Starship Troopers (the book)

[Wardog]

I've finally got around to getting and reading Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers.

Would anyone be interested in me posting a review and (as far as is possible within board rules) discussing its themes?

[Mith]

I've finally got around to getting and reading Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers.

Would anyone be interested in me posting a review and (as far as is possible within board rules) discussing its themes?

Sure! I'm always happy to hear other thoughts on works I have read.

[Kato]

I'm... Kind of worried most discussions of its themes would get you into trouble. I mean, I'd love to, it's just a very political book (no surprise considering its history) and I feel like almost every discussion of it will turn political.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Yeah. And even if you manage to toe the line (carefully), the discussion will go off the rails by the end of the second chapter.

[Wardog]

Ok, let's see how this goes.

Overview of the significance of the novel:

Spoiler

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So, I had been meaning to read this for some time. For those not familiar with it, it's historically a very important book on the history of military SF. It either invented or codified all sorts of tropes that have since become ubiquitous. Dropping troops from orbit into battle. Power armour/battle suits. Hordes of bug-like aliens controlled by a central intelligence. Warhammer 40k, Starcraft, Aliens, and numerous other franchises wouldn't exist without it.

It's also a very controversial novel because of the political system described (and presumably advocated). In this future setting, democracy has failed, and been replaced by a system when the right to vote is limited to those who have earned it through public service (including but not limited to military service). Many people get very worked up by this book, either praising it as brilliantly insightful into the nature of government, or condemning it as dangerous. (Fans of the book generally seem to be very down on the movie, as it had no power armour, and satirized rather than praised the political system).

So have been keen to read it, both for the story, and so as to make my own mind up about the arguments in/about it.

And having done so, my conclusion is... rather underwhelming.

The story is ok, but very sparse on detail, worldbuilding, and personalization of the characters. The political/philosophical aspects raise some interesting arguments, but overall fail to convince even on their own terms (which in one way is good, because I think I'll be able to critique them without discussing real-world politics, and so stay within board rules).

Plot summary:

Spoiler

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The story follows the protagonist, Juan "Johnnie" Rico on his career through the Mobile Infantry, from raw recruit to officer, against the backdrop of a major war against an alien race, the Pseudo-Arachnids, aka "Bugs". (So- called because of their physical resemblance to spiders, although their society is more like that of ants). The story is told anachronically, starting with an account of a battle with another alien race allied to the bugs, then jumping back to the story of Rico's enlistment, training, deployment, the start of the war with the bugs, etc, with further flashbacks to "History and Moral Philosophy" lessons at school, which helps provide a broader context to Rico's world and world-view (and let's the author info-dump his (presumed) ideas about the nature of society and service and government).

One major failing (imo) which affects both the story and the philosophy is a heavy emphasis on "telling" rather than "showing". To an extent this is understandable, as the book is told in first person (its presumably intended to read like Rico's memoires). But it means a lot of the story and setting is very dry and lacking in the sort of details that make a world feel "real". It also means we only get Rico's perspective (Or that of people he talks to personally), so one could question how much of what we are told is a actually "true" in-universe.


I'll have to stop writing now (lunch break is over), but will continue later (hopefully thus evening) when I have more time (and have the book handy to quote from).

[Rogar Demonblud]

One thing to remember with this book is that for its time, it was a long niche book. A more typical one would be 20-25 pages shorter.

And the board's politics ban prevents any discussion on how the book stems from the POW question from the end of the Korean War.

[tomandtish]

.... Fans of the book generally seem to be very down on the movie, as it had no power armour, and satirized rather than praised the political system).

Yeah, I'm one of those fans. If I remember correctly, it was the movie that coined the phrase "A movie based loosely on the back jacket of a novel by....". Not because I'm a fan of the political system, but the book was a serious drama. The movie... not so much.

It's an enjoyable read. You can always decide how much you want to buy RH's political setup, but remember that this was written in 1959 (in about 2 weeks actually) and was definitely his reaction to what he saw happening in the world. While we shouldn't discuss that further, it is always best to keep that in the back of your head. it's also arguably considered the last of his "children's novels", and was extremely controversial because of that classification at the time combined with the material.

Also remember, that there's no specified dates in the book (the movie is in the 23rd century according to the director). RH was writing at a time where pretty much every writer had us well off the planet and into space by now. Obviously we haven't developed that fast, but most writers at that time saw the development of humanity (technological, social, political, etc.) happening at a much faster rate through the last half of the 20th century, That means they also assumed more major serious events.

[Wardog]

One thing to remember with this book is that for its time, it was a long niche book. A more typical one would be 20-25 pages shorter.

Books do seem to be exponentially increasing in length. This one seemed pretty short to me.

Anyway, review/analysis continues:

To my mind, the story is first and formost a story about being a soldier.

The majority of the book isn't taken up by descriptions of battles. After the first chapter (an assault on an alien world allied to the Bugs), its mostly about following Rico as he enlists, goes through bootcamp (almost dropping out when the strain becomes too much, but changing his mind after recieving a letter from the teacher who inspired him to join), on deployment (which is mostly more training or more preparation), every now and again learning that someone he knew had been killed in action (or in training).

Actual battles are relatively rare, and often confused, portrayed very much from a "soldier's eye view" perspective - nervousness as you prepare to drop, not knowing whether you will come back, or even if you will survive the drop; hectic combat where you taking out the enemy before they get a chance to do the same to you; the confusion of losing contact with other units or officers; etc.

I haven't served in the military myself, but I know quite a few people who have, and have read or watched a fair number of documentaries about it, and it certainly seems to be an accurate portrayal of military life, and I can see why the novel would appeal to verterans (as I understand a lot of its fans are).

That said, the way all of this is told is a bit weak, IMO. The battle-scenes are good (although I've read better), but the off-duty and between-deployment sections are far too dry.

A big part of the problem, as I mentioned in the previous post, is that Heinlein seems to prefer "telling" to "showing", so we only see what Rico thinks is worth telling us. And Rico himself is a very bland character. He mostly agrees with everything he's told or taught. He doesn't seem to have any particular interests or hobbies apart from occasionally going down town when on shore leave. He thinks girls are wonderful. We know he thinks girls are wonderful because he tells us that they're wonderful. Repeatedly.

Spoiler: Rico, on girls

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But I didn’t go to the social center that first pass. Mostly I stood around and gawked — at beautiful buildings, at display windows filled with all manner of unnecessary things (and not a weapon among them), at all those people running around, or even strolling, doing exactly as they pleased and no two of them dressed alike — and at girls.

Especially at girls. I hadn’t realized just how wonderful they were. Look, I’ve approved of girls from the time I first noticed that the difference was more than just that they dress differently. So far as I remember I never did go through that period boys are supposed to go through when they know that girls are different but dislike them; I’ve always liked girls.

But that day I realized that I had long been taking them for granted.

Girls are simply wonderful. Just to stand on a comer and watch them going past is delightful. They don’t walk. At least not what we do when we walk. I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s much more complex and utterly delightful. They don’t move just their feet; everything moves and in different directions... and all of it graceful.

But despite his interest in girls, he barely seems to act on it. I think he goes on one date with Carmen Carmencita Ibanez, but nothing comes of it. He has dinner with another woman at one point. The highlight of his duties on board the transport ship is standing guard at the door that separates the male and female sections of the ship. (No co-ed showers in Heinlein's military. And he doesn't hook up with Dizzy Flores either - not least because in the book, Dizzy is a man, and dies in the first chapter).

Rico's background and upbringing is barely referenced, apart from flashbacks to arguments with his parents about his enlistment, and to lessonsinfodumps in History and Moral Philosophy class.

Rico is in fact Filipino, but this has absolutely no influence on his thoughts or actions or attitude, and is only revealed in the penultimate chapter, when true to form, Heinlein/Rico tells us this.

Spoiler: Rico indicates his nationality:

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Little ships, the ones named for foot sloggers: Alvin York, Swamp Fox, the Rog herself, bless her heart, Colonel Bowie, Devereux, Vercingetorix, Sandino, Aubrey Cousens, Kamehameha, Audie Murphy, Xenophon, Aguinaldo —

I said, "There ought to be one named Magsaysay."

Bennie said, "What?"

"Ramon Magsaysay," I explained. "Great man, great soldier — probably be chief of psychological warfare if he were alive today. Didn’t you ever study any history?"

"Well," admitted Bennie, "I learned that Simon Bolivar built the Pyramids, licked the Armada, and made the first trip to the Moon."

"You left out marrying Cleopatra."

"Oh, that. Yup. Well, I guess every country has its own version of history."

"I’m sure of it." I added something to myself and Bennie said, "What did you say?"

"Sorry, Bernardo. Just an old saying in my own language. I suppose you could translate it, more or less, as: ‘Home is where the heart is.’ "

"But what language was it?"

"Tagalog. My native language."

"Don’t they talk Standard English where you come from?"

"Oh, certainly. For business and school and so forth. We just talk the old speech around home a little. Traditions. You know."

Now, I've heard people defend this on the grounds that Heinlein is showing that in the future, ideas of nation/race/ethnicity are seen as near irrelivent, but to me it just feels lazily done. We don't even see what Rico's Tagalog words actually are. And even if nationality is irrelevant in the scheme of this, I would have thought Rico would still be occasionally thinking things in his native language, maybe mentally dropping comments
or referencing things from his culture of upbringing. As it is, it would be no different if Heinlein hadn't even thought of Rico's nationality until right before publication, then picked a country at random and added a reference to <famous soldier> and <native language> from there.


(And here ends part two of my review, as i'm late for meeting friends).

[pendell]

I think the question Starship Troopers is answering is: Why do we have an army at all??

This quote in the body of the book is germane:

Spoiler: Recruit Hendrick

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If we can use an H-bomb--and as you said it's no checker game; it's real, it's war and nobody is fooling around--isn't it sort of ridiculous to go crawling around in the weeds, throwing knives and maybe getting yourself killed . . . and even losing the war . . . when you've got a real weapon you can use to win? What's the point in a whole lot of men risking their lives with obsolete weapons when one professor type can do so much more just by pushing a button?'

This was written in the 1950s, remember. The average man in the street believed atomic weapons made war obsolete. Any war that might conceivably break out would be fought with nuclear weapons, so what was the point of infantry , armor, special operations, or any of it? War was obsolete; either it was too terrible to be fought, or if it WAS fought it would be fought with weapons of inconceivable power. In either event, there was no place in the scheme of things for dirty men sneaking around in camos knifing each other.

This was actually a fairly common view in the 1950s, which people at the time called "The Atomic Age".

The history of the world since then has borne Heinlein's thesis spelled out throughout the book. The world has not entered into an era of Long Peace, and no nuclear weapons have been used since 1945. That means we have had need to call on soldiers to apply force in a more selective form than simply turning an entire country, or planet, into radioactive dust.

The other major point is political, and outside forum scope. PM for details.

But , yes, the movie has almost nothing in common with the book.

ETA: One reason the scenes in which Rico interacts with females are so sparse is because, again , this is a book written for young adults in the 1950s. The moral guardians were keen to pounce on any hint of impropriety. Thus heroes in Heinlein's juvenile fiction of this era are squeaky-clean boy scouts who will express a mild interest in ladies but not do anything about it on-panel. This is a situation he would rectify in his later adult novels


Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Mordar]

I didn't really read the book as RH supporting/advocating for the system as much as presenting an alternative. Maybe I'm being naive, but that's how I felt.

For the record, read it before the movie came out. Disliked the movie on a number of fronts, not least of all was the dumbing down and weakening of the MI. Horrible.

- M

[Traab]

See I enjoyed the movie but never read the books, not a sci fi reader really. I felt the movie was great dumb fun with enough obligatory nudity to make a teenage boy happy Hey, you try being a teenager in the 90s! Free porn was hard to get ahold of still! lol

[The Glyphstone]

I thought it was semi common knowledge by this point that the movie was in no way based on the book. It was an unrelated script ( Bug Hunt On Outpost Nine is the title I remember reading) before the studio bought the rights to Starship Troopers and did some minor rewrites and renames. I know the director is on record saying he didnt even finish reading the book because it depressed him.

[hamishspence]

I didn't really read the book as RH supporting/advocating for the system as much as presenting an alternative. Maybe I'm being naive, but that's how I felt.

I'd tend to agree - if anything - his preferences in his other works, both before and after tended to be toward somewhat different systems. Troopers is something of an oddball in that respect.

[JeenLeen]

One thing I loved about the book was

Spoiler: maybe counts as a spoiler?

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The government is not evil!

In so many fantasy or sci-fi books with any sort of framework like this one, the soldier eventually finds out that the government is secretly evil. I expected that, but it never came, and it was a legitimate surprise to realize that some of the stuff was approved of instead of criticism the protagonist would eventually realize.

(I started reading rather ignorant of any political leanings in the book, except that a friend of mine with particular leanings liked the book.)

I'll also note it took me a while to be convinced to read it, especially since I had heard of the movie first.

[Kato]

A few more words:

I read the book at three 'distinct' times in my life: Once when I was like 16 or so in school, once a little later during or shortly after my own term of service and again a bunch of years later, each time taking a very different message, I think.
IIRC I don't think I got most of the stuff with 16, I thought it was entertaining but if anything I took the political system as meant to be a warning. not advertisement. I did and still do enjoy the good portrayal of the feeling of being a military cadet during that part of the story. I mean, my time wasn't identical, obviously, but certain bits certainly do ring a bell. Now... I can certainly see the problems with the book, and while I still like it, I don't think it's well suited for YAs, because it might give them ideas and many kids might take the wrong ideas from it.


Also, i like the movie. Yes, it's terribly dumb but entertaining. And I don't think you could make a good movie from the book anyway. I used to really hate it but by now, not as an adaptation but as just any scifi action movie, I think it's okay or even better than that.

[Cikomyr]

I liked both the book and the movie. Both have things they want to say, and both are worth saying.

[pendell]

What do we think of Heinlein's power armor? It appears in the novel that MI is pretty much the only branch of infantry ; the rest of the armed forces are spaceborne. That sounds like something a naval officer would come up with, but could power armor really make air forces, armor, and artillery obsolete?

I'm thinking "no". However powerful the power plant in MI armor is, you can always pack a bigger one in a larger vehicle. Which means you can put larger guns and more armor and have more range than something man-portable. Also , while the MI carry handheld atomic rockets A) I wonder just how practical that really is as a weapon B) Isn't it possible to spoof or shoot down such devices with point defense lasers or similar very high speed weapons?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Chromascope3D]

And Rico himself is a very bland character. He mostly agrees with everything he's told or taught. He doesn't seem to have any particular interests or hobbies apart from occasionally going down town when on shore leave.

One thing I really appreciate the movie for is that this was pretty much the exact reason why Verhoeven picked Casper Van Deen for the role.

[danzibr]

I watched the movie when it first came out (one of the few times I went to the theater as a kid), and read the book like 3 months ago. I like both of them for what they are.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Now, I've heard people defend this on the grounds that Heinlein is showing that in the future, ideas of nation/race/ethnicity are seen as near irrelevant, but to me it just feels lazily done. We don't even see what Rico's Tagalog words actually are.

Again an artifact of the time. Authors are paid by the word, so why pay them for something the reader won't understand anyway? Actually, an author less established than Heinlein would've seen that entire scene blue penciled as unneeded by the story and thus not worth paying for.

[Mechalich]

What do we think of Heinlein's power armor? It appears in the novel that MI is pretty much the only branch of infantry ; the rest of the armed forces are spaceborne. That sounds like something a naval officer would come up with, but could power armor really make air forces, armor, and artillery obsolete?

I believe it's a combination of power armor and nuclear weaponry (and possibly space-based conventional arms, it's not exactly clear). Nuclear weapons are used rather freely in-universe at all available scales, from minor tactical nuclear weapons that are man-portable to literal planet-smashers. So for the most part the MI is used for relatively small-scale engagements in the greater scheme of things or for what are ostensibly special forces missions. After all the entire 'Planet P' engagement that forms the book's final act is a special forces OP with a specific objective in a scenario where they would otherwise just blow up the planet.

This is analogous to modern air support which has, in many engagement scenarios, largely eclipsed the use of heavy armor and artillery. A scenario wherein a heavy bombing campaign works to liquidate everything around a target zone and then you send in the Green Berets via helicopter is a fairly close facsimile to nuking everything around the target zone and sending in the MI via dropship.

[Kato]

A large advantage the MI can have over larger vehicles is mobility. While it is hard to gauge the size of a power armor from the book it gives the impression it can go pretty much anywhere. A tank in a tightly packed urban area, jungle, very rough terrain will have a problem with moving fast.
And while air / space strikes are probably more efficient most of the time, ground troops are just required for some missions and seeing an invincible power armor can have a stronger psychological effect than being bombed from space.

[hamishspence]

I'm thinking "no". However powerful the power plant in MI armor is, you can always pack a bigger one in a larger vehicle. Which means you can put larger guns and more armor and have more range than something man-portable.

I think the main point is that it can go places vehicles can't, outmaneuver vehicles, and so forth.

At least according to Rico, tanks vs MI equals destroyed tanks.

What do we think of Heinlein's power armor? It appears in the novel that MI is pretty much the only branch of infantry ; the rest of the armed forces are spaceborne.

There are a lot of "army jobs" besides Infantry:

The thing I did most carefully was to list my preferences. Naturally I listed all of the Space Navy jobs (other than pilot) at the top; whether I went as power-room technician or as cook, I know that I preferred any Navy job to any Army job—I wanted to travel.

Next I listed Intelligence—a spy gets around, too, and I figured that it couldn't possibly be dull. ... After that came a long list; psychological warfare, chemical warfare, biological warfare, combat ecology ... , logistics corps .... , and a dozen others. Clear at the bottom, with some hesitation, I put K-9 Corps, and Infantry.

I didn't bother to list the various non-combatant auxiliary corps because, if I wasn't picked for a combat corps, I didn't care whether they used me as an experimental animal or sent me as a laborer in the Terranizing of Venus—either one was a booby prize.

"Sappers" also come up later.

[Wardog]

I didn't really read the book as RH supporting/advocating for the system as much as presenting an alternative. Maybe I'm being naive, but that's how I felt.

I think this is one of the problems (or possibly advantages, from a certain point of view) of the "tell not show" narration.

Pretty much everything we know (or think we know) about the world is what Rico tells us (Or what Rico is told). As it's ambiguous whether Heinlein thinks that (for example) it is only a matter of time before it is scientifically proven that smacking children and flogging adults is the only effective way to instil discipline and Moral behaviour, or if the story is a thought experiment about what sort of society would develop if that was the case, or if we are just seeing propaganda from the perspective of those brought up under it.

What do we think of Heinlein's power armor? It appears in the novel that MI is pretty much the only branch of infantry ; the rest of the armed forces are spaceborne. That sounds like something a naval officer would come up with, but could power armor really make air forces, armor, and artillery obsolete?

The MI seems perfect for any mission where you need to go in, smash something, and then get out.

I'm pretty sure you would still need traditional infantry for holding territory. They also seem to have limited range and endurance once they drop, so aircraft and vehicles would probably still be needed for longer range or longer duration missions on a planet, and artillery for sustained and/or more powerful bombardments (assuming in all cases that orbital bombardments aren't an option).

I've heard that a number of people think tanks are obsolete now (Or will be before long), so the MI may well do that job better.

[Florian]

I think that Heinlein actually extrapolates exactly when it comes to interplanetary warfare. Conquering and holding a planet is a binary affair of whether the navy can defend the space or not. For those interested in Military SF, the Lost Fleet series picks up on the idea and goes into some depth detailing the ins and outs of ground forces, especially in the syndicate spin-off series.