Starship Troopers - Robert A. Heinlein
This is an internal look at how a collective dictatorship remains in power through coercive control.
This story is told through the eyes of Ricco as he is trained to be a mobile infantryman for Earth.
Shortly after he joins war starts against the ‘Bugs’. We follow Ricco’s career as he moves through the ranks.
Do not be mistaken – this is not an action war novel.
The training and conflict are merely the canvas that Heinlein uses to describe the way human society is now controlled by the leaders.
But this is not a political story either. Ricco isn’t involved in politics inside or outside the military.
I would say that the key parts of the novel happen while Ricco is at training camp and then at officers’ training. There is a spattering of flashbacks to a civics-style class that is taught by veterans and is compulsory for every member of this society.
These settings allow Heilein to have his teachers give us/Ricco diatribes about the world and why it has to work in the way it does.
It shows how a society gives itself over to complete control of the ruling class without actually showing us any of that control.
We are simply told that the world is idyllic. There is little crime and little police. Punishments are severe but we only see them dealt out under military court-martials.
Because we are only given the theory of the way this society may run we just have to take Heinlein’s word for it. Fights with alien races bookend these discussions.
We follow the war through the eyes of the trooper so we have no idea what is going on. Just one combat scenario to the next.
The only time we have any idea at all is in the last battle when Ricco is first Lieutenant. Because of his rank, we get more of the picture of the battle and the state of the war.
So this is a war story with very little war. It’s a commentary on the power and control of a populace, but the theory of this only.
The thought experiments that we go through are very interesting. Some of them are very believable and some are just incorrect. Like Heinlein’s take on the Marxist definition of value.
It must have been a nightmare to market this work because if you do it as a war and combat book that crowd will be bored.
I can see how we ended up with movies that are in no way faithful to the source material because there isn’t a story here. Most certainly not in any conventional sense.
Having said all of this I loved it. Heinlein has an incredible way with words and the lectures are fascinating.
I would recommend but do not read this for its sci-fi war.
