Heinlein started out as a brilliant writer. He wrote a number of very good sci-fi books for both young-adults and adults. His stories combined fairly hard science and interesting characters and fun adventures. Unfortunately, as he got older, his personal fantasies began to dominate his works. Starting with Stranger in a Strange Land, his stories began to include handsome older men and nubile younger women. Immortality or longevity also became a strong them. Stranger in a Strange Land was still a very good book and gave us the word "grok", but later books became more and more bland.
Before I go into the book, I'll just say that this is a great book and full of very relevant social commentary. While I don't necessarily wish to live in a society just like the one described in Starship Troopers, I must say that floggings for minor offenses would probably be much more effective and humane than the current system of incarceration and/or probation which doesn't do anything to discourage more crime. The concept of earning citizenship, while not necessarly a good idea in actual practice, certainly shows how most modern Americans don't take their responsibilities as citizens seriously. Today, in America, everyone is much more concerned about their rights and what they get than their responsibilities.
This is an excellent book. It is one of those that I wished were longer and was sad when it finished. I've reread it once, now, and will do so again. Aside from the message, it's just a powerful story
The following contains some spoilers read it at your own risk.
This book should be required reading in all high schools. I made the mistake of seeing the movie right after reading the book. I think that I can best describe the book by contrasting it with the movie.
Right at the beginning of the movie, I was annoyed by the portrayal of Federal Service. In the movie, FedNet is full of advertisements for Federal Service glorifying soldiers and fighting and encouraging youngsters to join up so that they can become citizens. This misses the whole point the book was trying to make about service and citizenship. The Federation does not advertise in the book. Johnnie and Carl are discouraged from signing up. The whole point of only giving citizens the right to vote after serving is that they have chosen to give up something for the good of the state and the civilians. People who would be swayed by advertising and take the easy path are not the kind of people who should be citizens.
After slogging through the sappy romance and silly futuristic football, the movie finally made it to Camp Arthur Currie. The movie version of the camp was sickening. The brutality was just that, brutal. There was no rhyme or reason and the whole purpose seemed to be to torment the cadets. In the book, on the other hand, the training was less brutal, though no less tough. In the book, it was made clear that the purpose of the boot camp was to prepare the cadets for combat and to give them the best chance of survival. Conversations between the drill sargeants and the Captain clearly show that the sargeant likes the cadets and has their best interests at heart. In fact, he worries a lot about them and how they are doing.
One major difference between the book and the movie was the powered armor. If you only saw the movie, then you are probably wondering what I'm talking about. In the book, Johnnie was a member of the Mobile Infantry. The MI used powered armor that allowed them to travel quickly and carry tremendous amounts of weaponry. They could jump using the motors in the legs, firing weapons and surveying the terrain while moving quickly. They were also strong enough to tear down buildings. The fought two different races, the skinnies and the bugs. The bugs were tough and used weapons. They were technologically advanced and used nuclear weapons on Buenos Aires, not some rock farted out of the ass of a big bug from across the galaxy.
And that's another point. Farting a rock across the galaxy is just stupid. I guess there's no reason why a living creature couldn't fart a rock into space if it was designed for it. The problem is that the rock would, even if moving at the speed of light, still take thousands of years to cross the galaxy. It would take a minimum of three years even from the nearest star. Again, that's at light speed. And it would never be able to target a city. Dust, interstellar junk, gravity of nearby stars, etc... would pull it off course. I'm not sure why the movie went with rock farting bugs from across the galaxy instead of a bomb like in the book.
Oh, and why are futuristic soldiers fighting wars with rifles and no armor, no tanks, no aerial bombardement, etc..? The ships dropped a bunch of underequipped soldiers in the middle of enemy territory with inadequate weapons. Brilliant. In the book, the military considered nuking the surface of the bug planet until it glowed in the dark. They only reason they didn't was that it wouldn't get the nests that were deep underground. They only sent soldiers when they had to.
Well, this is a work in progress, so more to come...
Last modified: Tuesday, August 07, 2001 by
Bolie Williams IV,
bolie@io.com.
This page is Copyright 1997-2001 by Bolie Williams IV, all rights reserved.