Starship Troopers

Normally I give books I dislike the benefit of the doubt when they have such a high rating; maybe I'm not astute enough in the literary sense or maybe I just have not reached the age yet when I can assess something critically when I don't like it. I am human. I am prone to error. My opinions may not have enough nuance, especially when they disagree with the general consensus that Starship Troopers is actually a good book. A great one. A literary classic even.

But believe me when I say it: this is THE worst book I have ever read. Period.

And unless I deliberately go out of my way to find a book that is worse than this, this book will remain to be one of the most unpleasant, condescending, and agonizing experiences I have ever had with a book. This book is pure militaristic propaganda and going in with knowledge around the debate of whether this was actually a satire or not should have been more than enough to signal me to avoid this book.

I usually never finish books I don't like. Life is too short for that but I decided to stick with it to really justify my opinion. My attention waned and I don't feel like I got all the nuance due to my mind glazing over words, sentences, and sometimes paragraphs - but this time around I was a masochist.

To avoid the book's politics is to avoid this book entirely. This book was written in response to Heinlein objecting against Eisenhower's decision to cease testing on nuclear weapons in 1959 and coinciding with Heinlein's health related discharge from the military, not allowing him to see combat he decided to make sure he got a taste of it by writing about it, making sure to infuse his politics within it and make this pro-recruitment propaganda that the US Army came around to recommend years later.

This book follows the story of a young soldier in the future (“Johnnie”) as he goes from a reluctant man who yearns to join the military despite facing disapproval at home to a super competent military officer in the face of an endless war against evil bugs invading their planet.

But really, the premise for this book may as well be cited for false advertising. This book never needed to be science fiction in fact. Aside from fighting a future war with powered armor, this book barely has anything to do with high tech. You would expect some grand epic space battle - but getting to that point is an excuse to spend over 70-80 pages (or basically half) dedicated to boot camp and how it operates.

Not necessarily a bad thing, boot camp is the best part of the movie Full Metal Jacket. So you would assume that this would build character and give depth to worldbuilding, my criticisms of this be damned. But that's the thing: it doesn't. So much of the book is dedicated to the day to day routine of boot camp; the importance of the food and being able to sleep in any condition. Or marching. Or hearing about how officers try to justify their cruel punishment is not a violation of the 8th Amendment and how they are forced to whip their men when they don't want to.

Much of this is just an excuse for the author to go on tirades as to how veterans should be the only people eligible to vote and participate in democracy and hold a job. Much of this is an excuse for the author to explore false conflict as Johnnie struggles to continue and dedicates an entire chapter (!) to thinking about the pros and cons of being a soldier. Society collapsed because parents didn't punish their children enough, not because of a massive energy crisis, political corruption, or an economic recession. No, because this generation is bad unlike the previous generation which had no problems whatsoever.

There are no characters in this book, there are simply mouthpieces to espouse propaganda. They go on speeches, monologues, and soliloquies about how great it is to be in the military and why we should cower and quake before soldiers and let them run the government. We can't forget about how a lot of it is just talking about how the military is organized into platoons and squads, just a whole lot of exposition and false conflict that leads to more exposition.

The protagonist isn't this cool everyman we relate to and see him become strong, we see him instead do guard duty and eat dinner. We hear about the cool stuff rather than see it. His character arc into macho man isn't given the depth it needed because surprise! - it's not given enough time.

If there is some merit to it being science fiction, it's that the enemy is a bunch of faceless bugs without a motive. Sounds like Heinlein's trying to purposely dehumanize the enemy and make them out to be monsters. Because war is always justified when you cannot reason with the enemy!

This is a book in the way that you could put two pieces of bread together and call it a sandwich. This is just a collection of words together that was vetted by the US Military to enlist with the occasional reference to space thrown in so you don't realize you're reading a 250 page pamphlet.