#17 Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein

Another of the books from my youth that I return too regularly. This book was completely massacred by the movie, but I do love the movie. It just is nowhere near the movie. Five years ago, when I did this list, this book was listed number nine.

I think I have added too many good books. That’s not a bad thing. I still come back to this book pretty regularly. It is such a good book.

This was written in 1959, and won the Hugo Award in 1960. It is not a light-hearted romp of science fiction loveliness that you can mindlessly enjoy on a Sunday afternoon. It can be gut-wrenching, and thought-provoking. So much of the novel explores the mindset of a future world and battling an adversary that we don’t understand in space.

The time is a military based future. Remember, this was written soon after WW2, the Korean War and in the midst of the Cold War. In order to vote, you have had to “sacrificed for the greater good” and served a term in the military. Everyone has to be allowed to serve in the military, if you want, so you can be a voter. Even if “you are an invalid pushing buttons at the North Pole.” They will find something that you can do. There is a lot of philosophy and military thinking put into the book.

Rico was a rich kid, spoiled and was just graduating from form high school. His best buddy Carl wanted to join, and he goes with them, and joins. He goes through testing that day, and finds out that he has no aptitude for anything he is interested in, so he is put in as an infantryman. There was the option of being a dog handler of a genetically altered hound, however he was kind of found not ideal for that either. Upon returning home and not being sure what he was doing, and he tells his parents. His dad is furious, and that sets him that he was going through with it.

You then go through training with him, and he is doing well, and then struggling. Eventually, he goes all in when the bugs drop a meteor on his home. Then it moves from mission to mission. His going on to be a leader, then an officer. All the time discussion of military philosophy and tactics.

He grows, he becomes better. The soldiers are in armored suits, packed in egg capsules where they can’t move and are ejected into the atmosphere for their drops. Many are killed while falling, like a paratrooper in WW2, but they can’t see what is going on until they get to the lower atmosphere. Carrying small nukes and an array of weapons, they rule the battlefield. Heinlen goes into detail with these weapons and the rules of engagement that all soldiers receive.

I don’t agree, but people say this glorifies the soldier, making killing and an army career glorified. I am not sure I agree. Does that mean any book that poses a positive light on the military is biased? and every book that shows the terrible parts hates the military? No, this is a point of view, a view from that era. The era of WW2 soldiers. War is losing friends, getting yelled at and punished, bad commanders and good ones, wondering if you will survive the next drop, and fighting for a cause. War is hell, but it can have honor and meaning. Other books will tell a different story in a different era.

The downsides are that it was written in the late 50’s. Many of the ideals that would have been considered progressive at that time, are now considered outdated. I won’t defend or argue the points, it is a snapshot of the future from his time, not ours. I think its wrong to look at books and completely look at them from our time. Stranger in a strange land was written a few years later, and I have heard people say it is dated, but in the 1960s it was extreme.

Well, I do enjoy the boo and recommend it to others.