Starship Troopers (Paperback)

I won't bore you with a repeat of the story, but through the eyes of one young man it puts a number of questions to the reader.

How much do you value democracy?

Would you pay a price to vote?

If not, why? Don't you think a vote is worth anything?

You may not like Heinlein's politics but he makes a compelling argument for a more socialy responsible society that, in this case, sacrifices automatic personal fredoms for earned responsibilities.

There are people today who have never used the vote that democracy has given them. If they had had to earn the right to vote then (Heinlein infers) only those who wanted the responsibility that comes with it would put themselves out and pay the price. Those who couldn't get out of bed on polling day would never miss it.

As for the film, well I must admit I enjoyed it but I enjoyed Star Wars too. I wouldn't enjoy Blade Runner done in the style of Star Wars and that is what the film is to the book Starship Troopers.

I first read this book when I was 14 and now, (nearly 20 years later), I go back to it from time to time and am suprised how little it has dated.

Like one or two other reviewers I read the book some time ago (about forty years actually) and even then recognised the ironic overtones of the work. Anyone who has read the whole corpus of work by Robert Heinlein can only conclude that, not only was he NOT a supporter of militaristic or even right-wing government, as all reviewers seem to think, he was actually deeply suspicious of all forms of authority and authoritarianism. I refer you to Stranger in a Strange Land as one of the earliest of several extended novels that makes Heinlein's liberal credentials crystal clear and illustrate his beliefs in 'modified hedonism with personal responsibility' (as far as I know, my own phrase!). Although he began writing in the 1940s Heinlein was one of the first of this previously male dominated genre to use a teenage girl as the main protagonist in a full blown SF novel (Podkayne of Mars) and several later novels had strong female protagonists (e.g. Friday), so neither can he be accused of male chauvinism!

If any reader (or film goer) is in any doubt as to how to recognise the signs of irony in SF form I can recommend to them Harry Harrison's Bill the Galactic Hero. The eponymous hero in this very humorous novel, ignorant of the ironical narrative in which his story is set, also blindly follows his leaders and eventually becomes part of the dubious Imperial system under which he serves. Harrison, like Heinlein uses ironical humour to illuminate the absurdity of his characters' political environment; these characters, like all gung-ho heroes, strive to survive according to a set of internal, maybe even moral rules in a 'kill or be killed' (sometimes 'fight or be shot') world.

n.b. The definition of irony is: where the actual meaning (i.e. intent) is the opposite of the literal (i.e. stated) meaning, e.g. all the previous reviewers are moderate, literate readers of great perspicacity.

Buy the book and see what I mean.

J. Warner, Dorset: (SF collector for over forty five years)

As people say, if you don't take enough of an interest to vote you can't complain about what happens in politics. In Heinlein's world, the vote is not a right: you have to earn it by standing up and doing something to help the body politic. If you don't care enough, fine; you can get on with you life and make a success of youself, you can pay taxes and receive benefits - you just leave the decision making to those who do care. Even a passive turning out once every few years to put your cross on a ballot paper isn't enough - Heinlein says that freedom is so precious, and so dearly won, that only those who truly appreciate that price are worthy to be full citizens. In his society, there is no discrimination against non-citizens and citizenship is open to absolutely anyone who is willing to face up to the responsibility of potentially paying for freedom with their life.

Don't fall into the common trap of assuming that Heinlein glorifies the military; he makes it quite clear that there are other ways to earn the vote - for example by testing new survival equipment, or being a guineau pig for medical experiments. Of course, for dramatic purposes, a war makes a better novel, and it's easier to highlight the fact that citizenship is earned through contribution when that contribution is the defence of the body politic against an enemy with whom we can feel no empathy, and who is seeking to destroy not just the body politic but the entire species. It might be harder to get the message across in a novel where Johnny Rico's slipped into a fatal coma because the drug he's been given didn't work.

It's a great novel, which I've read and re-read dozens of times. It doesn't necessarily make me want to go and join the army - no chance! - and nor do I condone Heinlein's society of the future, but it woke me up to the fact that politics (in the widest sense of the word), and government, are everybody's responsibility, and if we abdicate the duty of participation, then we've got precious little right to complain when things don't suit us.