Rating: 
Summary: Buy the book, ignore the movie!
Review: If you liked the movie, you'll love the book. If you liked the book, stay the heck out of the theater, you'll only be disappointed. The movie stumbles where so many would-be based-on-book blockbusters does, and tries to substitute special effects for plot, and generic actors for true character development. The book is one of Heinlein's very best. With a refreshing look at the role of an individual in a society, corporal punishment, and a host of other issues near and dear to our PC-befuddled era, this book highlights the differences between our time and the time in which Heinlein wrote it. That said, RAH neatly avoids oversermonizing by making the book a chronicle of a young man's voyage of discovery into himself. The previous sentences may make the book seem boring, but the plot moves as fast as the movie ever did, with enough action to keep the most jaded reader interested. A true classic.
Rating:
Summary: Not for everyone, only those with brains.
Review: First things first, I saw and enjoyed the movie as it should have been seen and enjoyed, as an entertaining and nothing more, wide eyed action expose. The novel is completely different. Yes, one can read the book and enjoy it as a SF novel and then not think about it again, but it was my first Heinlein, and started a trend in me. The novel Starship Troopers displays a world, a government and a society that, by golly, doesn't act within the PC of modern day. And for that, it gets panned. SICK!!! The politically correct movement that has led to some dissappointing reviews of this book is disgusting. Just because a bunch of pansies have decided that never again should a growing child even be yelled at is no reason to say that a book is bad because it depicts a different society. KEYWORD: Different. In my mind, perhaps: better. I think people need to get real, positive reinforcement works, yeah, but in about 2% of situations. The motivating factor in human behavior is not so much reward, but avoiding unpleasant rewards! Never have I been more motivated to get a treat than to avoid a dissappointment, a yelling or something of that sort... Except maybe in recreation. Real life though? That is all about trial and ERROR!!! Crime and PUNISHMENT. Those are what makes us tick, and Heinlein shows a people who understand as much, and do something about it! A Fantastic Novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Controversy is in the mind of the reader.
Review: Controversy over Starship Troopers is in the mind of the reader. Heinlein, as he did more forcefully and with greater subtlety in his later work, has injected something for everybody in this work. His feminism--on practical principles, of course--is both condescending and prescient. His militarism is very 1950s, and it is doubtful that he had Viet Nam in mind as he wrote the book, despite fanciful allusion in other reviews to "tunnel rats" and so forth. For a contrast, read "The Green Hills of Earth" -- perhaps the most revolutionary and anti-militaristic, anti-fascist of the early Heinlein collection. Always a good read.
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
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