Federation (the nominal 'good guys') as a quasi-fascist organisation was no accident

I also very much disagree that there is anything in the later chapters that would have persuaded him to do otherwise. The book's political message is remarkably consistent in its ultra-militarism. This may be time taking its toll, but I can't remember any point later on where Rico sits back and ponders the futility of war or questions the society that he was born into. On the contrary towards the end of the novel his world view (particularly with regards his father) is only confirmed. Verhoeven may not have read the whole work but he perceived the core of the story and the ideology espoused in it

Overtime people can be conditioned to behave a certain way, but its a fairly unrealistic goal unless 1) the world was devestated by a global war, or 2) we have a common enemy. Starship Troopers meets both of these requirements, but I can't see, and don't want to see, them happen to us no matter how attractive that form of society is to myself.

That's the bit about the book that really prevented me getting into it. Given that I'm not particularly interested in 'hard' sci-fi of course. Heinlein has this society he's conjured up but its one so flawed that it, and the philosophy that underpins it, can only exist in a universe that is entirely black and white. Rico's musings on the 'survival of the fittest' and mankind's 'manifest destiny' to expand would seem nothing short of genocidal if not pitched against a foe that refuses to negotiate entirely. The Federation's regimental society and mass disenfranchisement is stunningly totalitarian... unless compared to a hive society in which individual freedom does not exist. And so on. The entire universe is simply there to justify Heinlein's twisted vision of future society

[Closet_Skeleton]

e.g. someone stumbling over the anime by incident?

Saw episode one of the anime. Wasn't particularly interesting and I don't know how close it was to the book, except that they made the protagonist a blonde-white american jock and the cars they drove were really old fashioned for a Sci Fi series.

[hamishspence]

A vision. Not necessarily his only vision (some of the post- Starship Troopers books were less jingoistic. Generally had less aliens though.)

His first book, For Us, the Living (not published till after his death) was almost as far from Starship Troopers as it is possible to get.

[RecklessFable]

Well, I guess I'll be the other view here and say the movie disgusted me utterly due to the director taking the book and twisting it to his own political agenda. It is merely a comedy to me at this point. It was like what Uwe Boll does to his source material. He takes the title and some of the character names and makes the movie he feels like (Bloodrayne, for example). Whether I agreed with the book point-for-point is irrelevant as my disgust at twisting someone else's work is what bothered me. If it was a parody, I'd feel otherwise, but it wasn't.

As for the actual novel, the military aspect was interesting. The powered armor, drop pods, etc being gleefully ripped off by Games Workshop. They call it inspiration yet defend their IP with draconic gusto (but that is another thread).

I like the idea that once you have sufficiently powerful weapons that are small enough to use, the concept of fixed emplacements and tanks are obsolete (as WWII started the shift when tanks rose to power). We are starting to see that today with weapons systems. The real challenge is achieving the mobility the MI had.

As for the political aspect, it is actually kinda funny to see how bent out of shape some folks are getting. You have to remember that Johnny Rico is not a philosopher nor a creative thinker. His point of view is obviously limited, so when he speaks you see things through his lens. Even when I read it in my teens I understood this.

One of the fundamental ideas in the book (aside from the politics) is about human nature. I have to admit that at first the whole corporal-punishment-activates-the-survival-instinct-and-therefore-actually-works theory used to make me uneasy. Then I realized it was because I was young, rebellious and wanted to break rules. Now I'm starting to think that our current prison-system full of guys pumping iron might not be the best behavioral deterrent...

I think the toughest pill for folks to swallow is service=citizenship. This system has never really been tried. I know lots of times folks say there should be a "stupid clause" for handling things like having children, voting, etc, but actually implementing a system like that has never happened. Limiting the franchise has always been used to subjugate a race/sex/group, not to actually improve the quality of the voters. I think human nature would prevent it from ever being implemented fairly, hence universal franchise being the only one that works so far.

At any rate, I think the best thing about the book is that it makes you think. It creates a sort of Utopian society out of what many would consider a Dystopian system. For that reason alone I think it is great art.

[Oslecamo]

His first book, For Us, the Living (not published till after his death) was almost as far from Starship Troopers as it is possible to get.

Did you read "A strange man in a strange land"? Hippie psykers?

I still wonder how that and SST were written by the same man.

Zeta Kai: Quality military battles in Ender's game? Where? The kids battles were fun, but definetely not very militaristic, more of a game(seriously, only one kind of weapon and objective?). The space battles had little more descritpion than "they shooted the plot weapon and won".

[Recaiden]

I tried reading a Stranger in a Strange Land. I never finished it.

Starship Troopers seemed kind of hollow, like the story wasn't relevant to it.

[hustlertwo]

It's one of my favorite novels, no question. Heinlein never was anywhere near that good again, from what I've read. While the movie was horrible as an adaptation, when judged on its own merits it is still worth watching. Philosophy is replaced with sly comedy and a very accurate look at the future of news and communication, action is amped up, chicks are brought in to doff their tops and give teenage boys another reason to watch. It wasn't high art, but like a lot of Verhoeven movies, it was highly entertaining.

[Faulty]

Heinlein may have invented military sci-fi, but it's been done better & less jingoistically since. I highly recommend the novel Armor by John Steakley & Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. They both have a more fun & more gripping narrative than Starship Troopers, they both have more military battles (which are told in more depth), & they are less politically charged (to put it mildly).

Thanks for the suggestions, sir.

[Om]

Anyone read the Forever War? I've heard its a good counterpoint to Heinlein but never got round to it myself

As for the political aspect, it is actually kinda funny to see how bent out of shape some folks are getting. You have to remember that Johnny Rico is not a philosopher nor a creative thinker. His point of view is obviously limited, so when he speaks you see things through his lens. Even when I read it in my teens I understood this

Of course he's neither, he's a young kid who has been thoroughly indoctrinated by the school system. We get to hear the numerous lectures from his teacher (what was it, History and Moral Politics?) and commanding officers as Heinlein's philosophy* is expounded on in detail

As I said above, I could accept that this was intended as some subtle satire work if there was even a hint that someone else in the novel held a differing opinion. In the absence of this we simply have a series of characters spouting the same moral justifications, and divulging little else about their characters, as Heinlein preaches to us. IIRC the only person to disagree with the drivel being spouted by the teacher was Rico's own father... who finally relents, "becomes a man" (or something like that), and joins the military

*Well, his vision/philosophy in SST. I can't comment as to his other works

[shadow_archmagi]

Heinlein likes to author filibuster. All of his novels include at least one character whose role in the book is to explain to everyone else what is going on, while providing a mouthpiece for Heinlein's ideas. The professor in Harsh Mistress, the author in Strange Land, etc.

That said, he also tends to be quite good. Havn't read Starship Troopers on the grounds that after reading three books by him one after another, he gets a bit monotonous.

[Oslecamo]

I tried reading a Stranger in a Strange Land. I never finished it.

Unfortenely I can't really bring me to tell you to finish reading it.

It starts relatively well, then it oscilates, and then by the last parts it just seems like the author was on drugs or something. The ending...Oh dear god the ending... It's wrong in so many ways it makes SST actually look like a quite sensible story.

[Faulty]

Heinlein likes to author filibuster. All of his novels include at least one character whose role in the book is to explain to everyone else what is going on, while providing a mouthpiece for Heinlein's ideas. The professor in Harsh Mistress, the author in Strange Land, etc.

That said, he also tends to be quite good. Havn't read Starship Troopers on the grounds that after reading three books by him one after another, he gets a bit monotonous.

Yeah. I loved The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Starship Troopers so I bought some more of his books and couldn't get more than half way through any.

[chiasaur11]

Anyone else read his "All you zombies"?

Ace fun.

[TheThan]

It’s been many years since I’ve read it. I liked it, though my memory of it is shrouded in the mists of time. I loved the scifi element, though some of the political mumbojumbo really went over my head at the time.

[Theolotus]

I thought it was interesting, and entertaining, but I got the feeling reading it that it was basically an argument for his particular political/social views where he'd written all these fictional facts to back it up.

The power suits were cool though.

It is meant to be fiction in much the same way that Plato's "Republic" is fiction. It is an ideal for a society. The only one I've read that admits to being a flawed system. It is preachy, but with the seeming intent to raise questions. "If you dont like it, prove me wrong" is a theme throughout the book. If that theme is the intent, I think the book acheived its goal in spades.


It bothers me how much negative feed back is spun on the book. I understand opinions about the book, but if you could step away from the political statements/opinions, please. Not everyone shares the same views, and it would be nice if we kept the talking points focused on the book as art. Thank you.

[KnightDisciple]

All Heinlen's philosophy aside, the armor makes the book vastly better than the movie by default.

Also, didn't that book pretty much launch the "powered armor" concept to the forefront in fiction at all, basically inspiring everyone else to some degree or another?

[Drakyn]

It is meant to be fiction in much the same way that Plato's "Republic" is fiction. It is an ideal for a society. The only one I've read that admits to being a flawed system. It is preachy, but with the seeming intent to raise questions. "If you dont like it, prove me wrong" is a theme throughout the book. If that theme is the intent, I think the book acheived its goal in spades.


It bothers me how much negative feed back is spun on the book. I understand opinions about the book, but if you could step away from the political statements/opinions, please. Not everyone shares the same views, and it would be nice if we kept the talking points focused on the book as art. Thank you.

I think the book's plot and purpose are so bound up in its message that this is a very difficult thing to do. I read it and I could practically feel Heinlein's hand on the back of my skull trying to thwack my forebrain into each page while yelling "SEE you stupid, stupid noodle-loaf?! SEE?!?!"
I don't really care what your book's message is at that point, I'm not going to find it quite as enjoyable and am likely to disagree with it out of pure contrariness.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Anyone else read his "All you zombies"?

Ace fun.

Only Heinlein I've actually read.

[Theolotus]

I think the book's plot and purpose are so bound up in its message that this is a very difficult thing to do. I read it and I could practically feel Heinlein's hand on the back of my skull trying to thwack my forebrain into each page while yelling "SEE you stupid, stupid noodle-loaf?! SEE?!?!"
I don't really care what your book's message is at that point, I'm not going to find it quite as enjoyable and am likely to disagree with it out of pure contrariness.

Which is why I think the book was written that way. It makes the reader WANT to disagree. The reader must research a better system. Simplistic, cardboard arguments make the reader confident that s/he can blow through these arguments without much effort.

I think the book is well written in that it puts the reader in Mr. Rico's shoes and shows growth through a series of flashbacks, fast forwards, and soap box preaching. Rico is worlds apart from the boy he is at the beginning of the book. Right or wrong, he knows what he wants from life. He puts his life on the line because of his belief that he is doing what is best for himself and everyone else.

[Drakyn]

Which is why I think the book was written that way. It makes the reader WANT to disagree. The reader must research a better system. Simplistic, cardboard arguments make the reader confident that s/he can blow through these arguments without much effort.

I think the book is well written in that it puts the reader in Mr. Rico's shoes and shows growth through a series of flashbacks, fast forwards, and soap box preaching. Rico is worlds apart from the boy he is at the beginning of the book. Right or wrong, he knows what he wants from life. He puts his life on the line because of his belief that he is doing what is best for himself and everyone else.

The issue is that you can't really prove the fictional society wrong because it's set in a world carefully tailored to make it perfect, turning it from a "Come on I'm being reasonable, disprove this" into a smug "I am right and you shall see this as you think on it, because I have picked the best way." It's like a card shark challenging you to beat him using his own deck. The only way to win is to alter or add facts about the story's world - doctoring his cards yourself. And if you want to prove that it doesn't work/wouldn't work as well in the real world, that shows itself anyway by dint of the fictional circumstances needed to make it work as well as it did inside the story.
Lord knows I'm not a good judge of taste, but I liked the story beyond the tract. It's just that there was so very, very, very much tract shoved into the story.