Almost reads like a satire of itself. In the first chapter we see the protagonist committing a bunch of war crimes on an alien planet. All part of a day's work for the mobile infantry! Then we leave the action for most of the book to attend a long, passionate lecture on how awesome the military is and how tough and grueling boot camp is and only the strongest and bestest men get through it, and how fighting solves all problems and that's why the military should be in charge of everything. Finally we get back to the war to fight some alien bugs I guess and that's a wrap. ( )

Well, this book does nothing but glorifies military and tells you how awesome it is when only veterans can vote.
I read it because I really liked the movie when I was a kid, and now even rewatched the movie and I understand the changes they wanted to make. The robotic suits don't really add anything to the book anyway, so taking them away is totally fine.
The biggest difference (not plot or universe-wise, but... how much it matters-wise) might be that in the book when someone dies, it's not a big deal at all. It feels like something the narrator already expected. You're just told they "bought it". In the movie deaths are shown visually and the reactions are shown too, so it's more than just a name in a list. I don't think the narrator is supposed to be indifferent, it's just that the sole purpose of the book is glorifying its society so the author just doesn't know how to fit individual tragedy into that. Which is a shame because it's actually not a bad read and I like spaceships and battles and stuff. I'm looking forward to reading Joe Haldeman's Forever War, that is said to be a response to this.

edit: I read Forever War and it's awesome, thousand times more interesting and deep than this one. Go read that instead :) ( )

Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein. OK. So I'm not a huge Heinlein fan. I've read most of his stuff.. actually I've skimmed at least a third of each book. He has too much to say. Too much pontificating. That's ok. His stories are mostly really good. Just a bit too wordy for me.

This book is NOT the movie. In fact I didn't read the book before now (2024) because the movie was such a joke I thought maybe Heinlein had a stroke. Finally just read the book and ... goodness gracious ... this book is NOT the movie. LOL

This book is a really good memoir of a young many in the military in the far off future. Great visuals as he tells of his life in training to be a Mobile Infantryman (M.I.). He talks of his training, the people he trained with, their interactions with higher-ups, the difficulties. Like much of Heinlein's writing, there are a lot of words to describe a situation, a lot of (to me) redundancies. But don't skip over any of this... use the art of thoughtful skimming because in the middle of one of his pontifications there is almost always some dialogue or discussion that is pertinent to the story that can't be missed.

I liked the book but didn't think it was as brilliant as so many have declared it to be. I don't think it should be discounted, either. This is a book that is science-fiction. It isn't some fantasy that is cloaked as science-fiction by being on a planet in another universe.

Basically if you like military books, philosophy of the military, and such. You will really like this. If you are looking for an action/adventure book, you won't care much for it. There is a bit of blowing the Bugs up but mostly it is the interrelationship of persons in the military working together to achieve an objective. That is something I really liked about it. ( )

This one was offered to Scribner as the next in Heinlein's series of juveniles, but the publisher rejected it on the grounds that it would be inappropriate for the younger readers. That was the end of Heinlein's association with Scribner and of his classical series of juveniles. Starship Troopers was then published by Putnam.

It is clearly different from previous juvenile novels, because of its political and militaristic themes. Even though it's military SF, the point of the novel is not really the war against the "Bugs". We do not even find out how the war ends, because it's not what's important here. The important thing is the tale of Juan Rico's coming of age, from a teenage kid to a grown man and a soldier. Even more than a war tale, this is a formation novel.

It works well as military SF, though. Heinlein clearly makes good use of his military background. The training process rings true. It was written at a time when wars were fought by conscripts, but Heinlein successfully understood the need to move to voluntary, highly trained troops and advanced technology. Here he basically introduced the concept of powered armor into military SF. It depicts the life of a soldier in what seems to me a realistic way, with its long periods of boredom and hard work and its brief periods of mad and extreme violence. I'm far less convinced about the whole concept of "space-borne infantry". The point of a war is to efficiently destroy the enemy's capacity of waging war, and when the logistical difficulties of reaching the enemy are so high and the available weapons so devastating, what's exactly the point of carrying soldiers and having them disembark and shoot at enemy soldiers? It's not the way I'd conduct an interstellar war... if I really needed to have such a war in the first place, since it seems wholly unpractical to me (it would only make sense if the enemy wanted to wipe you out for some weird philosophical reason).

Then we come to the political themes, and the book is really heavy with those. It's probably one of the most polarizing novels in the history of SF. As the wikipedia puts it:

The overall theme of the book is that social responsibility requires being prepared to make individual sacrifice. Heinlein's Terran Federation is a limited democracy, with aspects of a meritocracy in regard to full citizenship, based on voluntarily assuming a responsibility for the common good. Suffrage can only be earned by those willing to serve their society by at least two years of volunteer Federal Service

The idea seemed to me a bit naive and unrealistic even as a teenager. Are volunteer soldiers more willing to make sacrifices for the common good than the rest of people? I would concede the point in times of war, but in peace people can enlist for many reasons. However, even if we conceded the point, does that mean that they are better suited to make political decisions? Military governments throughout history have not exactly been shining examples of civic values. Besides, people tend to be more content if they feel they have a say in political matters. Still, I'm willing to go along because it made me think as a teenager, and realize that our system is not inevitable nor necessarily the best. I'm not as willing to forgive how one-sided the debate is in the novel. The lack of critical counter-examination moves whole sections of the book into rant territory. At least it dares to challenge the reader's beliefs, which is no mean thing.

There's a certain supercilious tone in the political lessons, and a tendency to present as very simple problems that are complex. It really seems to me that Heinlein was not as smart as he thought he was. I do like the message about the importance of social responsibility, though, and I agree that rights are meaningless unless one is willing to defend them as necessary.

However, Heinlein was as good a storyteller as he thought he was. The whole thing works as a story. It's an interesting read, despite the rants, the flashbacks and the limited view of the war we get.

The whole word depicted here is very American 50's. Everyone, no matter their origin, speaks English and shares the same values. Heinlein, like everyone, was a product of his time, but I think that he was more limited by that that other contemporary SF writers. The role of women in the war effort is almost funny. Heinlein tries. He doesn't just have a completely male military and he gives women important roles. For the time it was written that's probably a huge step. However, the strict separation of roles, even if the women's is critical, and the even stricter physical separation seems ridiculously Victorian today... ( )

If you have watched the movie version of Starship Troopers then you might think that this book is about a war against alien bugs. While there is a little bit of alien bug fighting, this book is mostly about the military career of a guy in the future; his training, promotions, reasons for joining the military.

Starship Troopers is interesting and I liked a lot of it, but it had some pretty big detractors. There is barely any plot to speak of and a few parts are incredibly boring. The scenes with aliens are few and far between. A lot of the book reads like propaganda about corporal punishment, systems of government, and the military. All in all, it just ended up being so-so. ( )