Rating: 
Summary: Good Book
Review: This book is one of my top ten list
The plot keeped my attention from
begining to end.
Rating: 
Summary: This book is SO much better than the movie.
Review: Just one thing to say, this database is huge, bigger than I ever thought. Isn't it nice to have a movie on a book you like? However, if you happened to like the movie, especially the bloody and fleshy parts, you will love this novel. Heinlein did a great job in providing the atmosphere of glory and hope for mankind in a fearful situation, attacked and threatened to be extinguished by arachnides, insects too large for the fly-clap .. Personally I can just add that I was rolling on the floor laughting when I saw some reviews in here, some of those people really review the book before even reading it, just saw the movie. Well, this aoesn't really hurt amazon.com, does it? They'll have to buy it later anyhow to find out the real stuff, the original Heinlein script!
Rating:
Summary: One of the five best books I have ever read
Review: Concur with the majority who wrote supporting this book. I'd like to add my voice to the others who, like myself, consider this Heinlein's best work. Someone should consider sending these reviews to the director of the movie. What will really be a shame is if someone ops not to read this book after seeing the movie. And by the way, get someone else on your staff to review his books next time, the rest of us aren't convinced he really read it. From the rest of us Grunts, thanks RAH.
Rating:
Summary: A Classic Science Fiction\Military Tale
Review: RAH was among the great science fiction writers of the 20th Century and while Double Star earned him his first HUGO, this his second is much sweeter and focused. Stranger is a Strange Land is more complex and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is much more bitter but Starship Troopers is without a doubt his most concise statement about the human animal. Not until Time Enough for Love and I Will Fear No Evil does he return to these themes with any cohesion and then he is much more mellow than here. The film is without a doubt a travesty, it contains but the surface elements of a wonderful story. It would have being kinder if the film had suffered the same fate as IA's proposed I Robot film - It was never made - although in that case the script was actually quite good. Film executives should be given combined aesthetics and intelligence test before they are given the authority to finance such grotesque bastardization s while failing to finance films of such potential grandeur. Must we permanently live with Stanley Kubrick's 2001 as the best SF film because no other combination of executive and director is willing to actually be creative. Millions of dollars on special effects is not directorial creativity.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic, thought-provoking classic utopian novel
Review: I know the guidelines say not to comment on other reviews of this book, but the temptation is overwhelming. One thing that should be noted about Starship Troopers is that Heinlein himself wrote an essay discussing and answering most of the criticisms of his work that I see here. It is also equally apparent that most of the critics have never seen that essay. Essentially, the future society that Heinlein describes has as its criterion for aquisition of the franchise (and therefore political power) the requirement that an individual must voluntarily do service for the society. That's it. No fascism, no coercion. One cannot have fascism without coercion, gang. That's the whole point of that type of governmental system. It should be pointed out that Heinlein's governmental system in that novel took that point very seriously, even when Earth was being threatened by asteroid-throwing, bloodthirsty, giant spiders. The Mobile Infantry was all volunteer, with the option of resigning at any time, even in space between jumps, even up to the point of going into the capsules. Further, his use of corporal punishment in the novel was precisely defined, and was not random. The Amazon reviewer obviously did not get the point of school paddlings---this should be differentiated from child abuse, which was NOT encouraged in the book's society. I use the word Utopian to describe this novel because it has some of the flavor of a libertarian utopia---taxes are low, business not interefered with, and citizenship, although open to all, has responsibilities attatched. Everything, in short, is pay as you go, and TANSTAAFL is the order of the day. (If ya' don't know TANSTAAFL, ya' ain't read Heinlein.) One of the reviewers compared Heinein's society to the DRAKA of Stirling---only in some sick idiot's fantasy world are these even remotely similar! The DRAKA are ruthless fascist killers who subjugate their fellow human beings and turn them into slaves. I don't see the similarity. In Heinlein's society, non-citizens become rich and send their kids to Harvard. Anyway, that's my review and commentary. Awesome book. Great for kids and adults. Great intro to Heinlein. Oh, and the action scenes are much better than the movies'---the movie was garbage, and had nothing to do with the book (just like DUNE.)
Rating:
Summary: To all traitors who hate this book:
Review: If you wrote a bad review of this book, particularly the really long one with the paragraphs of Heinlein-bashing, do the following: 1. Go to a library. 2. Check out RAH: Requiem. 3. Read RAH RAH R.A.H. on pp 369 (have the librarian help you with the big words) If you follow the steps above, you may be fixed. If not, then you are beyond help.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book, Bad Movie
Review: Being in the younger generation, as only a high school student, I have a different view on this book. Being extremely stupid, I saw the movie before reading the book. So, the book was twice as good. Starship Troopers, though a little confusing at first, was probally the best Science Fiction or Military Fiction books I have ever read (even in my short life, I've read alot of both subjects.) Heinlein wrote this book in the 1950's and it can still be enjoyed by the younger generation. The movie screenwrites must have been dropped on their heads as kids to ruin this book by turning it in a movie that is totally screwed up. The MI consisted of screeming boys attacking the bugs with almost absolutly no plot. READ THE BOOK,DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THE MOVIE
Rating:
Summary: an easy-to-swallow read with a meaty, slow digestion
Review: The book is not the movie. Only some elements of the book made it into film, and they were grossly overshadowed by the weight of the director's distaste for his own perceptions. The book is not the Amazon.com review. The reviewer's words connotate apology for having to write something positive; his/her statements about the necessity of military service to earn voting rights (it was Federal Service, only some of which was military) and the stressing of "beating children in order to make them into good citizens" (Heinlen discusses the uses of unfortuneately required corporal punishment) are a view of the book through aged and broken glass. The book is part rollicking-good military action, part esthetics, part political philosophy. It reads well (as it should for its intended younger audience) and revisits well (as it should for the political philosophy and esthetics). I'm an individualist, and found the conformity of the characterization difficult. One has to look for signs that non-conformity is tolerated. I'm also a realist, and believe that a balance of authority and responsibility is essential to maintain a society that remains stable and rich enought to permit individualism (which requires a non-tribal level of economic and social development). The book brings these issues to the fore. I took a point off, for a rating of 9, because Heinlein got caught up in 'mathematically provable' social assertions, leading to a greater degree of certainty in his social engineering than would actually work. In doing this, he was reflecting a recent (when the book was written) burst of optimism about formal logic. People thought that, with appropriate premises, formal logic would allow all sorts of problems to be definitively solved. They forgot, or did not know, that the social 'sciences' work with confidence intervals that would make a physicist burn his/her results. They also did not appreciate the difficulties of formal logic. One significant problem with formal logic is the creativity required to find solutions (something seen in all higher math) that makes it intolerant of automated (computer-based) resolution. Another (and to date, the major road-block)is the non-linear increase in solution difficulty when moving from simple propositions to complex ones. Proving a few assertions might take several pages of logic. Proving many assertions balloons out from there; speaking generally, it's easy to create groups of assertions that are non-computable. Read the book! Think about the 'universal' franchise and the problems it causes. Think about the competing alternatives to universal democracy, and how Starship Troopers stacks up. And enjoy a good read.
Rating:
Summary: Responsibility equals Authority
Review: The novel follows the developement of a young man from high school through military training and service. Along the way he learns the importance of personal responsibility; developes as a human being morally, mentally and physically; and the reader learns why soldiers, who see first hand the horror that is war, still go on fighting. One very strong theme in the book is that people only earn the right to vote after they have earned it through some form of service to their fellow mankind. The story focuses on military service, but other methods of community service are mentioned such as Peace Corps-like work terraforming Venus. Perhaps restricting voting to individuals who have given their time and effort to the comminity as a whole isn't such a bad idea in essence.
Rating:
Summary: Pure Heinlein - excellent coverage of a complex subject.
Review: I first read this book when I was in High School and was faced with similar choices ( Pre - Vietnam era ). I enjoyed it for the action then and later when I re-read the book I enjoyed it for the prespective that it gave me on the military and public service. I have read and kept every book by Mr. Heinlein that I have found. Starship Troopers like every book Mr. Heinlien wrote expressed a world view that I under stood and appreciated. The book is now being read by a new generation of readers with different life styles and experiences but the story of the Starship Troopers, and their rights of passage, still has a universal appeal that will entertain and delight.
When I started reading Science Fiction the older generation did not approve, now I am the older generation and I find that the large amounts of the Fiction in these stories has turned to Fact.
So the new readers should read and enjoy the diversion, diversity and feelings of Starship Troopers and wonder how much more of the Fiction will turn to Fact.
I never did take the time to thank Mr. Heinlein for his wonderfull stories when I had the chance and I regreat that deeply so I would like to take the time and say " Thank You Bob Heinlein for all the entertainment ".
|
