Robert A. Heinlein: Starship Troopers (1959)

I saw Starship Troopers in my hometown's then-still-functioning movie theater as a high school student. I don't remember much of the story beyond huge alien creatures, the lantern-jawed, prom-king-like protagonist, the female supporting character with the most beautiful eyes, lots of fights in space armor, and, most memorably, Clancy Brown as the drilling sergeant. On the rare occasions I recalled the movie since then, it was with the impression of it as a run-of-the-mill, silly summer blockbuster.

So I was surprised when Amazon threw up the recommendation of a book of the same title, written in 1959(!). And indeed, the movie is an adaptation. How faithful, I can't tell, for the reasons above. Heinlein's book follows the training and combat missions of Johnny Rico, a 25th century young man who after high school graduation, motivated by some mixture of idealism, youthful rebellion, and peer pressure, signs up to the infantry for a 2-year service, and shortly finds himself fighting for the survival of the human race.

Unlike the movie version, the war against the "Bugs", a space-faring, hostile, hive-minded race of arachnoid horrors, is merely the backdrop in the novel. Even the plot - Johnny Rico's training and combat missions conveyed to us in his narration - is a tool, at least partially, for Heinlein to muse about questions like democracy, the meaning of citizenship, the responsibility of the individual to society, or the ideal military structure.

In the 25th century of the book, people live in a form of global democracy where the right to participate in political life (voting or running for office) is obtainable only by a voluntary 2-year service in the military, and then returning to civilian life (military personnel cannot vote either). If one is assigned to the Mobile Infantry, as Rico is, the training is arduous. The majority of applicants drop out before the end, and some simply don't survive. 

Is this a reasonable price to ask from the individual for having a say in politics? Can democracies survive with no expectations of individual sacrifice for the common good? Can corporal punishment play a legitimate part in society? These are examples of the questions Heinlein explores, mostly by voicing arguments through Johnnie's teachers and superiors, or presenting them through Johnnie's experiences. 

The war itself doesn't make its debut in the novel until half of it is already behind the reader, and it's still ongoing on the last page. The novel starts (in medias res) and ends with Rico moments before a mission, giving the book a nice frame, but it is really just a frame. Rico is a likeable character and good soldier material, but intentionally not a remarkable one. He is someone the reader can easily identify with, making the moral questions raised by the author resonate. You can't escape stopping at some pages to think about the situation Johnnie finds himself in, or about the line of argument one of his tutors puts forward.

Having said that, the social observations are always interesting (the warrior-scholar characters who make the very well formulated arguments are invariably entertaining in their sarcastic manner) and inobtrusive, and the pages turn themselves. Readers coming for hard military science fiction won't feel bored or disappointed. Starship Troopers practically invented the genre and introduced one of its most typical character types, the "space marine" (which term, interestingly, doesn't appear in the book at all). The descriptions of military tools, space armors, training methodologies, and tactical operations seem as fresh and realistic as you'd expect from any contemporary novel. And as you'd expect from the professional soldier Heinlein had been before becoming a writer.

Perhaps with less gore, profanity, and direct sexual references, but this was the 50s after all. Johnnie's attitude to women, being these wonderfully alien and admirable creatures he is ultimately fighting for, reflects contemporary sensibilities. So does the general stoicism and laconic way the toll of war is described. The memories of the Second World War were fresh enough that the readers did not need to read about battle injuries in the most detailed way. The human cost of war is conveyed matter-of-factly by the number of Johnnie's friends dying or retiring with prosthetic limbs. The psychological trauma by Johnnie's uncontrollable shaking before every mission.

Which doesn't mean the book reflected the zeitgeist. On the contrary, it was regarded as controversial even in its own time, and Heinlein was accused of militarism and fascist sympathies after its publication. As for my two cents, this wasn't my impression at all. Heinlein didn't depict war as something glorious, but at the centre of Starship Troopers is the belief that serving your society as a soldier is an honorable vocation.