Starship Troopers (Paperback)

Heinlein's creative vision is extraordinary - his apparent ability to become an observer of a real world, not a fictional one, his use of detail and skill at building a setting make him a first class exponent of the genre. Heinlein's vision of future war, and in particular of the frontline superman soldier, has been a major influence on militaristic SF ever since, and has impacted on the model soldier and wargaming world, and perhaps even on the thinking of the US military as well.

He offers a graphic description of military training and fighting, a future war in which the human soldier becomes one with a powerful armoured suit ... a knight of the future, a knight no longer operating independently but as part of a trained, disciplined force, with a rigid command structure and loyalty to a cause. History and moral philosophy are taught by army veterans. Only soldiers have the right to vote, only those who are prepared to die for their society achieve full citizenship.

Heinlein writes with compassion and tolerance, and he takes risks - you discover things about the hero at the end which surprise you ... and challenge the picture you painted of him throughout the novel. But "Starship Troopers" is one of the first pieces of evidence of Heinlein's drift into right-wing ranting and political extremism. This is a unified world, a disciplined world ... modelled on the USA. It is a world of the superman.

Heinlein had a seminal influence on SF - he created, deconstructed, then recreated some of the major themes in science fiction writing, and has an astonishing ability to build fantastic worlds and breathe life into them. But in "Starship Troopers" we have a flirtation with the centralisation of the Fascist State - the adolescent is saved from teenage irresponsibility by becoming a man, brainwashed into the automaton status of a robotic fighting machine.

The suit of armour is vital to the trooper's military effectiveness - man becomes machine, machine man. Morality and philosophy (and hence politics) take on a deterministic dynamic - reason and logic can be followed with robotic precision, decisions made about society are logical rather than emotional. The values of society are obvious, they are taught, and right-thinking people, the sort who elect to become soldiers, cannot help but recognise their validity.

The soldier is the moral basis of society - prepared to sacrifice his life to uphold its values and protect the human race. The sacrifice of the soldiers is on a par with the sacrifice of soldier ants and the bugs the hero is fighting. Throughout, there is this ironic comparison of blind obedience and blind reason with the hive-like mentality of the alien creatures. Heinlein gives us the universal society and the globalisation of mind. His soldiers obey because obedience is just, logical, and reasoned.

It's a disturbing vision. On the surface, we have a gung-ho military romp - and credit Heinlein with devoting so much time to describing the training and indoctrination of the recruit (a theme which has been oft repeated since then in novels and the cinema), rather than just leaping in to the 'glamour' and 'excitement' of combat. But it's also a novel whose undercurrents explore the nature of the relationship between man and machine - and the potential implications for man in the dependency on a technology which can reshape philosophy as well as warfare.

This is a superbly crafted novel, well-paced, engaging, as entertaining as it is disturbing. It is a must-read for anyone interested in science fiction, regardless of political outlook. Posing as a shoot-'em-up entertainment for teenagers, it has an intellectual depth and quality which should leave you asking questions ... important questions ... about the world in which we live.

I have, and it is neither of those things.

"Starship Troopers" is, plain and simply, a sci-fi book which speaks of a society of fascists (and by fascists, I mean the original meaning of the term - a group who all pull together for the common good and sacrifice personal goals for those of the body politic) in a war against alien invaders and agressors. It is a novel of heroism and loyalty, duty and self-sacrifice.

Fundamentally, it is not a way to run a society - it would never work. But neither is it something to avoid at all costs. Perhaps if we were expected to give something for the franchise (as the Citizens in the novel have to) we might take it more seriously. Perhaps if we had civic responsibility drummed into us we might have some. Perhaps the UK and the US wouldn't be in the mess they are if we thought of others before ourselves.

None of these concepts are alien or even unpleasant - most people would agree that some civic responsibility would be a good idea. But Heinlein is brutal and harsh in the way he puts them forward.

Perhaps that will make us tune away from what he has to say, or perhaps it will make us listen.

Either way, read this book - maybe for the social comment, maybe as satire. Maybe just for the first appearance of powered infantry armour and an utterly elite group of warriors loyal beyond anything we can dream of. No matter what your views or opinions, no matter what your taste in sci-fi, "Starship Troopers" should be in your library.

The best part of the book to me is explaining what makes military organizations successful, using the science fiction context. In today's world, fewer and fewer people will have that experience. As a result, many important lessons about learning and cooperation will not be understood. Seeing the material in the context of a science fiction story makes it much more interesting.

The book basically argues that the lessons of the military can be carried over into every other area of society. That's taking the argument too far. Many people will find the idea of having people publicly lashed or hung for their crimes to be going to far. That's a step backward, not a step forward. On the other hand, holding parents more responsible for what their children do would probably reduce crime. If and how to do that is a question that reasonable people could differ about.

The intergalactic relations in this book are pretty disappointing. It is assumed that only strength through violence will be recognized. The Cold War experiences showed that strength through potential violence can also work. Perhaps there are other less violent models that would work as well. Mr. Heinlein could have taken a more optimistic view and advanced our understanding more, even if he showed that the more optimistic approach didn't work.

The descriptions of preparing for battle and the gear that the mobile infantry uses were interesting to me. Mr. Heinlein suggests a cross between infantry and armor that is very imaginative. The flaw of this idea is probably that you could not protect people well enough for them to survive.

I found the idea of people randomly shooting off nuclear weapons in a "raid" to be pretty frightening. Perhaps we need to be frightened in this way from time to time, to stay in touch with the potential risk of this happening.

After you finish thinking through Mr. Heinlein's case for a more virtuous republic, I suggest that you think about what strengths of your country's current political system would be eliminated by such a change.

Seek to do the most good as the first question you consider!

Donald Mitchell...