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Summary: You'll miss the point if you blink
Review: Two major objections to this book:1) Lame story 2) Not really scifi, just a thinly guised political tract. One reason why it doesn't matter: RAH extrapolates a possible society based on Federal Service. Even though he skimps on most of the usual scifi details, he elaborates endlessly on the "what ifs" of military life. Those who get caught up on the lame storyline (and it is a bit lame in conventional terms) misses what the book is about. The main character Johnny Rico starts the story in RAH imaginary world, but outside his idealized system. And then, through page after page of mind-numbing preaching, you understand why the world is the way it is. As Johnny learns why it all matters and has to be the way it is, so do you. The plot is carried internally with its main character. The bugs are just window dressing on the plot. As a side note: With this is mind, the SS Troopers had about as much to do with RAH's book as a PBS special about whales has to do with Moby Dick.
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Summary: It is good
Review: very goo
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Summary: it is a very good and entertaining book+the price is good
Review: It's grea
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Summary: It makes one think ... life today is not that bad.
Review: This book is getting outdated. Read it now. It will make you think. However, it is not as classic as some would make it out to be. The dialogues are poorly written. The enemy illdefined, and the characters are ... poorly conceived. Otherwise, the book offers some potent and fascist answers to world problems today. The author obviously had some gripes against society at large, but at the same time, he destroys his rebellious and radical stature by composing a dialogue that gets no more realistically vulgar than "Gosh". No Action. Just politics. Most of it bad. Still, it was a great read!
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Summary: It will make you think, if you give it a chance.
Review: Enough people have retold the tale in brief so I don't have to. The real meat of the book concerns rights versus responsibilities. I came away regretting not having served my country in the armed forces, and committed myself to using my voting franchise in as responsible a manner as I can. (end of soapbox) One thing that did come home to me in a big way is the report in the book's "history" of the juvenile gangs: I look at the gang scene around the country nowadays and wonder how, forty years ago, he could know us so well. Did he have the "right" solution to the problem? I daresay, with proper responsible handling of the lesson of choices and consequences, it would serve us better than our present system. But, would we be brave enough to try it? Definitely read with your kids. I have.
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Summary: A superb book.
Review: I first heard of ST when I was a little Air Force brat, playing in the base library. I finally read the book after seeing the movie. (Okay movie, glad I saw it first, the book is light-centuries better.) The book made me think, HARD. When I went off to college, this book came with me. (Heck, this book may have influenced my college choice...Army ROTC and bucking for a BS in Aerospace Engineering.) A word for the detractors of this book...it's not "overly militaristic", it's accurate. (They do call you "Mister", and you usually don't like it.) As for RAH's politics, I happen to find them perhaps a bit flawed, but far from fascist or communist. All in all, one of RAH's best works, and a book I suggest every young person should at least thumb through. -Andrew Miller, Cadet Private, Eagle Battalion, Army ROTC
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Summary: The book is much better than the movie!!!
Review: The cool thing about the book is that at the beginning, unlike the movie, is that the troopers had realistic suits that would amplify the movements of the troopers. They could jump really high, use cool rocket launchers, and really squash some MAJOR BUGS!!! We are talking about some crispy bug juice.
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Summary: Shame on you, Robert Heinlein! See the movie
Review: I was sucked into this book because of the movie and Heinlein's reputation. Let's just say that "suck" is the operative word here. It starts out promising enough in an exciting battle scene, which is always a good starting place. But then the trouble starts. Johnny Rico is a high school kid in Buenos Aires (which from heinlein's depiction might as well Seattle or Atlanta) and joins the Federal Service (a glorified, very glorified version of the military) in order to gain his citizenship. OK, fair enough. Zoom! Suddenly Johnny's bitter, one-armed teacher begins a lesson on history that sounds rather like a riot inciting speech. This goes on a little too long as Heinlein makes it abundantly clear what he's trying to communicate. It goes on like this. There are no more exciting battle scenes, too bad. This book ends up being a thinly-veiled attempt by the "author" to get up on his soap box and preach. After reading the terrible-beyond-words Time Enough for Love, I found this is quite typical of him. His message is simple: there are no intrinsic human rights, rule by brutality, go start a war. Fun guy. Enough about the preaching. The book's story is just as bad. Characters are unbelievable in that they're perfect and the dialogue sounds like it was taken out of a 50's sitcom. I found myself muttering "gee Wally!" to myself several times. We learn little about the book's bad guys, the Bugs, except that they're evil and MUST be destroyed. And there is little conflict beyond that. We never see Johnny wrestling with his thoughts or even any kind of idealogical debate. Heinlein says "this is it, you will believe." Ahh, I feel better. If you want a good book about the ethics of war and fighting bugs try Ender's Game. And watch the movie, you'll be pleasantly surprised.
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Summary: Widely misunderstood by modern "minds", but a true classic
Review: It distresses me when people misread this in Starship Troopers. It does not advocate beating children. Rather, it advocates disiplining them, no matter how unfashionable that is. It does not back facism. It supports the theories that power and responsability are a package deal, and that those who lead should first serve. If that is facism, the meaning of the word has changed a lot in the last few decades. <<Getting off soapbox>> Read it. Read it to your kids. This book is about duty, loyalty and responsability. It isn't about acting, but rather it explores why to act. And who knows. Maybe RAH was right.
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Summary: Not One of His Best
Review: Really, the book's an excuse to rag on about the passing of military values from one generation of soldier to the next. How tiresome and predictable. How obvious and inartistic the writing is. How little action there is (though much is promised). The book also spends an inordinate number of pages musing about the reintroduction of the use of corporal punishment into our society in the future, the problem with "juvenile delinquents," and the problem with prohibiting "cruel and unusual punishment." Well, if you thought the military shtick was boring...! And then there's Dad... Honestly, if you like this kind of stuff in your science fiction, okay, but don't say you haven't been warned.
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