Starship Troopers

Just re-read this as an adult. Enjoyed it as an uncomplicated sci-fi yarn. Well really mostly a story of someone very nostalgic for Army boot camp and esprit d'corps. It's hard to imagine a book like this being written after the Vietnam war.

Structurally the book is odd. It's about 60% "tales from boot camp", then 15% "crappy political philosophy", then 25% "exciting battle against the bugs". I think the boot camp section was strongest. The political philosophy is awful; read at face value Heinlein is seriously advocating fascism. Specifically the idea of the state raising children, the important ones at least, an idea that dates all the way back to Plato's Republic. And then the idea that only military veterans can vote, can be real citizens.

There's been a lot written about whether Heinlein intended this book as satire, or irony. As far as I know there's no definitive answer. To me it reads completely straight and to be honest it's consistent with a lot of Heinlein's awful personal politics. I mean maybe he was just doing the scifi thing of taking some idea from modern times and then extending it to an extreme and seeing where it leads. Maybe he wasn't personally advocating it. It's hard to say though, and I fear many of the teenagers this book is intended for won't read it with a critical eye.

I was also surprised how little the Verhoeven 1997 film has to do with the book. I mean it borrows a whole lot from it, including the basic plot structure and a lot of thematic beats. But the film is very clearly satire, a glitzy appealing and yet also hideous fascist state. It's one of my favorite scifi movies. Just kind of amazed to see how much Verhoeven added to the novel source material while also staying true to it. And coming down hard with its own political philosophy.