Rating: 
Summary: Yuck!
Review: This book ranks high (or low?) among the WORST books I have ever read! I reccommend it to no one at all!The book has a number of basic flaws, which are covered fairly well in the reviews prior to this. However, for those who don't have the gumption to read all 300 or so of them, I will list what I consider to be the basic problems with the book.1.The characters in the book are all perfect autononoms who do only what Heinlein wishes them to do. They have no real character development, don't deal with the issues raised by thier surroundings, and are perfect (sprung fully formed from the head of Heinlein).2.The plot is essentially boring and long. I don't think that a book has to be non-stop action to be interesting, but this one certainly held a promise of it for me, which I was sorely dissapointed to find was basically not true. The battle scenes are few and far between, and when they come up they are basically unintersting.3.The society which Heinlein bases this in is brutal, fascist and irritatingly macho. I'm a guy, and I think it was too much!4.This final complaint is (I believe) actually new. It is essentially that while Heinlein does bring up some interesting ideas (SOME, not many), he pays no real deep attention to them. Instead, the book flutters about from plot point to plot point, first talking about politics, then suddenly sociology, then human nature, then this then that... yuck! I kept reading the book to the end in the hopes that Heinlein would finally address some of the issues he had brought up in depth, and actually make me think instead of accept on faith. I was sorely dissapointed.In conclusion, this book is essentially boring, the ideas it brings up are usually stupid, and when they aren't, the author never really explores them. My advice to everyone is DON'T BOTHER! And if you do bother to try reading it, and you find that it's boring, then just put down the book, because it will NOT get any better. A poor excuse for a novel, let alone a "classic." Read Ender's Game if you want to read a book about a war with another species. Everything that Heinlein did wrong, OS Card did right.
Rating: 
Summary: Boot camp with powered boots.
Review: One of the original keepers in my library, read it too many years ago before living boot camp for real. As written, the book is a coming of age, after the big war as Johnny goes of to join the Mobile Infantry and fight the Bugs - BEMs of the insect variety. A good space opera, action yarn that looked like it was a first in a two or three story series. The movie by the same name has little to recommend it, and departs from the original storyline almost immediately. Read it as an action yarn
Rating: 
Summary: More than a SF novel... maybe a manual of Prag. Philosophy
Review: I bought a pocket edition of this book many years ago during a short voyage in U.S.A. Very impressed of the lecture, coming back in Italy I tried to found it in Italian translation but they told me that it was never translated. So I kept it for many years with the care you have to dedicate to a very real friend. After the hard advertising for the coming moovie - that I didn't see and I'll never see - an Italian editor finally published it in our idioma. Well, an insignificant hystory to say "also a ridicolous moovie can do a precious service". "Starship Troopers" (or in Italian: "Fanteria dello Spazio") is a hard-thinking book that forces everyone to keep a bit of intellectual honesty: you can agree with RHV's solutions or not, but you cannot neglect the problem. What is "authority without responsability"? In the Ancient Ages a Greek named "Plato" (with "large shoulders") were thinking in the same way: the answer was different (the philosophers for governements)but the problem was the same, is allways the same.
Rating:
Summary: Good books stir up debate
Review: why are there so many e-mails from "right-wingers" who think this book speaks to their "values"?visit RAH's website(s) and learn about the ww2 vet,left-wing liberal SF writer of a novel about realistic wartime experience and anti-fascist political satire.Did anyone ever accuse Orwell of promoting the Big Brother government of his book 1984 because he portrayed it so well?Neither this book or Robert A.Heinlein were pro-fascist.why is satire always lost to the public?Debate that one.
Rating:
Summary: One of the greatest science fiction novels of our time
Review: If you have seen the movie, forget about it. Although the movie was decent, the novel is a great. Forget about the fight seens with bugs, there are some, the book is a deep look into the political system of the future in which citizenship is earned by military service.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Sci-Fi book ever written
Review: I am a 15 year old child. I've read a lot of stuff, and this is my favorite book. Not only is the action A-1, the way Heinlein portrays the future is the one that I agree with most. As much as adults don't want to believe it, the discussion from page 112-120, in the reprint, is not at all out there. Kids don't learn from today's justice system. I know, I'm a kid. The book was written in the 1950's, but look at how our civilization has progressed. We are becoming what his book describes. It is books like this that make people think. This book should be required reading in school. It has more meaning and is a lot more valuable to children in this day and age.
Rating:
Summary: Starship Troopers is study in philosophy
Review: Although many people may now associate the book with the "comic-book" movie that shares its title, the actual novel deals more with the philisophical questions which many professional soldiers struggle with from time to time.The questions are: "Why must recruit training be so hard?, What keeps units functioning in battle?,and; What are the qualities of a good leader?" The story is broken into parts which attempt to answer these questions, by changing the environment Jonny Rico finds himself in,for example from civillian to recruit and "confirmation" by a test of fire, usually a battle. You may not like the answers Heinlein came up with, or his observations about how a moral society should be structured (by having citizens earn their rights through service, not entitlement), but you will be left thinking for a long time after.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: One of the best Sci-fi novels of war ever made. Also one of the best examples of what war means.
Rating:
Summary: This book is one of my "guilty pleasures"
Review: You see, I'm still to some extent the peacenik I was during the 'Nam years, and this book is war, war, war. Two different interstellar enemies. A society where you have to be a vet to vote (even most hawks I know don't quite agree with that). This doesn't result in disenfranchisement along lines of gender--the Space Navy is made up of women! But the core of the story is based on the rites of passage of a real human being in the Herman Wouk style, not that of the writers who do Rambo-clones. Our hero Johnnie Rico is an easy dude to like. He feels. He hopes. He suffers. He triumphs. As a recruit, he fears and resents his superiors, only to later on count his service under them as making him the soldier he has become since. So he learns, too. I first read this book in junior high--it's one of a string of Heinlein books aimed at youth. But today, I'm only a few years younger than my grandfather was back then, yet the thing is still in my collection. Go figure.
Rating:
Summary: Morale Debates that cannot be put aside
Review: After seeing the movie, I expected the book to be just as violent, and to only about violence, but what I saw in that book has forever changed my life. Heinlein's theroies about the government, the military, punishments, religion, and almost all aspects of life are certainly something that is worth looking into, and if our government was run that way, all of our problems would be solved. This no non-sense book reminds me that there people in this world who still believe in a world government, which brings peace by violence. There is also a great deal of action for the thrill-seekers, but the action is quite real, and is nothing like rambo and his "one man kills all " figure. This book is a must read for anybody that is thinking about joining the service, is in the service, or is a verteran. We could all benifit from his ideas. IN MY OPINION THIS IS ONE OF HEINLEIN'S GREATEST WORKS, AND MAYBE EVEN ONE OF THE GREATEST BOOKS IN THE WORLD.
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