Rating: 
Summary: Couldn't Put It Down
Review: I haven't read a book such as this in many years. You felt sad for Bill the way he was enlisted in the army. Harry Harrison kept Bill's adventure always interesting and exciting. Never a dull moment. What amazes me the most is Harry Harrison in-depth understanding of the military. This story is a must read.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't Put It Down
Review: I haven't read a book such as this in many years. You felt sad for Bill the way he was enlisted in the army. Harry Harrison kept Bill's adventure always interesting and exciting. Never a dull moment. What amazes me the most is Harry Harrison in-depth understanding of the military. This story is a must read.
Rating: 
Summary: Terry Pratchett fans - this is the beginning
Review: I went to a Terry Pratchett book signing, and during the Q & A he mentioned that reading Bill The Galactic Hero forever altered the way he looked at fiction. I got a used copy and had high hopes for the laughs to come.Boy, did they! Harry Harrison turns so many outworn cliches of science fiction and rocket pulp on their ear you'll get a crick in your neck. I laughed regularly through the whole thing, with some really good ones in the middle. BTGH is the story of a backwoods farmboy who is shanghaied into military service because he looks just the type - big and strong, but dumber than a plant. During his training period, however, we find that our hero is quicker to notice things that we expected, and learns valuable lessons that are easily applicable to life, especially if you have a job you hate. To wit: 1) Shut up.
2) When the going gets tough, it'll get worse.
3) Never, ever, ever volunteer.
4) and Shut up. Bill is slung through various attempts on his life in the course of military service, is awarded hero status, then promptly criminalized for missing his transport (because he gets lost, and there's a map, it's a long story) and gets wrapped up in a secret organization trying to take over the government, but he's working for the government as an informant, and all he really wants to do is get back to being a Fertilizer technician. And I didn't even mention the war with the Chingers. This book is a very quick read, and very entertaining, and required reading for any Terry Pratchett fan. I gave it four stars, beacuse it's the first in a series, and I really dislike having to read books in order, especially if there's more than two. But if you like your fiction with a good satiric twist, and non-stop, panic-addled action, find a used copy like I did, and give Bill the Galactic Hero a try.
Rating:
Summary: Terry Pratchett fans - this is the beginning
Review: I went to a Terry Pratchett book signing, and during the Q & A he mentioned that reading Bill The Galactic Hero forever altered the way he looked at fiction. I got a used copy and had high hopes for the laughs to come. Boy, did they! Harry Harrison turns so many outworn cliches of science fiction and rocket pulp on their ear you'll get a crick in your neck. I laughed regularly through the whole thing, with some really good ones in the middle. BTGH is the story of a backwoods farmboy who is shanghaied into military service because he looks just the type - big and strong, but dumber than a plant. During his training period, however, we find that our hero is quicker to notice things that we expected, and learns valuable lessons that are easily applicable to life, especially if you have a job you hate. To wit: 1) Shut up.
2) When the going gets tough, it'll get worse.
3) Never, ever, ever volunteer.
4) and Shut up. Bill is slung through various attempts on his life in the course of military service, is awarded hero status, then promptly criminalized for missing his transport (because he gets lost, and there's a map, it's a long story) and gets wrapped up in a secret organization trying to take over the government, but he's working for the government as an informant, and all he really wants to do is get back to being a Fertilizer technician. And I didn't even mention the war with the Chingers. This book is a very quick read, and very entertaining, and required reading for any Terry Pratchett fan. I gave it four stars, beacuse it's the first in a series, and I really dislike having to read books in order, especially if there's more than two. But if you like your fiction with a good satiric twist, and non-stop, panic-addled action, find a used copy like I did, and give Bill the Galactic Hero a try.
Rating:
Summary: Still one of the best
Review: It's comforting to know this title is still in print - I've lost copy after copy to friends over the past 30 years. "Bill" was one of the first SF books I read as a kid and having just re-read it in middle age, it's as fresh and funny and clever as ever. And I understand more of the jokes, too. Definitely the first book I would save from a burning building.
Rating:
Summary: Made Me Laugh
Review: It's very rare for me to read a novel (especialy an SF novel) that can make me laugh out loud, but this one made me, several times. It's about a lunkhead named Bill, kidnapped and pressed
into the military, who encounters bad luck after bad luck, all the while trying desperately to maintain his cheerfulness, indeed his humanity. Harrison tweaks a lot of people in this book--Heinlein's gobbledygook in _Starship Troopers,_ Asimov's Trantor in _Foundation Trilogy_ (who takes out the garbage on a planet completely covered in buildings, with a hundred billion or so people?). This is a funny book, half humor, half
horror, and might be just Harrison's best.
Rating:
Summary: A classic send-off of a classic
Review: This is a classic (originally published about thirty years ago) parody of RAH's "Starship Troopers". As parody and satire, it works very well; a bit less so if you want to read it as a simple "adventure book". A needed counterpart to all militaristic science-fiction, good, or bad.
Rating: 
Summary: Silly and dull
Review: This is a silly book, without a plot and with carboard characters. The autor tries, without success, to satirize the millitary. All he is able to accomplish is to write a stale parody lacking in imagination.
A big waste of time.
Rating:
Summary: Silly and dull
Review: This is a silly book, without a plot and with carboard characters. The autor tries, without success, to satirize the millitary. All he is able to accomplish is to write a stale parody lacking in imagination.
A big waste of time.
Rating:
Summary: I don't get it
Review: This is one of the unacknowleged treasures of Science-Fiction. It's funny, biting, and to the point .It's crisp satire who dared touch sacred icons of Science Fiction like Asimov's Foundations (The planet in the central episode is clearly Trantor)and Heinlein's Starship Troopers. A little gem.
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