I recently finished Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, a book that I have constantly heard as being controversial (even the front cover refers to it as “the controversial classic of military adventure”). Going into it, I was expecting some problematic philosophy, but I was not expecting for the entire book to be nothing more than a series of discussions about philosophy.
I am sure there are many out there like me who are more familiar with the Paul Verhoeven film adaptation from the late 90’s. That adaptation treats its source material as a satire, lampooning many pro-military sentiments in what is clearly a huge critique of fanaticism and military aggression while still showcasing fun action scenes. Before reading the book, I was expecting something similar, only with the main themes being presented as more earnest. What I did not expect was scene after scene of Heinlein’s obvious stand-in characters explaining his philosophy.
There is a Professor character, Professor Dubois (Michael Ironside’s character in the movie), who Heinlein frames as the man who is always right. He advocates for things such as the importance of beating your children to prevent them from becoming delinquents (this dialogue about child-beating goes on for, like, five pages), the importance of violence, and how communism is evil but a society that only lets people vote after they sign up for the military is great and perfect and has no issues.
Any deterrence to Heinlein’s philosophy is swiftly avoided. Those who have seen the film will remember the funny, “what good is it to have a knife in a nuke fight?” scene in which a subordinate voices his doubt about all the rigorous training only to have his commander throw a knife at him. The book has something similar, virtually the same dialogue being spoken, only this time it ends with the commander questioning the subordinate’s loyalty, the subordinate’s moral concerns quickly being motioned away in just as blunt a manner as the film (the difference being the film is aware of the brutish undertones of the scene). I am okay with a book just enforcing an author’s philosophy, when you think about it that is what every book is, but if a book is only going to be full of the same pro-military sentiments over and over, I would expect some challenge to those themes.
When I say the book consists of nothing but philosophy, I mean that. There are few, if any, supporting characters, and those we do get have little character. Compared to the action-packed movie, this book has little to offer. There is one action scene at the beginning when the soldiers raid a town and one near the end when the bugs appear. The bugs themselves are not even really mentioned until roughly 140 pages into this 300 page book. Up until then we just follow Johnne Rico in his military training where we learn about random protocols and training. The sci-fi elements feel so slight and pasted on to what otherwise could have just been a more real-world military book. There is this other race of aliens on the planet who are more humanoid, but we rarely hear of them. There is an offhanded mention that the humanoids >!betrayed the bugs to work for the humans!<, and I have no idea why such a potentially-interesting idea is glossed over in favor of more discussions of military ethic.
It is difficult to overstate just how slight this book is. I feel like nothing happened. The main character was an empty slate and the only payoff for seeing the main character in military camp for 70% of the book is a dull action scene near the end. I know Heinlein is a famous author, so I presume he has some talent, but am I alone in being underwhelmed by this book? Even if I agreed with the philosophy, I do not think I would be able to overlook just how repetitive and boring it is.
by ggg375